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Related Experiment Videos

When the suggestion box fails.

D W Myers, E R Archer

    Personnel
    |August 10, 1978
    PubMed
    Summary
    This summary is machine-generated.

    Companies seeking employee work-improvement ideas found that assigning an idea quota yielded more and better suggestions than a participative approach. This study challenges the conventional wisdom favoring participation in idea generation.

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    Area of Science:

    • Organizational Behavior
    • Management Science
    • Industrial Psychology

    Background:

    • Traditional suggestion boxes often yield limited success in capturing valuable employee insights.
    • Employee participation is widely considered the optimal strategy for generating innovative ideas.
    • Alternative methods for idea generation require empirical investigation.

    Purpose of the Study:

    • To compare the effectiveness of participative versus authoritative (quota-based) approaches in eliciting employee ideas.
    • To determine which method yields a higher quantity and quality of work-improvement suggestions.

    Main Methods:

    • A company implemented two distinct strategies for idea generation: a participative approach and an assigned idea quota.
    • The quantity and quality of ideas generated by each group were systematically evaluated.

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    Main Results:

    • The group assigned an idea quota produced a greater number of suggestions compared to the participative group.
    • The ideas generated by the quota-assigned group were also of higher quality.
    • This outcome contrasts with the prevailing belief in the superiority of participative methods.

    Conclusions:

    • Assigning employee idea quotas can be a more effective strategy for generating work-improvement ideas than participative methods.
    • The findings suggest a need to reconsider traditional assumptions about employee engagement in idea generation.
    • Further research is warranted to explore the nuances of implementing quota-based systems for innovation.