Linking operational and environmental improvement through employee involvement

This paper uses data from 349 employee involvement (EI) team projects to ex plore the relationships between process type operational performance, emplo yee involvement and environmental performance. We investigate the stated go als and outcomes EI team projects and relationships among these. For repeti tive manufacturing processes in particular, we find strong relationships be tween the operational goals and outcomes of: teams and the positive environ mental impact outcome. To the extent that environmental performance results from operational systems, this paper suggests that the continuous improvem ent efforts of operations managers, including EI team projects, can be a ke y source of environmental improvements. Managers who understand this will t ake overt steps to leverage their operational improvement systems for envir onmental gains. From a theory development standpoint, questions are raised regarding the areas of potential synergy between operational and Environmen tal improvement.