SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF EMPLOYEES’ PARTICIPATION IN SUGGESTION SCHEME AT BOSCH VIETNAM

SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF EMPLOYEES’ PARTICIPATION IN SUGGESTION SCHEME AT BOSCH VIETNAMSOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF EMPLOYEES’ PARTICIPATION IN SUGGESTION SCHEME AT BOSCH VIETNAMSOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF EMPLOYEES’ PARTICIPATION IN SUGGESTION SCHEME AT BOSCH VIETNAM

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet

SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet

SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF

EMPLOYEES’ PARTICIPATION

IN SUGGESTION SCHEME AT BOSCH VIETNAM

BACHELOR OF BUSINESS

SUPERVISOR: Ho Trong Nghia

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2017

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Project overview 1

2 Project objectives 1

3 Methodology 2

3.1 Secondary research 2

3.2 Primary research: The interview with SS managers 2

3.3 Primary research: The interview with Bosch Vietnam employees 3

4 Estimated contributions 5

5 Structure of the final report 6

CHAPTER 1 – PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION 7

1.1 Company overview 7

1.1.1 Bosch Vietnam’s introduction 7

1.1.2 Bosch Vietnam’s culture 7

1.2 Suggestion Scheme overview 9

1.2.1 Suggestion Scheme board of management (BOM) 9

1.2.2 Suggestion categories 10

1.2.3 Suggestion Scheme procedure 11

1.2.4 Suggestion award 13

1.2.5 No-go suggestions 14

1.3 Problem overview 14

1.3.1 Problem statement 15

1.3.2 Consequences 15

1.4 Problem validation 16

1.4.1 Secondary data – results 16

1.4.2 Primary data – results: Interview with SS managers 19

1.4.3 Primary data – results: Interview with Bosch Vietnam’s employees 22

1.5 Summary of the chapter 25

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW 26

2.1 Theories 26

2.1.1 Definition of used terms 26

2.1.2 Importance of knowledge sharing 26

2.1.3 The roles of knowledge sharing 27

2.1.4 Factors that influence knowledge sharing 27

2.1.5 Different categories of motivators 30

2.1.6 Iceberg motivation 31

2.2 Bosch Vietnam employees motivation analysis 31

2.2.1 Motivation for joining SS 31

2.2.2 Motivation for knowing other suggestions 33

2.3 Summary of the chapter 34

CHAPTER 3 – SOLUTIONS AND ACTION PLAN 35

3.1 Solution overview 35

3.2 Detail of solutions 35

3.2.1 Bosch Connect webpage 35

3.2.2 Efficiency workshop 38

3.2.3 Formal award days 40

3.3 Action plan 44

3.4 Summary of the chapter 47

LIMITATION AND CONCLUSION 48

REFERENCES 49

APPENDIX 51

1 Appendix 1 51

1.1 SS tracking file 51

1.2 Suggestion Scheme’s card 51

1.3 SS’s evaluation criteria 52

2 Appendix 2 53

2.1 Guidelines for in-depth interview in manager level 53

2.2 Responses of the interviews with managers 54

3 Appendix 3 60

3.1 Guidelines for in-depth interviews with employees 60

3.2 Responses of the interviews employees 62

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Overviews of Bosch activities in Vietnam 7

Table 2: Suggestion categories 11

Table 3: People supporting the process 12

Table 4: First interview series: Information of interviewees 19

Table 5: Pending suggestion of 2015 21

Table 6: Second interview series: Information of interviewees 22

Table 7: Bosch Connect: SS introduction 37

Table 8: The layout of topics and suggestions in sharing section 43

Table 9: Overall timeline 44

Table 10: Timeline of SS page on Bosch Connect 45

Table 11: Timeline of SS Workshop 45

Table 12: Timeline of SS award 46

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: SS BOM structure 10

Figure 2: The suggestion procedure 12

Figure 3: Overview SS 2014 16

Figure 4: Overview of SS – Manufacturing 17

Figure 5: Overview SS – Office 18

Figure 6: Overview of SS 18

Figure 7: Overview of SS – Office 19

Figure 8: SS categories based on employees' perception 23

Figure 9: Factors that affect knowledge sharing among employees in companies 29

Figure 10: A model of knowledge sharing among employees in companies 29

Figure 11: The iceberg model 31

Figure 12: An ice-berg motivation of Bosch Vietnam’s employees 33

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SS Suggestion Scheme

Dept REP Department representative

HoD Head of department

BOM Board of management

HcP Ho Chi Minh Plant

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

Suggestion Scheme categories

CS Cost Saving

PI Productivity improvement

HSE Safety, health, environment improvement

WI Work efficiency improvement

No Number of suggestions

Name of department TEF Technical function

PRS Protection & Security

HSE Health, Safety & Environment

CI Corporate Information

PM Plant management

INTRODUCTION

1 Project overview

This material offers a brief introduction of the Bosch Vietnam in terms of company overview, its culture and core values; and introduction of its tool used to manage knowledge and solution sharing It aims to identify challenging problems by analyzing secondary data from annual reports and exploring the core team and department representatives’ view and perception about their employees in contributing their ideas In the meantime, interviews with employees, who are the end-user of this idea sharing system – Suggestion Scheme (SS) are also conducted to strengthen the importance of current problems, figure out the motivation and attitude of employees towards this system In other words, two methodologies (secondary source, qualitative researches as in-depth interviews with system’s managers and employees) are utilized in this project After reviewing literature, theories and defining problems, a set of solutions are proposed

in the hope that they can address current concerns and boundaries, together with promoting high-quality contribution of ideas and solutions from Bosch Vietnam’s associates The limitation and conclusion of this project will be presented Reference and Appendix are also included

