Open Book Management Research Articles

Overcoming Barriers to Employee Ownership: Insights From Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

This research investigates the limited adoption of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) among small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the U.S. Through interviews with 30 SMB owners across various industries, we identify the key barriers to ESOP adoption as lack of time, money, and skills on the part of the owners. In doing so, the study suggests that a “shared ownership light” model, which involves sharing profits, information, and decision-making opportunities with employees, appears more feasible for SMBs than ESOPs. For SMBs that are interested in ESOP adoption, our research suggests that organizations providing employee ownership services could better assist SMBs by offering templatized models and best practices for profit-sharing plans, open-book management, and structured employee participation. The paper aims to broaden the discussion around shared ownership by considering a spectrum of options that have the potential to increase both value creation by and value-sharing among employees.

The relationship between open book management and agile employees' performance

The relationship between open book management and agile employees' performance

On the Scanlon Plan and Servant-Leadership

For 75 years, Joe Scanlon, the Scanlon Plan, and Scanlon-led companies had a robust run in the world of business, aided by the Scanlon Leadership Network. Over time, the number of Scanlon companies declined, and in 2013 the Scanlon Leadership Network, Foundation, and Consultancy ceased to exist. And for the past 53 years, servant-leadership has been growing in practice and influence around the world. This article in The International Journal of Servant-Leadership is adapted from a book that we created and published in 2008 titled, Scanlon EPIC Leadership, published by the Scanlon Foundation. Sections of the paper include an overview of Scanlon thought, as well as servant-leadership; reflections on the significance of Scanlon by twenty leadership and business authors; commentary on Joe Scanlon by Warren Bennis; an analysis of the history of Scanlon practices by organizations, written by Paul W. Davis and Larry C. Spears; an Afterword by Max DePree; and, closing thoughts on the end of Scanlon companies after 75 years of practice.
 Joe Scanlon, the originator of what came to be called the Scanlon Plan, and Robert K. Greenleaf who coined the term “servant-leader” have each had a profound influence on leadership and management practices. What was once radical ideas have entered the mainstream. The following essay will delve into the ongoing impact of Scanlon thought through employee involvement, teams, labor-management cooperation, gainsharing, goal-sharing, profit-sharing, suggestion systems, open-book management, lean techniques, and Theory Y management; and also, how servant-leadership continues to shape our understanding of what it means to serve first, and then to lead.

The Mechanisms of Applying Open Book ‎Management Approach at Shaqra University ‎in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The study aimed to identify the reality of applying the open-‎book management approach at Shaqra University, determine ‎whether there are statistically significant differences for ‎variables (gender-type of work); and define the difficulties of ‎applying the open-book management approach at Shaqra ‎University to develop proposed mechanisms for applying the ‎open-book management approach based on the results of the ‎study. The researcher used the descriptive survey approach and ‎the questionnaire as the tool for data collection. The study ‎population included the college's deans and deputies of the ‎university who are (51). The study mainly revealed the ‎following results: the reality of applying the open-book ‎management approach at Shaqra University is moderate as ‎follows (education and training - organizational environment - ‎support and motivation), and there are no statistically significant ‎differences in the gender and type of work.. The most ‎prominent difficulties limiting the application of the open-book ‎management approach at Shaqra University are: bureaucracy in ‎work performance and the ambiguity of the criteria for ‎nominating leadership selection. In addition, the study ‎concluded with the development of the most important ‎measures that help to apply the open-book management ‎approach at Shaqra University, including creating a favorable ‎environment for spreading out the open-book management ‎approach and empowering employees by delegating greater ‎powers to the middle and lower levels according to the abilities ‎and skills of workers.‎ ‎(Keywords: Application Mechanisms, Open-book ‎Management, Shaqra University)‎

Effect of Open Book Management and Teamwork on Productivity among Staff of Teaching Hospitals in Southeast Nigeria

Background: Open book management (OBM) is a style of management in which employees learn about an organizational operation, contribute to it, and get rewarded for meeting financial targets. A method of running an organization in which the information received by employees should not only help them operate effectively but also assist them to understand how the company is run. Objectives: The aim of this article is to determine the effect of OBM and teamwork on productivity among staff in public tertiary hospital in Southeast Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional analytic study was done among 500 staff of 5 public tertiary hospitals in Southeast Nigeria. The respondents were selected using a multistage sampling technique. Information obtained includes sociodemographic profile, staff disposition, knowledge of hospital policy and management, level of cooperation among staff, level of teamwork, productivity, and employees’ job satisfaction, and these were assessed using 5-point Likert scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0; chi-square and Pearson's correlations were used to test the level of relationship. Results: Five hundred respondents participated in the study. All respondents had tertiary education; 38.8% had work experience ranging from 1 to 5 years, whereas 61.2% had more than 5 years of experience. About 53% of the respondents at least agreed that there is transparency in information flow in the hospital with a response score of more than 3.0. The practice of teamwork had a response rate of less than 3.0. More than 60% of the respondents attested to a lack of teamwork. The response score of organizational productivity was 3.78, with 74.8% of the respondents at least agreeing that the institutions are productive in their activities. Conclusion: Teamwork is lacking in our health institutions and affects organizational productivity of teaching hospitals. Hence, workplace harmony should be encouraged in order to improve productivity.

