Yes, they show a direct positive correlation

Thanks Abraham,

With all the evidence of a positive correlation, do you have any thoughts on why there has been no apparent aggressive elevation of this factor in the intervention and treatment of poor productivity environments in organisations ?

A great question and observation . I am also wondering why this is not brought to practice.A survey conducted by a job hunting website in Malaysia showed 74% Malaysian were not satisfied with their job and the reason was poor quality of leadership or management in companies. Nothing much is being done to avoid it.why?

"quality of management" is quite broad... what specific dimensions of quality are you focused on?

Blaise,

Those that impact and reinforce an employee's

1) sense of competence, skill and achievement,

2) their free choice and volition as well as

3) their sense of belongingness.

Silburn

Great, so those are some dependent variables, but what are the independent variables? What dimensions of "quality" of management, when present, affect the dependent variables? You could look deeper into the bases of power, leadership style, etc. Also, are we discussing interpersonal "quality" or transnational "quality"? I don't doubt that there is a link, but in order for there to exist psychometric validity you would need to be precise with your independent and dependent variables.

On the predictor variable side there are several dimensions as referenced in the articles cited in the narrative around the question (Cirera & Maloney 2017 Innovation Paradox; Haldane 2017 Productivity puzzle; Bloom Sadun & van Reenen 2016 Management as technology)

The link has been tested and confirmed

The core questions however are:

1) why is the message not getting translated into management development and practice?

2) Is there a need for a wider and richer set of empirical evidence to prove the significance of the relationship ?

3) What are the appropriate strategies to catalyse the process of transformational development in management quality ?

Let me make a suggestion.

One way of rephrasing your question is to examine the extent to which management has provided employees with the (i) ability/skills to perform their jobs; (ii) motivation to perform their jobs in terms of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors; and (iii) opportunities to perform their jobs because employees may not be given opportunities to perform challenging jobs.

It could be hypothesised that the higher the ability, motivation and opportunities, the higher the productivity.

Furthermore, there are contextual factors like leadership style, culture of the firm and values of the employees and demographic variables that must be taken into account.

Hope this helps.

Hello, it would be worth considering at what level of management the change has been made, sometimes senior management may try to implement new styles, but the middle managements, adapt the changes to their styles, with modifications to them that may decrease the expected impact. I hope I've helped.

I agree with some of the responses above, that the word "management" is very broad, and different aspects have to be explored to be able to draw meaningful conclusions.

For example, better management of people leads to a higher productivity:

West, M., & Patterson, M. (1999). The workforce and productivity: people management is the key to closing the productivity gap. New Economy, 6(1), 22-27.

The quality of management in terms of its total quality implementation has been associated with higher employee productivity:

Chapman, R., & Al-Khawaldeh, K. (2002). TQM and labour productivity in Jordanian industrial companies. The TQM magazine, 14(4), 248-262.

Better show of entrepreneurial skills by the management has been found to improve employee turnover and productivity:

Huxtable-Thomas, L. A., Hannon, P. D., & Thomas, S. W. (2016). An investigation into the role of emotion in leadership development for entrepreneurs: a four interface model. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 22(4), 510-530.

Better management of job enrichment led to higher job satisfaction and employee productivity:

de Menezes, L. M. (2012). Job satisfaction and quality management: an empirical analysis. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 32(3), 308-328.

Better management of a participatory decision making process among employees increases their productivity:

Pereira, G. M., & Osburn, H. G. (2007). Effects of participation in decision making on performance and employee attitudes: a quality circles meta-analysis. Journal of Business and Psychology, 22(2), 145-153.

A management that obtained higher employee engagement leads to higher productivity:

Radda, A. A., Majidadi, M. A., & Akanno, S. N. (2015). Employee engagement: The new model of leadership. Indian Journal of Management Science, 5(2), 17.

You will have to define the scope of your research in terms of the areas of better management that you want to explore: specific areas of management of people, processes etc....

Why should we be surprised about a phenomenon that has occurred for decades? The ineffectiveness of leaders and organizations was described by Chester Barnard in The Functions of the Executive which incorporated his lectures at Harvard College eighty years ago.

Others in their comments have noted that the broadly described variables in the original question demand clarification . .. and that is true. Nonetheless, the fundamental issue is "Why are leaders and organizations so ineffective at guiding employees?" Jeffrey Pfeffer (1998) and Michael Beer (2009) have addressed that question in their superb books about improving organizations by creating high trust cultures with aligned Human Resource Management systems.

As scholars and academics, we tend to focus on arcane issues that overlook the basic elements of human relations -- when we need to emphasize helping organizations and their leaders become more effective. Henry Mintzberg describes academic writing as "failing the Bill and Barbara test" (where Bill and Barbara are two practitioners who declare top-tier academic writing as largely irrelevant and impractical).

Perhaps we need to become more focused on the practical and the relevant -- including being clear about what we are really trying to measure. Oliver Wendell Holmes is attributed to have written, "I don't give a fig about the simplicity on the near side of complexity but I would give my life for the simplicity on the far side of complexity." We need to understand how to get leaders to focus on the underlying true principles of human relations that apply to organization effectiveness. Despite the multitude of articles and books written about leadership and trust, we seem to not understand either construct.

CC