2 Project objectives

This project is to strengthen the fact that knowledge sharing and innovative suggestion play a crucial role in the development of a company In other words, this process determines the competitive advantage over its competitors and is valuable capital source of the firm Its concentration is to discover the challenges grappled by the company’s management in terms of effectively utilizing SS and calling their employees

to participate and contribute to its next innovative step

Root causes will be searched and revealed by conducting qualitative researches and collecting secondary data provided by company in order to figure out the ongoing situations and challenges Afterwards, plans as solutions will be presented and analyzed

in an effort of utilizing and triggering the SS effectively and efficiently to meet board of management (BOM)’s requirements.

3 Methodology

3.1 Secondary research

To make the project more precise, secondary data as monthly and annual report on performance of all departments in Bosch Vietnam is took into consideration By reviewing the report on Overview of SS in 2014, 2015 and 2016, this project processes in the hope of finding problem via past data and speculate current difficulties which the company are grappling with In addition to that, secondary source is approachable, convenient and easy to collect because these reports were stored in the Bosch document systems and always ready to review The rich information from these is valuable and up-to-date as they record data in the 3 latest years from 2014 to 2016, which assist to reflect the current situation of the implementation of SS

3.2 Primary research: The interview with SS managers

3.2.1 Purposes and motivation

Besides secondary source, primary research is put into account to figure out the ongoing situations of SS systems in the view of those who manage this system in order to compare with those from employees who will be interviewed in the second interview series These managers’ perspectives are important because they are not only the ones who control and have a right to access the most confidential information (data of suggestion, annual reports) which ordinary employees will not know but also have an overall view about the system’s operation and its limitations over the period of 3 years The guideline consists of four main areas with twelve questions In each interview, an expected duration is approximately 30 minutes with a variation of ten minutes according

to the length of answers and the level of openness for sharing The sample size of this series is five people who were randomly chosen from 15 members of SS managers (core teams and dept REPs)

3.2.2 Areas to interview

The first interviews with managers include questions to discover the current situation of SS regarding to quality and quantity of submitted suggestions, encouraging programs and events and information flow That information is asked because they are indicators of whether the system works effectively and efficiently and if it has any promoting events to communicate with employees And based on annual reports and what they witness in reality, their perceived comments and evaluations towards SS operation are also recorded and analyzed with primary data

In the next area, the ways which manager perceived that their employees think about the system’s purpose is also asked during this first series so that the differences between two different levels’ views become manifest and obvious to compare for analyzing purposes The perception of SS’s influence on them as individual worker and their company is another point to be considered from manager’s mindset in order to understand how they – as in the role of SS managers, see the level of this system ‘s signification in company vision and culture Furthermore, there are questions which are targeted to reveal managers’ comment and knowledge about up-to-date status of implementation

3.3 Primary research: The interview with Bosch Vietnam employees

3.3.1 Purposes and motivation

After considering all components which exert considerable influence on the process of contributing and sharing knowledge, ideas and solutions, the underlying element is motivation and attitude of employees since the opportunity to share is manifest and nature of knowledge in this field does not exert significantly negative impact on the

SS Therefore, this research now focuses on discovering Employees' motivation and attitude towards participating in contributing ideas as a form of the SS by in depth interviews Afterwards, by figuring the root causes of the problems, an elaborate plan for solving problems and improving the situation will be presented, discussed and analyzed

If the first series of interviews concentrate on discovering the SS from the managers’ perspective, the second series take advantage of the first and continue to find out the root cause from employees’ side Six areas will be interviewed with roundly 20 questions and some other additional questions to fully understand about employees’ motivation and perception about SS Each interview will last from 30 minutes to 40 minutes and occur in formal context – meeting rooms The chosen target interviewees are employees working in office areas and technical-office areas because according to secondary source, people in these areas have the lowest and average number of submitted suggestions They are newcomers and those who have been in this company for more than 2 years Based on current situation and possibility of the interviews, the sample size

is six persons

3.3.2 Areas to interview

The second series focuses on evaluating employees’ general understanding about

SS in terms of SS fields which currently highlighted by Bosch Vietnam, how to submit a suggestion and a SS evaluation process In this section, it aims to obtain information of what is in employees’ top of mind when mentioning about SS, which will be utilized to compare with current expectation and understanding of SS managers on their employees The size of this gap will be used to form solutions if it is significant enough to be a tremendous concern

Other information worth taking into account such as personal participation and KPIs in this system and general comments about SS is simultaneously asked Knowing what is expected from them and their contribution makes it easier to further develop guideline to uncover the reasons of their performance in joining in this SS

In addition, this second series’ guideline digs into root causes relating to their motivation and obstacles when participating in the SS from the first step to getting approved This is the main part of this series and a base for plan next steps for SS’s improvement In other words, this second series of interviews is a foundation regarding to

behavior and attitudes for setting plans of justification, modification and improvement of the SS, making it more end-user-oriented