The Relationship between Open-Book Management and Innovative Behavior for demonstrators and lecturer assistants in Mansoura University

The Relationship between Open-Book Management and Innovative Behavior for demonstrators and lecturer assistants in Mansoura University

The Impact of Open-Book Management on Customer Satisfaction: the Mediating Role of Trust

Purpose: the current study is to test the impact of open-book management on customer satisfaction through the mediating role of trust in the hotel and tourism sector in Jordan from the perspective of customers. Design/methodology/ approach: The study deployed the descriptive method to describe the study sample and the analytical approach to test the study hypotheses. Furthermore, the study population comprises the hotel and tourism sector in Jordan that is indexed on the Amman stock exchange (2022) which amounts to (9) companies. Furthermore, a questionnaire was developed from the previous studies. Besides, the study sample consisted of (410) customers who is selected by a convenience sample, and the number of questionnaires returned was 358 which shaped 81%. Moreover, the hypotheses were tested using Baron and Kenny's (1986) methodology using SPSS. Findings: The current study showed that open-book management has a positive and significant impact on customer satisfaction. Further, showed that there is a positive and significant impact of open-book management on trust. Furthermore, there is a positive and significant impact of trust on customer satisfaction. In addition, trust has a partial mediating role in the relationship between open-book management and customer satisfaction. Research limitations: The current study is not free from any limitations, in this study, the limitations are employees selected by a convenience sample, Therefore, the results can’t be generalized to other sectors. furthermore, there is a shortage of prior studies that addressed the same topic. Research, Managerial implications: Open-book management is considered one of the commonly used methods that assist employees to get their needs from the information and knowledge. precisely, the hotel and tourism sector in Jordan must be aware of what is making their customers satisfied by conducting studies regarding their needs and wants before introducing the products and services. Originality: Despite there being many studies conducted in the area of open-book management and customer satisfaction, few studies addressed the theme of trust as a mediating variable. Therefore, the study came up to fill the gap in the literature and provide a theoretical and practical contribution.

The Relationship between managers’ Formal Sources of Power and Open-Book Management practices: An applied study on workers of special centers and units at Mansoura University

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between Managers’ Formal Sources of Power (Legitimate, Reward, and Coercive) and Open-Book Management practices (OBM) (Sharing information, Training, Empowering, and Rewarding) on the workers in special centers and units at Mansoura University. The study employed a deductive approach, and a quantitative research method. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 794 workers (with 88.12% response rate). A Partial Least Square (Warp-PLS V.7) was applied to test the research hypotheses and show the causal relationships between study variables. research findings showed that there is a significant correlation between managers’ formal sources of power and OBM practices, where legitimate and reward powers had significant positive correlations while coercive power had significant negative correlation with OBM practices in special centers and units at Mansoura University. Findings also revealed that managers’ formal sources of power had a significant direct impact on OBM practices, where legitimate and reward powers had significant direct positive impacts while coercive power had a significant direct negative impact on OBM practices in special centers and units at Mansoura University. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were presented in addition to future research suggestions.

Open-Book Management and Organizational Success of Deposit Money Banks in South-South, Nigeria

Organizational success is of the main drivers in achieving organizational goal and objectives as indicated in literature. Based on this evidenced the study focused the relationship between open book management and organizational success of deposit money banks in Nigeria. The study adopted quasi-experimental research design and examined the population of 200 employees with a sample size of 133 respondents in four deposit money banks in Nigeria. Questionnaire was the measure instrument for data collection and the collected data were analyzed using Spearman’s’ Rank Order Correlation Coefficient statistic. The result shows a significant relationship between the dimensions of open book management and organizational success measures of deposit money banks in Nigeria. Therefore, the study concluded that open book management affect organizational success and recommended that management should periodically make employees to know about the financial statues of the organization and to develop employees’ recognition programs and provide pay-performance programs that will stimulate employees’ performance toward achievement of organizational success.

