The Continuous Improvement Process: Strengthen the Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Manufacturing Companies - A Consulting Approach

Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) and a special form of it, the participation in the Continuous Improvement Process (CIP), are prospective key factors and qualifications that differentiate a successful from an average company. They represent the most important part of the human capital that gets more and more important and relevant for the economical success in times of the information society and numerous "lean strategies". OCB or the participation in the CIP can not be influenced directly or even be demanded. The constructs organizational identification and organizational commitment are supposed to be the most important predictors for a strong OCB. Unfortunately, there are only less holistic approaches to systematically strengthen identification and commitment in an enterprise - a holistic approach based on long term considerations is necessary. Therefore, the aim of this paper is (a) the empirical proof of a positive connection between OCB respectively CIP efforts among employees and identification or rather commitment. (b) the development of a holistic consulting approach to increase the participation in the CIP. Via a quantitative survey in the shop floor level of an automobile manufacturer it was proved that mainly the affective and cognitive dimensions show positive correlations with the participation in the CIP. A consulting approach for a systematic composition of affective and cognitive identification and commitment is derived from the theoretical and empirical insights. The target groups are students and scientists in the field of identification, commitment and CIP as well as practitioners and consultants in the business of the continuous improvement process.