Last but not least, the guideline is also asking for their suggestions to improve the system and their willingness to engage themselves in SS future step As drafting for solution needs signal of potential success and expected engagement, a number of questions will be asked to gain a hint of whether it is applicable or not

4 Estimated contributions

Since this project is done in the hope that it can provide better understanding of motivation and attitude of Bosch Vietnam’s associates towards participating in SS, the benefits are as follow:

- As managers pay attention to their employees’ motivational aspects and strive to ameliorate the system, the end-users – associates probably have a higher satisfaction about their job in general

- The proposed solution can be customized and able to motivate them to contribute more valuable and higher quality suggestions

The contributions of this project are abstract and implausible to count directly Admittedly, a valuable suggestion related to cost saving feasibly results in an enormous

of expense cutting valued more than billions VND Or the replacement of one brand of machines to another may both reduce the cost and increase the productivity However, the saving on work efficiency and effect on environment is hard to measure

The three proposed solutions take advantage of internal resources such as meeting rooms and spaces inside the company as locations, webpage’s community platform, financial fund for entertaining activities and employees’ capacity In other words, these will not generate much cost to establish, run, maintain and hence, reduce a financial barrier to implement the new approach for SS They focus on raising awareness of associates about SS’ basis information (Bosch connect), promote the sense of belonging through teamwork activities (Efficiency workshop), sense of importance and self-

actualization (Focus week), as well as self-esteem (Formal award day) Therefore, employees will have more positive motivation to contribute their ideas to the company

5 Structure of the final report

The remainder of this paper is as following:

Chapter 1: Problem identification This section is presented to provide readers

with basic knowledge about company overviews regarding to its culture and business section Moreover, as a main concentration of this research, SS and its information (system structure, suggestion categories, procedure, award structure and why suggestions are rejected) are virtually manifest in chapter 1 The primary focus of this section lies in the two parts: problem overview and its validation where readers are given a brief description about the facing obstacle and provided with trustworthy and up-to-date evidences to prove for its manifestation and impact by a secondary research and a series

of in-depth interviews

Chapter 2: Literature review Definitions of concepts such as knowledge

sharing and motivation are provided because these are the topic and main focus of the project Likewise, to emphasize the signification and necessary of SS, an importance of knowledge sharing its role is also mentioned in this chapter Additionally, factors which affect to knowledge sharing are also analyzed In order to process further analysis, the two theories named different categories of motivators and iceberg motivation model are put into consideration

Chapter 3: Solutions and action plan Based on the interviews’ results and

findings from these responses, solutions are proposed to resolve the tremendous challenges which they are facing Together with detail plan of solutions, an action plan of these and timeline to implement also provided

Conclusion and limitation This section provides a brief conclusion for what

have been done, analyzed and proposed Furthermore, limitation of this research is also mentioned

CHAPTER 1 – PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

1.1 Company overview

1.1.1 Bosch Vietnam’s introduction

Bosch has been in Vietnam in operation since 1994 Bosch is one of only few global companies in Vietnam substantially increasing activities in all of the four fields, namely sales, productions, and R&D and services centers The company in Vietnam has its main office located in Ho Chi Minh City, two branch ones in two other big cities named Hanoi and Da Nang city, and a Gasoline Systems plant in the Dong Nai province

to manufacture push belts for continuously variable transmissions (CVT) in automobiles

In this project, its scope is applied to the Gasoline systems plant

Below are details of four fields of Bosch’s activities in Vietnam:

Table 1: Overviews of Bosch activities in Vietnam (2)

SALES Automotive Aftermarket; Automotive electronics;

Drive and Control technology; Security systems;

Packaging technology; Thermo technology; Power tools

PRODUCTION Production of CVT – push belts in Long Thanh, Dong Nai

R&D Software and engineering R&D center located in HCMC

Bosch automotive R&D center located in HCMC

SERVICES CENTRES Global service center accounting (GSA) in HCMC

Ordering center (OC) in HCMC Foreign trade master data (FTAP) in HCMC

1.1.2 Bosch Vietnam’s culture

The company culture is learning and encouraging continuous improvement, as a part of a distinctive global corporate one It promotes the attitude of striving for improving the best to make it more innovative and competitive Innovation is highly focused as it means that Bosch’s creativity and eagerness to learn enables hi-tech manufacturing in Vietnam that translates into high quality products and more satisfied

associates Additionally, Bosch Vietnam assists and provides a number of meeting rooms and spaces (around 25 rooms) for its employees to work together, to inform new technologies, meeting and discuss the new ideas of employees (2) In addition, its vision

is to continuous improving and developing the whole company, starting from its human resource and its humane talents to operate state-of-the-art innovations and processes

At the same time, Bosch Vietnam’s seven core values that they build on are obvious and livable among associates, as following (1):

“Initiative and determination.” As in the introduction, they act on their initiative

and in the spirit that they are a pioneer and competitive competitor in the industries In addition, Bosch Vietnam takes entrepreneurial responsibility and pursues the goals with determination

“Future and result focus.” Their actions and orientation for actions are

result-oriented These allow them to maintain the future of continuous improvement and development It also creates a sound base and foundation for the social initiatives of Bosch Vietnam