The Role of Open- Book Management in the Reduce of Administrative Errores (An analytical study of the opinions of a sample of managers at the Ministry of Municipalities and Tourism’s main Office and anumber of its directorates in the city of Erbil)

The aim of the research is to identify the role open-book management with its subdivisions (Organazational Commitment, Organazational Performance, Specific rules for action) in reducing administrative errors. The research presented theoretical and conceptual framework for the main and secondary variables. Ministry of Municipalities and Tourism’s main office and number of its directorates were chosen as a field for conducting the research. The importance of the research stems from the importance of the topics examined. The research was systematically and descriptively analyzed, and a set of hypotheses was identified as probative responses to the research problem, which were tested using multiple statistical tools, using the SPSS-V.20 statistical program. The questionnaire was used as a means of obtaining the data. It was distributed to a sample of managers Ministry of Municipal’s main office and number of its directorates. The number of managers was 85, and 75 questionnaires were retrieved and all were valid for analysis. The study concluded that there is a relationship and influence for all dimensions of open-book management in reducing administrative errors. The research recommended employing this relationship to serve the Ministry of Municipalities and Tourism’s main office and number of its directorates to maintain the high levels of both dimensions of open-book management in order to reduce administrative errors.

The role of Open-book Management in Achieving Organizational Agility “Research based on PhD. Thesis”

The study aims at acknowledging the impact of Open-book management on the types of organizational agility (sensing agility, decision-making agility, and acting agility) in the private universities / Kurdistan Region - Iraq. The study has used the analytical descriptive methodology, through using questionnaire to collect information from the members of the university councils in (11) private university in Kurdistan Region - Iraq. The sample of the study includes (91) members of the university councils. The statistical program (SPSS. V. 21) has been used to analysis the information collected and to get the results of the hypotheses testing.
 The main findings of the study were that the surveyed universities are practicing both of open-book management and organizational agility at high levels. The study also indicates that open-book management has a significant impact on organizational agility at the surveyed universities. A number of suggestions were presented focusing on that the private universities need to pay more attention to practice open-book management as it has a positive significant impact on achieving organizational agility.

Evaluating the challenges of open book management in university teaching hospitals in Nigeria

Technological advancement, globalization and competition are changing the economic and social environment rapidly. As a result of this, organizations that are unable to urgently cope and adapt to t...

Open-book management in libraries: A case study of Bibliotheca Alexandrina

The study aims at defining the requirements of applying open-book management and showing the stages and steps to apply this new management methodology in different types of libraries. The researcher selected Bibliotheca Alexandrina as a great culture minaret to measure the degree of practicing open-book management from the point of view of its employees in order to identify the constraints that limit the full application of open-book management in the library.

THE MEDIATING ROLE OF EMPLOYEE JOB PERFORMANCE IN THE IMPACT OF OPEN BOOK MANAGEMENT DIMENSIONS ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

This study aimed at investigating the impact of open book management (OBM) on customer satisfaction in the presence of employee job performance as a mediating variable. OBM was measured using employee empowerment, information sharing, employee training, and employee participation in organizational success. A sample consisted of 500 managers and employees from 10 industrial companies in Qassim region were participated in the study. Data were gathered using a questionnaire administered to participants. The final number of questionnaires received was 387 questionnaires with a response rate of 77.4 percent. The results showed positive as well as significant effects of employee training, empowerment and participation on employee job satisfaction and customer satisfaction. The results further pointed out that employee job performance mediated the effect of open book management dimensions on customer satisfaction. The originality of this study wells up from its contribution to literature as it underlined that employee training in the context of open book management should take the first priority, followed by employee empowerment as empowerment efforts do not bear its desired fruits in the absence of an employee who is able to properly implement what he or she empowered to do. It was recommended on the ground of these results to consider employee training, then employee empowerment in the context of OBM. An adoption of OBM is required to keep tabs on employee job performance in order to ensure an effective practice of OBM.

The Impact of Open Book Management on Achieving Differentiation in the Business Organization

This study aimed to know the concept open Book management and differentiation in the organizations and studying the effect of the relation between open book administration and differentiation in the organization. Study population consisted of all the commercial banks in Jordan, while the study sample consisted of (30) mangers and division mangers in Cairo Amman Bank and the Kuwait National Bank. The questionnaire has been used as an instrument to collect the study data. The study reached a set of results including: there are roles with statistically significance at significance level (a≤0.05) for paying the wages and the incentives on achieving differentiation in the business organizations. There are differences open book management on differentiation in the organizations attribute to gender, scientific qualification and practical experience variables.

