When the suggestion box fails

Make a guess: Would a company that needs the work-improvement ideas of employees, but whose experience with the use of a suggestion box has been less than successful, obtain more and better quality ideas by enlisting the participation of its employees or by assigning them an idea quota? Donald W. Myers and Earnest R. Archer report the experience of a company that tried both approaches--participative and authoritative--and, surprisingly, in a world where participation is the magic formula, the group assigned a quota produced more and better ideas than did the participatory group.