“Responsibility and sustainability.” They obligatorily act in the interest of the

company for a vision of sustainable growth They also take the social and ecological impact of their actions into consideration as caring for the community and society where their business is located

“Openness and trust.” They communicate significant problems in a timely and

open fashion without any hesitation and in contributing spirit This provides the optimum foundation for a relationship which is built on trust

“Fairness.” They treat their colleagues and business partners fairly and view this

fairness as a cornerstone of their success They believe that when every associate is given equal opportunities to grow and benefits as compensation for employees’ contribution, this will promote job satisfaction and sustain humane capacity of Bosch

“Reliability, credibility, legality.” They promise only what they can deliver,

accept agreements as binding, and respect and observe the law in all our business transactions Working in a different country rather than home one, it is mandatory to obey

to the local rules and regulations

“Diversity.” They appreciate and encourage diversity for the enrichment it brings,

and see it as essential for our success In fact, cross-cultural and multi-cultural working place are promoted so that associates can learn from each other’s and take advantage of what is good for the company

1.2 Suggestion Scheme overview

According to Bosch Vietnam (3) in the SS work information, it stated that the scope of the SS is to provide a platform for the stimulation of employee suggestions, their evaluation and implementation This system was established in the end of 2013 and put in practice in the beginning of 2014 While in 2014, it was encouraged among blue-collar workers, and from 2015, it enlarged the scope to officers in order that the company could obtain more innovative suggestions, equalize and give the same opportunity for all employees to contribute, be awarded and live with company’s vision (3)

SS can be submitted by paper form and email form For those workers who work

in the factory and manufacturing, they are provided a lot of suggestion papers with standardized frame and blank space to fill into (see Appendix 1) After filling their ideas and some required personal information, these papers are put in the box and then collected by the department representatives (Dept REPs) on every Monday The officers, otherwise, have one more option, which is submitted via email to their department representative Employees who submit a beneficial improvement idea will be honored and/or awarded to raise their motivation, as noted in Bosch Vietnam (3)

1.2.1 Suggestion Scheme board of management (BOM)

The SS includes 3 main levels The highest level is a chairperson which leads the whole team and support Suggestion process and approve for policy award scheme and

events This chairperson is a representative for the SS to have meeting with the company BOM and in returns, transfer information from top management to the team In the second level is SS leader and SS coordinators The main duties of SS leader are to manage Suggestion program, define task of core team as well as REPs, keep tracking of the progress regularly, prepare for events and report in Management meeting Meanwhile, the obligations of SS coordinator are to create and modify work instruction, keep track of progress, prepare suggestion monthly awards and prepare reports Below the second level are department representatives (dept’s REPs), whose responsibilities are mentioned later

in the Suggestion procedure (3)

“Quality improvement” (QI), “Productivity improvement” (PI), “Cost saving” (CS) and

“Work efficiency improvement” (WE) Each employee is not limited in number of suggestions and in number of areas which their suggestions are in (3)

Whilst WE focuses on the processes and procedures of how the jobs get done, WI cares for the overall and detail quality of company’s products namely push belts, and other gadgets to produce these products In addition, Bosch Vietnam pays a great attention to sustainable long-term development by indicating HSE as one of five major sections, concentrating on other aspects apart from financial profits CS in this industry is

SS chairperson

Dept's REP Dept's REP Dept's REP

SS leader SS coordinators

also a key to success and makes competitive advantage as it offers more financial savings for other purpose of company, including but not limited to deducting the products’ prize, generate more capacity for corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities

The table below provides details of each area:

Table 2: Suggestion categories (3)

1 Safety, Health,

Environment

Improvement

- Improve occupational health and safety

- Improve natural environment, energy saving, e.g CO2 deduction, waste water

2 Quality Improvement Improve quality of the products, tools, spare parts, materials

- Improve workflow which impacts production directly

4 Cost saving Reduce costs and expenses

5 Work efficiency

improvement

- Improve workflow in all processes which do not directly affect production output

- Make work easier and more efficient

1.2.3 Suggestion Scheme procedure

When employees have suggestions on any one of five areas mentioned, they, or suggestion initiators, can submit them via forms of either manual paper of email to the representative of their dept REP In the second step, these dep REPs will follow up and update status (whether the suggestion is focusing on inside or outside department of the initiator department) of the suggestions If the suggestions are focused for improvement

of different departments, dept REP will send it to other dept REP which the suggestions are related to Other main duties of dept REP in this phrase is to translate these contributing ideas from Vietnamese to English and input manual information to the excel-formed file on computer systems to send to judgment council group which include

a foreign Head of department (HoD), a specialist and dept REP (p.3)

In the third stage, the judgment council discusses to evaluate suggestions about whether or not they are accepted and have potential for implementation After suggestions get through the third phrase, they are implemented by the initiator and then evaluated by performance in order to come to the fifth step: reward for useful and effective contribution (p.3) The process repeats itself when a new suggestion comes to the dept REP, as briefed in a figure below

Figure 2: The suggestion procedure (3)

The below is the list and detail duties of people who are in the evaluation process

Table 3: People supporting the process (3)

Persons supporting

the process Responsibility

Author (Suggestor)

or group of authors

The author of suggestion shall be obliged to:

- Prepare a fully detailed description of the optimization suggestion

- Take into account all necessary calculations/ checks/ evidences

- Specify direct benefits deriving from implementation of the suggestion

- Group of authors is allowed when all group`s members involve in the suggestion’s implementation

- Give feedback to suggestors

- Monitor implementation progress internally and support other Departments if any

- Present and defend the best suggestions of department in Suggestion Council Meeting

- Technical Process Owner/ Business Owner will be involved in reviewing suggestions which are complicated and need to be considered carefully, evaluated from different points of view

- If a suggestion affects more than 1 department, related experts of affected departments should involve the review

- Acknowledge, commend suggestor’s achievement

1.2.4 Suggestion award

SS offers a variety of financial incentives to motivate contributing attitude and encourage those contributions The first type is monthly rewards with the amount of

100,000 VND for each approved suggestion to the author Among the accepted ideas, the five most outstanding and practical ones will be selected by the council meeting and then

be reward with double amount of ordinary suggestions – 200,000 VND In addition, there

is a department prize for one which has the highest ratio of participation having accepted suggestions (p.3)

The second kind is awards which will be handed to author every half year in Teambuilding and Year end party This type offers more valuable incentives compared to the first type, with maximum of 2,000,000 VND and minimum of 500,000 VND A range

of awarded sections are 05 gold prizes, 05 silver prizes and 01 individual prize with highest accepted suggestions Furthermore, there is also a prize for department as the first type, and a lucky draw for random no-go suggestions as compensating for those rejected suggestions but showing great enthusiastic about contribution (p.3)

1.2.5 No-go suggestions

Suggestions relating to the following topics are not accepted for further processing The initiator states problem without detailed solution or state problem and request fixing or repair which related to job request (their duties) To illustrate, the suggestion of requesting the repair of broken tables is not seen as a suggestion and will be rejected The second topic is that the suggestion is in conflict with the company regulations and guidelines, or local government`s laws or regulations If suggestions are personal complaints or issues, they are also rejected The suggestion is the task required

in daily duties and responsibility; related to the planned project which is published or the suggestor involves in that project And if it repeats or is similar to an existing accepted suggestion, it also receives a no-go decision (p.3)

1.3 Problem overview

The company problems related to SS are revealed through analyzing annual reports on the number of suggestions which are in progress, approved or rejected (No go)

as secondary data Additionally, problems are also proved through in depth interviews with core team who are SS coordinators, and dept REP.

SS system is not well known and well recognized by many of Bosch Vietnam’s employees in terms of its information, vision and importance

1.3.2 Consequences

The point which is worth taking into account is that because of contributing ideas with the attitude of just meeting required quantity of suggestions, the target and expectation from BOM on true meaning of SS are not fulfilled As a result, the company’s vision is not livable among its employees as it is expected

Due to the overwhelmed workload, dept REP cannot focus on reviewing suggestions carefully, thus, some suggestions which are not sufficient to meet the criteria are probably awarded This might causes unfairness in the system when both under-qualified and qualified suggestions receive the same award In addition, the accepted suggestions brought into the Council are not well prepared and do not have convinced data, which also de-motivates those who judge the low quality suggestions

Another challenge is that because the half year reward takes place in informal occasions, contribution seems not be listened In fact, in the teambuilding and year end party, employees are distracted by games and other recreational activities Undeniably, the information such as who are going to receive the suggestion prizes, what are the suggestions about, and why they are the chosen one for that prize becomes less appealing

to them

1.4 Problem validation

1.4.1 Secondary data – results

In the first year of implementing the SS system into the manufacturing-related area, it can be clearly seen that the number of suggestions varied according to departments MFG2 was the department which experienced the highest figures of total suggestions with approximately 330 suggestions, followed by MFG3 and MFG1 with nearly 285 and 245 suggestions respectively Among the 7 departments, TEF witnessed the lowest number of submitted suggestion, merely 30 suggestions in 2014 More particular, the number of suggestions which are pending to review is noticeably high whereas no go suggestions accounted for the lowest (4)

Figure 3: Overview SS 2014 (4: p.2)

In the second year when the scope of SS opened to the office sections, as can be clearly seen from the below two graphs, the number of suggestions contributed by employees from manufacturing department outnumbered ones of officers The striking data was MFG2 with outstanding amount of suggestions submitted and more than

doubled the second place (MFG1) However, it is obvious that among MFG2’s suggestions, pending suggestions outnumbered the approved ones exceeding 1000 suggestions

Figure 4: Overview of SS – Manufacturing (5: p.2)

On the other hand, HRL had a total of 14 suggestions submitted, became the highest number in office area In addition, although there was very modest number of submission, the one of ideas and solutions in review constituted for almost of the total

Figure 5: Overview SS – Office (5: p.2)

In the third year, the trends of SS population remained the same as in 2015, with a moderate increase of number of submitted suggestions in manufacturing and office area

Figure 7: Overview of SS – Office (6: p.2)

As can be clearly seen from the above graphs, the number of suggestions submitted increased, meanwhile, the figure of suggestions approved remained a slight change The ratio of number of suggestions approved over the total submitted is under 50 percent

