Structural Approach Motivational Job Satisfaction Levels Commerce Essay
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This literature review will focus on the motivational level of the employees working in retail environment. This will focus on theory relate to it and their approach to the motivation. There are many different factors associated with the level of motivation to an individual which are their age, gender, culture, social and organizational structure.
Among all the employees in the company some do better job and other not so this give a hint and raise a question that what would be the reason behind these differences in their performances. Answer land up to many reason that some individual performance depend on the career experience and their ability and experience gain. To increase level of motivation in employees organization spending lots of money and building strategies. The most well developed and well know is training which provide a basic and all the technical skill need for workers selection of workers for a particular job who have necessary skills and talents to perform etc. The differences in the performance of each individual doing similar jobs reflects differences in their motivational levels. Increasing the motivation of person who has got ability to perform a job will give better results than person with low ability(Victor H. Vroom and Edward L. Deci,1988)
There are various approaches and idea to motivate employees in the organization. The main approach is to give them a job satisfaction, which give them a decision to decided whether to work or not in organizations. Another approach of motivation is put forward by taylor (2001) is reward and penalties which directly related to their performance,thus rewards are conditional rather than unconditional. The challenge of motivating employees is as old as any other organizational activity but the last half century has seen the use of scientific methods to reach the solution(Victor H. Vroom and Edward L. Deci,1988)
Definition of Motivation
Motivation is defined as the process which accounts for individuals intensity, direction and persistence of effort towards attaining a goal (T.R. Mitchell,1997). Motivation is indirectly a goal toward their effort and performance. The three elements associated with employees performance is described in this definition is intensity, direction and persistence. Intensity is something when individual do a amount of hard work to get their job done and show their effort. High intensity is something which leads to positive results until individual get succeed in their tasks which benefits the organization. Both quality and intensity are to be considered. According to Mitchell (2006) that the third element is persistence which means the duration of an individual to stay motivated. Motivated Individuals are the one those who stay with their tasks until they succeed and benefits the organization and achieve their personal goal as well. According to Landy and Becker (1987), motivation has atleast one of the following features of behavior : initiation, direction , persistence, intensity or termination of a particular action. This definition is explains that work motivation cannot be approached by any one feature because it is a multifocal phenomenon.
Process of motivation. (Gorman, 2007)
Intrinsic and extrinsic Motivation(Kohn, 1993)
Intrinsic motivation is "The desire to engage in an activity for its own sake - that is, just because of the satisfaction it provides." (Kohn, 1993)
Intrinsic motivation give individual a own satisfaction by getting their job done. This kind of individual is the self motivated and have a good control over their own success and failure. They working for them self and benefits the organization
Extrinsic motivation is something when any individual are driven by any external sources. Although they do good job and benefit their organization but they are driven by either incentives or any rewards.
One of the gap at primark is that there is no indication of external motivation.
Maslow's Theory (1954)
Abraham H. Maslow theory, also known as the hierarchy of needs theory in 1954.According to Maslow, The main motivator that drives a human are person's
needs.These needs are :
1)Physiological : physiological is the basic needs of the individual in their life which includes hunger,thirst,shelter,sex, and other bodily needs
2)Safety : This is associated with the security of the individual and also about their job security also protection from physical and emotional harm
3)Social : Includes affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship
4)Esteem : This includes self respect when working in the orgnization ,autonomy, achievement and external esteem factors like status in the company among everybody, recognition and attention when required.
5)Self-actualization : includes growth depend on their experience or on their performance, achieving ones potential, and self-fulfillment.
All these needs are one the reason of the employees motivation depend on their needs. So According to Maslow(1954) that when motivating any individual keep their need in to mind should focus on satisfying those needs or the one above that level.
Another gap is the basic need of the employees at primark.
McClellands Theory of needs(1965)
McClellands theory of motivation is closely associated with learning concepts .His theory explains that when a persons need is strong the effect of that need motivates the person to behave in a way which in turn leads to satisfaction of that need .He also proposed that needs are learned through copping with ones environment.
Rewarded behavior tends to recur at higher frequency since needs are learned(Gibson, Ivancevich and Donnelly, 1979, 111-112)
Developed by McClellands(1965) and his associates, this theory focuses on three needs.i.e.
1)Need for achievement - It's a need to strive to succeed
2) Need for power- The need of power mean to dominant other in organization or control over them and behave in a way that they would not behave otherwise.
3) Need for affiliation - This is a need or desire for interpersonal relationships.
McClelland assumptions explains that one seeks goals which have not achieved yet and the affects on one's behaviour are the expectation of the goal of what could happen.McClelland studied people's goals through studying what they imagined.
According to McClelland theories, is that all the individual in the organization have different motives and personalities which results in one is suited more or less to different roles. Also each individual have their some strong part in them and some week and tendency of individual is that guides itself towards those situation in which he or she can do its best.
Frederick Herzberg Theory(1959) : Two - factor Theory
Frederick Herzberg proposed the two-factor theory which is also known as "motivation -hygiene theory" According to Herzberg(1959) that there are two factor which are associated with motivation of an individual and their de-motivation in an organization. Motivation as the job enrichment factor while hygiene factors lead to de-motivation of an individual. Job enrichment factors includes achievement in the organization among others, more recognition in organization, more responsibility to gain some more knowledge, freedom to do their job by their working styles, and advancement. Hygiene factors which includes good working condition in organization which suit their style and living standard, policies, administrative efficiency, style of supervision, and relationship between employees.
