Title: Necessities of employee productivity in garment industries: challenges and effects of harassment, abuse and discrimination

Authors: Mohammad Nurul Alam; A.K.M. Manirul Bahar; Manimekalai Jambulingam; M.D. Mahamudul Hassan

Addresses: College of Graduate Studies, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Malaysia ' Centre for Higher Studies and Research, Bangladesh University of Professionals, Bangladesh ' Business School, Taylor's University, Malaysia ' Business School, Taylor's University, Malaysia

Abstract: Harassment and discrimination are the common phenomena in human resource practices in the ready-made garments (RMG) industry. At the context of the research, in the Bangladeshi RMG industry, employees' productivity became lowest compared to her competitors like China, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia. This RMG industry of Bangladesh would be a challenge to survive in the world market unless they improve employee productivity. Therefore, the primary purpose of this research was to observe the relationship between harassment and abuse, discrimination, and employee productivity with the view of employee work motivation as a mediator. The study was conducted under the positivism philosophy, a deductive approach, explanatory research design, quantitative methodology, and cross-sectional data were used. In a questionnaire survey, 25 items were taken from existing literature to measure the variables. By a systematic probability sampling technique, 500 viable samples were collected from the population for generalising the study. SPSS and smart-PLS were used for analysing and developing the model. However, the results revealed that all seven hypotheses were supported. These findings will help the policymakers, the government, factory owners, managers, and other stakeholders to formulate the policy and practice. Future research directives were also derived from this study.

Keywords: employee work motivation; EWM; harassment and abuse; discrimination; productivity; ready-made garment industry.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPQM.2021.118428

International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management, 2021 Vol.34 No.2, pp.205 - 230

Received: 07 Apr 2020
Accepted: 07 May 2020

Published online: 25 Oct 2021 *

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