1.4.2 Primary data – results: Interview with SS managers

1.4.2.1 Information of interviewees

Table 4: First interview series: Information of interviewees (author)

PERSON ROLE DURATION OF WORKING IN THE ROLE

(data in April 2017)

A1 SS coordinator Nearly 4 years (from the planning of SS)

A3 Dept.’ REP of other office areas About 1 year and a half

A4 Dept.’ REP of QMM About 2 years and a half

A5 Dept.’ REP of FCM About 2 years and a half

1.4.2.2 Current situations of SS

The existence, procedure and purpose of the SS are delivered to newcomers by their supervisors, not the core team whose main obligation is managing SS Therefore, only few new employees are well-informed about this system in the first month of working Moreover, there is no file or person to keep track of how and whether or not these messages are conveyed to newcomers at beginning: “I am not sure because as I said before, that information is transmitted by supervisors’ of employees” – said by A1 who is

a SS coordinator

In terms of level of participation, there are three groups of employees The first is actively and enthusiastically contribute ideas and solutions, with the highest figure of one person is 106 approved suggestions in one year (data in 2015) The second group, meanwhile, seems contribute moderately less amount of suggestions in consideration with the first group The third group brings the least valuable suggestions and highest number of rejected suggestions Overall, A4 summarized: “The ratio of accepted suggestion over the submitted ones is fairly average with ranges from 50 to 60 percent.”

In addition, all five interviewees admitted that it is still a mandatory duty with at least two suggestions per person in one year In other words, it is not based on voluntary and contributing attitude, but by rules and policies only

There are very few formal events for SS To illustrate, the authors of approved suggestions are awarded in informal occasions such as teambuilding and Year end party instead of having a formal event to receive the prizes Therefore, the situations of not knowing what suggestions of coworkers are awarded, what impact it has on the company and who are honored are manifest during a period of three years

1.4.2.3 Current challenge of SS

Core team reckons that due to the current systems of communication for SS, employees may or may not understand the meaning of the system And there is a lack of communication between HoD and dept REP about SS, the value and importance of this system is diminishing

Another point is that since both complex and simple ideas go into the same judgment system, it takes nearly same amount of time for the submitters to receive the council’s final decision for whether or not approving an idea Then, it accumulates a great amount of suggestions in need of reviewing and evaluating, especially in MFG1, MFG2, MFG3 and FCM with 169, 1128, 173 and 97 suggestions respectively in the year of 2015

Table 5: Pending suggestion of 2015 (5: p.3)

progress

accepted suggestions

suggestions to target (%)

problem but cannot provide clear and optimal solutions This makes it difficult for the evaluators to judge the suggestions.”

Additionally, dept REP is not provided enough capacity to do the role that they are unable collect suggestion forms in the idea boxes promptly and unable update suggestion boards, tracking file frequently because SS is only voluntary work task they are in charge, and not the things they are hired for Furthermore, it makes them hard to review suggestions frequently and because of manual input of information and data, the chance of data missing or paper lost is also obvious

Therefore, they can fulfill the duties related to SS, and since they also have other professional responsibilities for which they are employed, it de-motivates their enthusiasm to contribute Therefore, being a dept REP, A5 said that, “if I was given more time capacity to concentrate on doing suggestion scheme work, the quality of suggestion is improving.”

1.4.3 Primary data – results: Interview with Bosch Vietnam’s employees

1.4.3.1 Information of interviewees:

Table 6: Second interview series: Information of interviewees (author)

PERSON DEPT WORKING AT BOSCH VN FOR GENDER

1.4.3.2 Current situation

As one of implementation from the interview, when asking about what they know

of the suggestion categories which the company currently concentrates on, four out of six people recognized that “HSE” and “safety” are categories of suggestions; meanwhile

“QI”, “PI” and “WE” are merely mentioned by half of interviewees Although all the five

areas were mentioned, there is only one individual who did mention the five, the remaining four provided one or two right categories and there is one person who could not name details but told in general The person B6, who has the least detail about his knowledge about SS said that, “I think we can contribute suggestions in any topics… I

am not sure about the evaluation process but I think OFE team will be responsible for this evaluation”, indicated that he even got the wrong understanding about the SS in terms of who are obligated in the procedure and areas to focus on

Figure 8: SS categories based on employees' perception (author’s result from

interview)

Moreover, they seem to be ill-informed about SS’s information or to be informed poorly and not clearly about this system at beginning of their work They said that they were aware of this system by its existence and its award valued 100,000VND, but not the steps to submit suggestion, where to get the Suggestion form, evaluation process and which topic should be focused Although they recognize that the nature of SS is good, but most of them agree that its operation is limited and needs improving

Five out of six people commit to and meet their KPIs that each associate is required to have at least two approved suggestions per year, though there is one person has not fulfilled the requirement and confused that whether the two required suggestions

Suggestion Scheme categories based on employees' perception

Number of people

are the submitted or accepted ones In addition, they claim that waiting time is a common problem which can be found among associates Some explained that due to a large number of employees, the board of judgment needed time to carefully consider, and hope that the responses worth the wait Another complained that timely plays an important role

in her motivation for contribution, “as normal, I receive feedback after one to three months, but also have suggestions which have not received any response for a year.”

