MOTIVATIONAL CONCEPT EXAMINED

Motivation is a term that is derived from the Latin word “movere” which means to
move.According to the study (Lindner, 1998) that defines the meaning of motivation as the
innerdrives that encourages person to achieve individual goal and organizational target.It is the
main basis of the study in the field of organizational behaviour that has beenexamined by
different researchers such as Taylor, Maslow, Herzberg and McClelland.These major theoretical
subjects of research in motivation are considered into main basis:The content and process
theories.Due to time limitations of this paper, the researchers shall focus their scope only on
theoristsunder the content theory.(Gu & Gu, 2011) shows that content theories of motivation
give an insight about internalfactors to the individual which energize and control behaviour. This
theory regardsmotivation as the product of internal drives that forces an individual to act towards
thesatisfaction of individual needs. These theories are based in large part on early theories
of motivation that traced the paths of action backward to their perceived origin. Major
contenttheories of motivation are Alderfers ERG theory, Herzbergs motivator theory,
Mcclellandslearned needs and Maslows hierarchy needs. Again, due to time limitations,
emphasis shall bebased on only the two theories by Maslow and Herzbergs.
EFFECTS OF MOTIVATION ON PCL’s SUCCESS
MASLOWS HIERARCHY OF NEEDS:
The management at PCL have successfully applied this theory in answering the questionon how
best to get employees in one jintventure project. The theory suggests thatindividual needs exist in
a hierarchy consisting of physiological needs, security needs,belongingness, esteem needs and
self actualization needs. Basic needs for food, water andother factors necessary for survival are
physiological needs. The need for safety in ones physical environment is security need. The
desire for friendship, love, and acceptance withina community of people is the need for
belongingness. (Maslow, 1970). However, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs does not take into
account social factors being themost unstable of the PESTEL factors in business. For example,
aging employees at thecompany will be more resistant to changes in strategy, and might not be
too keen onsatisfying similar needs with their younger colleagues. This then raises costs as more
effortsin motivation will be needed.(Lewis, 2011)Self actualization needs are those
corresponding to ones achievement. This issueexamine individuals` creative ability and in
general developing one to become the best personone can actually become. It is important to
apply the hierarchy of needs to management.Lower level needs should be met before they are
motivated by increased job responsibilitiesand challenging job assignments(Lall, 2011).But the
question here then would be, is self actualisation ever achieved? This question leadsus to
conclude that the theory is not universal.Frederick Herzberg in 1959 adapted Maslow’s theory to
a working environment. Herzbergconcluded that people needs could be grouped into two groups
which are named: Hygienefactors and Motivation factor.(Teck_Hong & Waheed, 2011)
Hygiene factors:
They are factors in the environment which when satisfactory put people in neutral andwhen not
satisfactory lowers workers moral.
Motivation factors:
These are factors which provide satisfaction and encourage people to perform very well orto the
best of their limit. Authority need to identify hygiene factors which are more basic thanthose that
lead to satisfaction. There is therefore the need to put motivational factors that willserve as an
encouragement for an individual to perform excellently leading to increase in
jobperformance.(Teck_Hong & Waheed, 2011)At PCL, there are different advantages for the
staff to accomplish targets and the abilityof finding and productivity without barriers is the
unique quality of this company. Each factorhas own existence and no managers can control two
of these factors.

