The Effect of Organization-internal Elements in Improving Productivity - with a focus on small businesses in the automobile industry -

The automobile industry has been rapidly developing and the manufacturers in Korea as well as auto makers in other advanced countries are putting every ounce of their energies in securing their competitive edges in technology and in marketing.To that purpose, each company focuses on (i) reducing costs and (ii) improving productivity. We believe that the improved productivity can be capitalized by a set of various factors including improved organization-internal environment and employees' job satisfaction. The present research aims to identify how the internal elements contribute and lead to improved productivity. The present paper is a report of an empirical survey performed to 161 employees working in small and medium-sized firms in the automobile industry. After testing reliability and validity of the collected data, we have performed structural equation analysis using Amos of SPSS and tested a set of research hypotheses and models. The reported results will clarify the factors that influence productivity and job satisfaction and also shed light on the directions for strategic polices to keep up with the ever changing climate of the industry.