Theoretical "necessary but not sufficient" statements are common in the organizational sciences. Traditional data analyses approaches (e.g., correlation or multiple regression) are not appropriate for testing or inducing such statements. This paper proposes Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) as...

"Man is the measure of all things". On human-centered design of products and processes. The discipline of ergonomics studies the interaction between man and the designed technical and organizational environment. In product ergonomics, this knowledge is used to develop user-friendly products and...

Replication is conducting a study in another case (or population) in order to assess whether a research finding from previous studies can be confirmed. The aim of replication is to assess the generalizability of a theoretical claim and the “research finding” that is (or is not) confirmed in...

A method for selecting and rating scientific and professional journals representing the discipline of ergonomics and human factors is proposed. The method is based upon the journal list, impact factors and citations provided by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), and the journal list...

This paper explores whether the manager’s physical office work environment can stimulate the manager’s creativity. A total of 60 managers from a large manufacturing company participated in the study. They rated the creativity potential and physical elements of office environments shown in 25...

Purpose – To show that necessary condition hypotheses are important in operations management, and to present a consistent methodology for building and testing them. Necessary condition hypotheses (“X is necessary for Y”) express conditions that must be present in order to have a desired...

Theory-testing with cases is ascertaining whether the empirical evidence in a case or in a sample of cases either supports or does not support the theory. There are two methodologies for theory-testing with cases, (a) testing in a single case (‘theory-testing single case study’), and (b)...

Purpose: This paper examines the claim that the application of human factors (HF) knowledge can improve both human well-being and operations system performance. Methodology: A systematic review was conducted using a general and two specialist databases to identify empirical studies addressing...

Managers usually associate ergonomics with occupational health and safety and related legislation, not with business performance. In many companies, these decision makers seem not to be positively motivated to apply ergonomics for reasons of improving health and safety. In order to strengthen...