The Concept of Empowerment

In today`s high speed developing and changing business environment and managing system,The
existence of the concept of empowerment seems a necessity.Empowerment is a concept that
incorporates knowledge, ideas, energy and creativity in itself in the purpose to serve the
collective of the company without being micro-managed.Thomas A Porterfield (1999) underlines
that many organizational theorists and practitionersaccept that employee empowerment is one of
the most important and popular managementconcepts of our century. Companies, that ranging
from low technology to high technologyuse empowerment concept in order to gain competitive
advantage and to have clearmanagement philosophy.Stewart (1994) describes empowerment in
her book” empowering people “as, using the rightkind of authority guaranties the efficiency in
successful environment .it enables to maximizethe work efficiency. The key element in
empowering people is shearing information whiteveryone and it gives a clear view of company
profile to the employees. Company gains trustamong the employees by sharing information whit
employees.Encouraging speeches or pep talks are not enough to achieve empowerment.
Empowerment helps building self esteem among the employees; the opposite situationarises in
endullment.(Dew, 1997)Empowerment can be adapted to government-owned enterprises such as;
water works orlibrary operating, to maximize the efficiency if the employees are able to work for
it. (Conger& Kanungo, 1988) Show that there is a connection between empowerment and
democracy.According to the author, empowerment is a sort of democratic administration in
theorganization that gives the opportunity to the employee to attend the management process.
2. EMPOWERMENT`S RELEVENCE TO PCL
Control and decision making process does not include a traditional hierarchy in PCL.All the
employees are not involved to the decision making process. This cannot be accepted as arelevant
practice of empowerment. Therefore one can command people to be empoweredin the
workplace.The best way to do it is create a system that strengthens the state of empowerment.
Theemployees have freedom which gives the feeling of ownership of the company to
theemployee.Bary Jones explains that they rarely even know who works for them. They do not
know exactlywho are full-time employees, who are part-time employees, who are work for
supply PCL with components or services. And also they do not dwell on this. Because they think
that it isall useless information. So it shows that PCL and all staff members have adopted this
andthere are no control mechanisms that put pressure on the employees who work for
theorganization.
Empowerment approach supports to give freedom to the employee to maximizethe work
efficiency.In the management circle of PCL Ltd, there are Associates which They have
comparativelymore freedom on day to day working and focusing to the business process.. And it
has beenseen how empowerment was achieved in PCL Ltd.
2.1 Different Motivation Methods
At present, there are a number of approaches of motivating people working in teams, such as,
trust, justice,
leadership, empowerment, 360-degree feedback, team-based rewards, ongoing learning, etc
(Kiffin-Petersen and
Cordery, 2003; Khanna, 2000; Brown, 1995).
2.1.1 Various Types of Teams
There are various types of teams such as work teams, parallel teams, project teams and
management teams, etc.
Different types of teams require different motivation methods. (Cohen and Bailey, 1997)
Currently, there are other new kinds of teams used in practice such as autonomous work teams.
Autonomy is
proved to be associated with higher performance for work teams (Cohen and Bailey, 1997). It
reflects that job
autonomy is positively related to job satisfaction and employee performance motivation (Kiffin-
Petersen and
Cordery, 2003). For instance, compared to work teams with assigned members, voluntarily
formed work teams have higher work
motivation and better performance. It appears that members in voluntarily formed groups often
spontaneously
gather together at work even in leisure time. Most members share responsibilities, aiming at
raising both quantity
and quality of productivity through concerned efforts. It also indicates with a warm and friendly
atmosphere,
team members could complement each other’s skills via comfortable discussions, which make
them feel
competent and self-determining. Consequently, innovations occurred through such cooperative
work activities.
(Jin, 1993)
Conversely, a non-voluntary group formation tends to result in weaker individual adherence to
work units, less
share commitment to teams, have slighter interests in daily work and lower cooperative and
innovative (Jin,
1993).
2.1.2 Employees’ Attitudes towards Teamwork
Employee resistance to teams is recognized as a key constraint on the success of an organisation
and will
diminish team effectiveness. Trust in both co-workers and management is considered as
predictors of employee’s
preference for teamwork. It suggests trust in co-workers and management is positively associated
with
organisational outcomes (Kiffin-Petersen and Cordery, 2003).
Secondly, individual team members who are provided with opportunities to learn and utilize new
skills will have
more favorable attitudes towards teamwork (Kiffin-Petersen and Cordery, 2003).
Third, cultural values such as individualism and collectivism have an effect on employees’
preference for teams.
For example, China is characterized as collectivism and Chinese believe “trust, cooperation,
reciprocity and
harmony” are essential for success. Thus, compared with highly individualistic America, Chinese
employees
prefer teamwork more than Americans. (Jin, 1993)
Finally, anticipatory injustice is positively related to change-resistance and turnover intentions,
which could also
have negative effect on employees’ commitment. It shows that employees often resist the move
to teams because
they would anticipate distributive injustice and fear the change to teams might be a smokescreen
for layoffs.
Moreover, employees also fear that working in teams would increase confrontations with co-
workers. Under
such circumstances, employees are likely to resist the change to work in teams; even worse, they
might reduce
their organisational commitment or quit their jobs. Therefore, it is very difficult to motivate
people working in
teams with the influence of distributive injustice. As examined, procedural justice could
moderate employees’
negative reactions. However, it suggests that obtaining high levels of anticipatory justice is likely
to be difficult
in a business world. (Shapiro and Kirkman, 1999)
2.1.3 Training in Teams
It appears that skill-based teamwork could create an ongoing learning culture for an organization
because it
could encourage team members to learn. According to Beal, training needs to meet an overall
goal of a firm with
equal opportunities given to team members. As a consequence, everyone in teams would
understand aims of an
organisation clearly and be happy to pass their skills and knowledge so as to push the whole
organisation
forward. (Beal, 2003)
2.1.4 Leadership in Teams
As Jin states, employees feel tired under unsatisfactory leaders and they wish to select leaders
after their own
heart (Jin, 1993). Leadership is a special contribution to an organisation. A manager is a leader
who could
influence employees greatly and inspire them to perform properly in an organisation. Provided
that coordinate
relationships are established between managers and employees, it could help to reflect work
performance clearly
and achieve high performace eventually (Tjosvold and Wong, 2000).
2.1.5 Empowerment in Teams
Empowerment is the idea that employees and groups can achieve higher levels of productivity,
quality and team
member satisfaction through delegation of more task-related decisions to the team.
Empowerment as a new
design of work groups creates higher levels of job satisfaction, growth and self-actualization
(Margulies and
Kleiner, 1995). Empowerment provides team members a sense as owners of the organisation,
which could get
them highly involved and increase their cooperative and innovative abilities.
2.1.6 Communication Systems in Teams
Improved communication systems help employees to understand what is expected of them and
encourage
employees to take more responsibility for their skill levels and performance.
Additionally, positive
feedback for team members can help to achieve high level cooperation (Jin, 1993).
360-degree feedback is a performance appraisal tool which includes feedback from superiors,
peers, internal and external customers, subordinates and even self-appraisal (Khanna, 2000). It
demonstrates that
360-degree feedback makes the appraisal process more efficient and opens communication
within the system.
Furthermore, this form of feedback could identify training and development needed and boost
productivity by
giving employees a more accurate sense of their personal strengths and weaknesses (Khanna,
2000).
However, as for a reward system, there is a risk that employees may give one another inflated
grades if
360-degree feedback is used to determine pay raises or promotion (Khanna, 2000). Therefore,
360-degree
feedback is not suitable for pay decisions.