According to Herzberg (1959), hygiene factors demotivate the employees. They demotivate employees at the work place in different situations.
The factors that lead to job satisfaction (the motivators) are:
· achievement
· recognition
· work itself
· responsibility
· advancement
Process theories
Process theory explains about the individual own motivational and how to maintain and balance his own motivation it explain about the individual who take their own initiatives and get their work done more efficiently. Adams equity theory assumes that the contribution made by an individual and the outcome they obtain from it should be balanced. Process theories compare explain and compare their condition and situation with other similar situations of others. If there is any partiality or inequity or injustice, individual reduce this kind of culture at their work place by adapting to culture and behavior. Folger(1985) and his colleagues proposed an extension to the equity theory which is called the procedural justice theory which takes in to consideration the justice of the decision process. According to the studies it is been shown that people react against their organization when they perceive injustice which is both distributive and procedural. While Vroom(1964) underlined and developed the expectancy theory, which move around the motivational process of an individual. There are three factors which are considered by people:
1) Expectancy which is something about the individual confidence that the employees in organization and hard work which produce a certain level of performance
2) Instrumentality id reverse from the expectancy, confidence that the individual has that his/her will produce particular outcomes, and
3) Valence: valence is the value that the individual assigns to those specific outcomes.
Further Locke(1968) has contributed to the process theory of motivation with his goal-setting theory. Two recent theories are the social learning or social cognitive theory which is based on the process theories. Employees at their working place meet with environment which lead to a learning process which is based on his/her direct experience.
Another gap of motivation at primark is that employees are not motivated enough on their work performance or neither it's balanced.
Vroom's Expectancy Theory (1964)
Vroom expecntancy theory is based on the works of Victor Vroom(1964) and Porter and Edward Lawler(1988). The expectancy theory of motivation explain that the individual motivation are based on his perceptions and about his strength and weakness to perform a given task,also reward they might get after their successful job or completion of the task and the value she/he places on the reward. Every individual has their own motivation level in term of reward and their expectation. For example, at same place one is working for his own job satisfaction while another is working for any rewards which either be money, or place or advancement. Therefore it is important to understand the value of reward for each individuals.
Expectancy theory explains that the perception will be stronger if the reward is equally attractive.Employees expectation rises because that the extra efforts will lead to reward.
Research Methodology
Introduction
Research is defined as something that is undertaken by people to find out things in a systematic way which also increases their knowledge (Walliman, 2005).The two important aspects that is important in this definition are "systematic way" and "to find out things".The term "systematic" over here means that the research is based on logical relationships and not beliefs (Ghauri and Gronhaug 2005).Research should take in to consideration the methods that is used for the collection of the data and make it meaniginful. "To find out things" over here means that there are more than one possible purposes of the research which includes describing, explaining, understanding, criticizing and analyzing (Ghauri and Gronhaug 2005).Researcher should have a clear purpose or set of things which are to be found out such as answer to number of questions.
Research Approach
There are two types of approaches in research, they are deductive or inductive research.In deductive approach method the researcher develops a theory and hypothesis and designs a strategy to test the hypothesis where as in inductive approach,the researcher collects the data and develops a theory as a result of data analysis (Saunders, et al. 2003).The primary objective of this research is to check the motivational aspect of the Primark employees and whether there is need of motivators which could increase their performance.This research will be based on Frederick Herzberg Theory(1959) : Two - factor Theory. As this research will draw conclusions based on the findings and will test the applicability of Frederick Herzberg Theory(1959) : Two - factor Theory, therefore this research will take a deductive approach.
Research Strategy
A research strategy is a general plan on how the researcher will answer the research questions that has been set.It contains clear objectives, derived from the questions, specifying the sources for collection of data and to consider the constraints.There different types of strategies which can be employed.Some of these belongs to the deductive approach method and othes to inductive methods.The thing that matters most in a particular strategy is not the label attached to it but whether it is appropriate for the research questions and objectives.The different types of strategy that could be considered are : experiment, survey, case study, grounded theory, ethnography, action research, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, exploratory, descriptive and explanatory studies.
Interviews
Face to face interview to be conducted with the department heads, Assistant Managers, Senior Managers and the Store manager of Primark Store to find out what they are doing in order to motivate their staff. And also interview 5-10 interview will taken from the shop floor staff to find out what kind of motivation they are getting and their exopacation. This interview will demonstrate their knowledge of motivation.
Few of the questions for the interview are as follows:
Does the Staff give their full effort in performing their duties?
What are the ways by which do you motivate your staff?
What motivational tools do you intend to use to motivate the staff?
Data Analysis
Quantitative data needs to be processed to make them useful and turn them in to a meaningful information. There are many quantitative analysis techniques such as graphs, charts and statistics which allows to analyze the data and help us to explore and describe relationships and trends within our data (Saunders et al, 2009).
A questionnaire will be prepared with the questions which will be directed towards motivational factors that would motivate the employees to perform better.Questions would be based on rewards, bonuses, incentives, promotions, traning, hygine factors,holidays etc.The questionnaire will be distributed to the to employees and the managers across the organization.
