HR Leadership and Cohesion of Continuous Improvement: The Case of a Sri Lankan Garment Factory

Abstract

Achieving cohesive function of an organization for its continuous improvement is one major challenge faced by its management today. Under this debate, many researchers have emphasized the uniformity of organization and its cohesive function than its divisive potential. Subgroups with different educational, ethnic, gender and other divisive potential have limited the cohesive function of organization towards its continuous improvement to a greater extent. By using the multidimensional perspective of cohesion towards continuous improvement and adopting the case study research strategy, multiple data gathering methods, and qualitative data analysis, this paper tried to examine the research issue mentioned above pertaining to a popular Sri Lankan garment factory which has won several continuous improvement oriented business awards. The paper reveals that the human resource leadership (HR leadership) of the organization has played the initiative role in making its different work groups (i.e., associates, staff, executives, assistant managers, and managers) cohesive, which substantially contributed to its continuous improvement over time.

Keywords: cohesion, continuous improvement, HR leadership, Sri Lankan garment factory