Creating and sustaining a highly engaged company culture in a multigenerational workplace

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how organizations can create and sustain a highly engaged, high performing company culture, one that fully integrates and leverages the strengths of boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials. Design/methodology/approach – Once a company run with a command and control approach, Tasty Catering leadership was confronted by its younger generation, mid-level leaders who said, “We no longer wanted to be told what to do”. Instead, they wanted to be given clearly defined tasks with identified outcomes and measures, and the freedom to pursue those goals how they so choose. In short, they wanted to change from “command and control” management to “team” leadership. After considerable thought, Tasty Catering leadership decided to embrace this creative destruction and the transformation began. From all employees reading Good to Great and breaking into teams to discuss applicability to the company to employee-led development of company culture starting with core values, the leadership team witnessed the beginning of something they realized was going to take their organization to new heights. This case study will outline key steps for leaders and HR leaders with lessons learned and tips for success as they transform with team leadership, open-book management and engaging younger workers. Findings – Business and HR leaders should consider assessing their organizational culture and effectiveness to gain a baseline and make measurable improvements. PAS International administered Tasty Catering’s assessment using the Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI®) and the Organizational Effectiveness Inventory® (OEI®), finding a rare and very strong match up of ideal and current operating culture for both employee and leadership segments in an organization. The results of the assessment, normed against more than a thousand other organizations, validate Tasty Catering’s healthy, high performing work environment. Originality/value – The culture-based leadership model and financial transparency led and implemented by Tasty Catering’s younger workers are examples of workplace practices that enable high employee involvement, growth, development and recognition. The company’s cultural efforts continue to pay off in high staff morale, as well as a 14 percent rise in sales and a 117 per cent increase in profits last year. Recognizing the importance of sustainability and continuous improvement, all of Tasty Catering’s employees, those representing every generation, are constantly identifying the best and new ways to maintain their strong culture and performance link.

Empowering the 99%...One ESOP at a Time

This research project focuses on how ESOPs can accomplish successful acquisitions. Most successful ESOPs implement various types of progressive management strategies including open book management and open door communication policies and procedures. These practices of active employee engagement and participation enhance productivity and profitability because employees are also personally empowered to improve company performance. Somewhat of a mystery is the question of why there are not more ESOPs, and if their numbers are to increase, it can only occur through two methods: 1. Employees purchase the company from an owner 2. Other companies are acquired by an existing ESOP This study focuses on the second option and researches the following questions: 1. How does an ESOP company accomplish a successful acquisition? 2. What, if any, organizational behavior patterns are associated with this process? The investigation used an open ended research methodology interviewing thirty ESOP executives, whose companies...

Review of Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs: What You Really Need to Know about the Numbers by Karen Berman and Joe Knight, with John Case

Berman, Karen and Knight, Joe, with John Case. Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs: What You Really Need to Know about the Numbers, (Boston MA: Harvard Business Press, 2008). 285 pp. ISBN 978-1-4221-1915-0. From “The art of finance (and why it matters)” (Part One) through “Creating a financially intelligent company” (Part Eight), Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs is an engaging explanation and appreciation of financial statements and financial ratios. Short, easily digested chapters; just-in-time boxes to introduce terminology; easy, direct, in-text calculations from bare-bones, hypothetical financial statements to illustrate concepts; a 44-page appendix of crafted exercises on the income statement, balance sheet, cash-flow statement, and financial ratios from two public companies for deeper understanding; a detailed 19-page index for quick, after-you’ve-read-it navigation – all make for an efficient learning opportunity for readers who want a painless way to know about the numbers used in the world of business. Two quantitative literacy principles emerge as themes. The first is the “art of finance” (social construction): that is, the numbers are not totally objective; to varying extents, they reflect decisions, assumptions, and estimates in the accounting. The second is that ratios provide a window into the story that financial statements are able to tell. Written for entrepreneurs and company owners, the book ends with OBM (open-book management)—a management philosophy based on financial literacy. The vision of this book is businesses in which all employees are financially literate and managers and owners are financially intelligent.

Open Book Management: The Case of Zingerman's Deli

Open Book Management: The Case of Zingerman's Deli

The relationship between open book management and trust with organization financial performance

This research is aiming to find the relationship between OBM indicators and trust with the financial performance of Saderat Bank braches in Shiraz. Saderat Bank has 77 branches as a sample. To collect the required information, a questionnaire was prepared. To evaluate the OBM, 8 closed questions were considered to have Yes or No answers. To investigate the trust in management, 22 questions in four groups indicators were considered. The results show that there is a positive correlation between these variables and just in a few cases with the little deviation it has not high positive correlation.