Another point which is worth taking into account is that the implementation step fails to meet authors’ expectation In fact, person B2 said that she was de-motivated when her accepted suggestions have not put into practice, and hence, “they have not generated any effect and initial purpose of helping people.” Likewise, person B4 agreed that he himself had 3 suggestions stuck in implementation stage, which made him “worry and not satisfied”

1.4.3.3 Challenges

There are some basic problems as following:

There are differences in interviewees’ perceptions about characteristic of high quality suggestion Some said that suggestion should be detail but not name clearly what should be detailed Other said “suggestion ought to be fully included elaborate ideas, root causes, solutions” One said benefits should be proved in general And another said it should define “clear timeline” This indicates the fact that all six interviewees only got partly understanding and were not informed about Suggestion evaluation criteria and what is expected from their suggestions (since the information is mainly referred from their logic) Therefore, it partially explains for the statement of inconsistent and low quality suggestions of SS managers in the first interviewing series

The trend of only thinking of SS when there is a problem is manifest But the other tendency is delaying the submission of their suggestions later in ending months of the year when they are rush to do to meet the least requirement of contribution In addition, because of time pressure, the quality of suggestion is admitted to be ignored or under

considered Authors of suggestion sometimes are not sure the validity of the problem, which surprisingly does not dissatisfy the author, but the judges who have to evaluate an enormous amount of submitted suggestions, and including in these, ones with low possibility of implementation

Moreover, there is low connection and teamwork between employees when joining SS In fact, most of interviewees do not know which problems and what ideas of their colleagues (within department and outside department) are accepted, are implemented or are about Therefore, there are not many signs of the liable spirit of continuous improvement among employees

1.5 Summary of the chapter

The defined problem is an increase in inconsistent suggestions that have a tendency to be lower and lower in quality, which worries the SS BOM This concern is proved and illustrated by reviewing data in 3 years and applying qualitative researches on

SS managers and employees Furthermore, the mentioned problem feasibly and obviously leads to numbers of related problems, from the lightest as not meeting annual KPI to the deeper impact on company culture and its vision of continuous improvement

In addition, through interview with the two target groups, the causes of the main problem are critically revealed, including but not limited to workload, low quality input

of information, visual of SS and lack of communication between different layers of employees Therefore, apart from providing and proving for the current concerns, this section also gives a hint for solution’s foundation and orientation to search for relevant academic theories to further understanding about this problem and employees’ motivation

to join in knowledge sharing

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Theories

According to Lin (7), the term “knowledge sharing” was clarified as a social interaction culture which involves “the exchange of employee knowledge, experiences, and skills through the whole department or organization.”

Meanwhile, Dyer and Nobeoka (8) defined that knowledge sharing could be seen

as series of actions and activities which assist the teamwork spirit and facilitate the knowledge exchange, promote learning capacity of the organizations, and enhance their ability to attain both individual and organizational objectives

According to Business Dictionary (9), motivation is provoked by both inner and outer sources which stimulate “desire and energy” within every individual, make them intrigued in and committed to their company, job and duties in order to achieve a specific goal In other words, motivation is one of the most reliable indicators for people’s behavior and there is at least one reason of why people behave in this way rather than others Also mentioned in this dictionary, the sources of motivation can be conscious, unconscious factors or a combination of the two For instant, they are “intensity of desire

or need, incentive or reward value of the goal, and expectations of the individual and of his or her peers.”

As mentioned in Armbrecht (10), knowledge sharing contributes to disseminate innovative ideas and there is a critical link between one’s creativities and innovative orientation in the company In terms of the organizational level, it is converted into economic and competitive advantage for the organization, according to Hendriks (11) Meanwhile, the shortage of knowledge sharing has proved to be an enormous and high-weighted obstacle to the effective management of knowledge in any company or organizations

2.1.3 The roles of knowledge sharing

According to Stenius (12), the motivation’s facet related to quality is critically significant for working based on knowledge, especially for areas where productivity reflex via quality rather than quantity In the study of Bartol, it is demonstrated that there

is a positive link between knowledge sharing and “human factors” (such as “commitment and trust”) and a negative relation between the first and “structural factors” (for example

“officialism, centralization and complexity”) Additionally, there is also positive correlation among “knowledge sharing, creative and supportive culture” Also in the document, the existing relationship between trust with knowledge sharing revels that “it

is possible to increase the commitment of employees and managers through equity and fairness; recognizing capabilities; delegating authority; participative management and creation of job security.”

Noted in Hsu’s work (13), “expected reciprocal benefits, reputation, expected relationships, trust and altruism” can exert impact on authors Also mentioned in Hsu (13), according to Davenport and Prusak, these components have a positive influence on people’s tendency to share and their attitudes

According to Lyu and Rynyan (14), there are five main facets which exert a significant influence on this process:

Nature of knowledge This considerably affects the process of knowledge sharing

and solution contributing according to the variables and potential to obtain a deep understanding to come up with an innovative decision of change For example, the manufacturer will have more ideas about products and tools to make these products, have higher opportunity seeing the problem and have enough expertise and ability to recognize, evaluate and tackle the problems Whereas, the officers whose workplace is in the office and have less chance to come to production area, they probably have less ideas and contributions about improving products and its tools

Motivation to share According to Stenmark (15), employees are not willing to

share their knowledge without sufficiently strong personal motivation, which can be divided into facets: internal and external factors The internal factors consist of “the perceived power attached to the knowledge and the reciprocity that result from sharing”, whilst, external factors include “relationship with the recipient and rewards for sharing”

Opportunities to share Lyu and Rynyan (14) showed that formal chances for

sharing consist of “training programs, structured work teams, and technology-based systems that facilitate the sharing of knowledge’ And informal ones cover “personal relationships and social networks that facilitate learning and the sharing of knowledge” Rulke and Zaheer (16) linked these informal opportunities to “relational learning channels.”