2.2.2 Teamwork in Cross-cultural Issues

Different countries have different cultures. Therefore, the relationship between managers’
perceptions of
employee motivation and performance appraisal differs in cultural regions. Motivation includes
two types, one is
intrinsic motivation, the other is extrinsic motivation (Herzberg, 1957). According to The Human
Side of
Enterprise, McGregor (1960) divides mangers into two camps: Theory X manager and Theory Y
manager.
Theory X and Theory Y is the primary source of motivation must lie intrinsic or extrinsic to
employees. As a
consequence of different cultures, managers from North America, Asia and Latin America have
different
perceptions of motivation.

Cultural Context of PCL

The cultural context of a company may thus

be characterized by cultural influences at the
intra-organizational, organizational, transorganizational
and supraorganizational level –
all acting and interacting at the same time
and influencing the behavior of individuals,
groups, as well as the entire company. At the
intra-organizational level, the affiliation
and identification with different functions
such as Research and Development, Sales, or
Controlling (Sackmann, 1992), with different
hierarchical levels (e.g. Martin et al., 1985),
with different task groups (Kleinberg, 1994)
or with a group of people who has a certain
amount of tenure within the company (e.g.
“old guys” vs. “newcomers,” e.g. Sarnin, 1989)
may exist and influence behavior. At the
transorganizational level, identification with
different ethnic groups (e.g. de Vries, 1997),
religious (e.g. Aktouf, 1989) and professional
(e.g. Barley et al., 1988) identities or gender
(e.g. Burrus, 1997) may exist. At the organizational
level, corporate culture may have an effect on behavior with its specific commonly-
held basic assumptions. The Cultural complexity approach is based
on such a diverse, complex and dynamic cultural
context of companies and therefore
refers to the overall heterogeneity and diversity
of culture-related characteristics
at different levels and their interaction in
the context of a company or organization.
This cultural diversity will lead to cultural
complexity and comes into play when individuals
interact*, during collaboration in groups
and teams, and at the organizational level,
e.g. when drawing up strategies and decisions.

PCL may evolve – or consciously choose

– completely different strategies to deal with
other national cultures (Adler, 2002), with
diversity (Cox, 1993) and hence cultural complexity.
The chosen strategies then impact
the nature of the organization, its form and
managerial approach and the way
in which cultural differences are handled
at the behavioral level (Sackmann et al.,
2002).
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