Culture of the work environment According to Gold et al (17), an

organizational-level vision conveys the message “sense of purpose” to the organization and contributes to engender “a system of organizational values” These values which affect this knowledge sharing process consist of making people aware of their sense of involvement and contribution that are “valued, and knowledge-related values such as trust and openness.” (p.14)

Relationship between the factors that influence knowledge sharing Lyu and

Rynyan (14) indicated that among the three factors mentioned, the organizational culture exerts a wide extent of which knowledge is appreciated, the way that is valued, “what kinds of relationships and rewards it encourages in relation to knowledge sharing”, and occasions which people can share their knowledge both formally and informally

Figure 9: Factors that affect knowledge sharing among employees in companies (14:

p.1)

Figure 10: A model of knowledge sharing among employees in companies (14: p.1)

Noted in the work of Lyu and Runyan (14), the relative signification of each of the mentioned facets is interfered by “the business objectives of the organization, its structure, business practices and policies, reward systems, and culture.” The lack of any

of these factors in a company does not prevent this process of sharing knowledge

2.1.5 Different categories of motivators

There are two kind of motivators which come from distinguishing source namely inside and outside of individuals (18)

Extrinsic motivators (or identified motivators) They are outside factors which

exerts influence on employees, such as financial incentives (bonuses, benefits, fines, and award) and visible to count and compare Since they base on monetary incentives, it requires ongoing expense such as fund and cost for labor The motivator also can be people; in this case, they are managers, supervisors, colleagues, which strengthen power structure of the top managers

Intrinsic motivators In contrast with the first type, this second comes from inside

of the employees, affected by their beliefs and values and driven by relationship and organization culture Therefore, the motivators are intangible and self-remaining and can

be transfer from one person to another This category reinforces the independence and shared responsibility In addition, Lindenberg (19) differentiates this category of motivators into 2 sub-types, they are:

- Enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation People who experience this type of intrinsic motivation tend to do their work enthusiastically, enjoyably and passionately

- Obligation or challenge-based intrinsic motivation People in this kind are oriented and willing to satisfy their self-interest to comply with the work norms

task-“Different kinds of motivators drive different kinds of performance.” Therefore, it

is critical to match employees’ desires with two kinds of motivators Moreover, in the

finding of Koestner and Losier (20), the sense of importance, which belongs to intrinsic motivator, has the strongest effect on actual behavior.

According to Wheeler (21), an iceberg is described to have minority of its capacity above the water line whereas majority of it is under that line A tip of iceberg above the water level is visible, which indicates the observable events, problems and situations Below the line, there are patterns – recurrence of the visible parts, which are crucial to identify since these are not “an isolated incident.” Similar to a number of levels of an iceberg “deep beneath the patterns are the underlying structures or root causes that create

or drive those patterns.” These invisible parts are important because they are root causes

of the above And if people can understand them, they feasibly propose more “long-term and sustainable solutions.”

Figure 11: The iceberg model (21)

2.2 Bosch Vietnam employees motivation analysis

2.2.1 Motivation for joining SS

Extrinsic motivation

Regarding to extrinsic motivation, it is obvious that financial incentive is one of critical factors which exert understandable influence on employees’ motivation to participating in this system, mentioned by five out of six interviewees In addition, they

are encouraged by supervisors, managers (in form of consulting specialist knowledge) and colleagues (willing to support and answer questions) to submit their ideas and contribution to the working process and make it operate better Receiving detail respond with clear elaboration from Dept.’s REP also a determining element which moderately impacts on people’s determination to continue contributing actively Simultaneously, another thing which is worth taking into account is a need of quick responses that there will be not too much waiting time for receiving results

Intrinsic motivation

Enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation of interviewees varies As one conveyed that his contribution in SS as a fresher to company is high and based on his voluntary behavior to submit a lot of suggestions By doing this, he can prove his capability, ability and creativity to his supervisors and others colleagues It is also said that full of ideas and applying the good which they gained from working for previous companies

Obligation-based intrinsic motivation is obvious that they just wanted to meet individual KPI in the hope that it will not negative effect on the working performance evaluation People tends to be more task-oriented (quickly completing the suggestions) rather than voluntary and enjoyable contribution, because they are in time pressure and rush to find topic and solutions

Ice-berg motivation

Above the line, it is financial incentive which is mentioned Another visible part is that their suggestions are implemented so that their work is easier thanks to the change Their contributions can make the working place better and more satisfying to work And having two accepted suggestions assures that they will not lose points in his annually working performance evaluation On the other hand, below the line, they have a high concern for knowing their suggestions are read and their ideas are heard Moreover, the desire for proving oneself’ capacity to contribute to the company development is invisible