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Aarhus School of Business Aarhus University MASTER THESIS The role of motivation in Human Resource Management: Importance of motivation factors among future business persons Author: Michal Kirstein Supervisor: Frances Jørgensen M.Sc. in Strategy, Organisation and Leadership August 2010

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Aarhus School of Business

Aarhus University

MASTER THESIS

The role of motivation in Human Resource

Management:

Importance of motivation factors among future

business persons

Author: Michal Kirstein

Supervisor: Frances Jørgensen

M.Sc. in Strategy, Organisation and Leadership

August 2010

Abstract

Motivation seems to be one of the most important tools of Human Resource

Management. Organizations design motivation systems to encourage

employees to perform in the most effective way but also to attract potential

candidates. The key to create the efficient motivation system is an answer to

the question what really motivate employees. The purpose of this paper is to

find which motivation factors are seen as the most important by students

considered as future business persons. The aim is to analyze findings in the

light of existing motivation theories. The knowledge from the theoretical part of

this paper combined with the results of the research can be useful for managers

who deal with freshly graduated employees and for HR professionals who

prepare recruitment campaigns focused on attracting students.

The research was based on the questionnaire distributed to the sample of 152

respondents from Aarhus School of Business, and 148 participants from

Management and Marketing Department at University of Gdansk (UG) in

Poland. Respondents were asked to rank thirteen motivation factors in the order

of their importance. The distribution of ranks was similar in both groups. The

findings indicated that Interesting work and Good wages were the most

important factors for all students. Students from Aarhus School of Business

gave the third position to Feeling of being well informed while students from

Gdansk University to Job security. Both groups agreed that Promotion and

growth in the organization and Full appreciation of work done were also

included in the top five factors according their importance

The results suggest that future business persons are motivated by factors from

many different categories. Therefore, the most efficient approach to their

motivation should not be based solely on intrinsic motivators neither on extrinsic

motivators. By being aware of the factors that are the most important for future

business persons companies can meet the challenge of attracting, motivating

and retaining them.

Key words: Motivation factors, Incentives, Job performance, Employee motivation, Rewards

Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1

1.1 Problem statement and research question .................................................................. 3

1.2 Structure of the paper ...................................................................................................... 4

1.3 Limitations ......................................................................................................................... 5

2. Theoretical Background ........................................................................................................ 6

2.1 The concept of Work Motivation .................................................................................... 6

2.2 Motivation Theories ......................................................................................................... 8

2.2.1 Content theories........................................................................................................ 9

2.2.2 Process theories ..................................................................................................... 14

2.3 The effects of motivation on employees’ performance ........................................... 18

2.4 Monetary motivators versus non-monetary motivators ........................................... 21

2.5 Motivation factors – employee choices ..................................................................... 28

2.6 Students’ motivation ..................................................................................................... 32

3. Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 34

3.1 Research method ......................................................................................................... 34

3.1.1 Information gathering ............................................................................................. 34

3.1.2 Data collection ......................................................................................................... 35

3.1.3 Questionnaire .......................................................................................................... 36

3.2 Choosing factors of investigation ............................................................................... 36

3.3 Sample ........................................................................................................................... 39

3.4 Data analysis ................................................................................................................. 41

4. Results ................................................................................................................................... 42

4.1 ASB students ................................................................................................................. 42

4.2 University of Gdansk students .................................................................................... 47

4.3 Comparison ................................................................................................................... 51

5. Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 53

6. Conclusion and future research ......................................................................................... 58

7. Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 60

8. Appendix ................................................................................................................................ 64

Figures and tables

Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs ............................................................... 9

Figure 2: Herzberg’s theory – factors affecting job attitudes. ........................... 13

Figure 3: The Equity Theory diagram ............................................................... 16

Figure 4: Hypothetical relationships between amount of motivation and a level of performance ................................................................................................. 18

Figure 5: The Job Characteristic Model ............................................................ 24

Figure 6: Management leadership styles and team dispositions ...................... 26

Figure 7: Respondents characteristics ............................................................. 40

Figure 8 : Mean ranks and the order of factors – ASB students ....................... 43

Figure 9 : Factors that motivate other people by ASB students........................ 46

Figure 10: Mean ranks and the order of factors – UG students ........................ 47

Figure 11: Factors that motivate other people by UG students ........................ 50

Table 1: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by gender (ASB students) ..................................................................................... 44

Table 2: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by possession of a job (ASB students) .................................................................. 45

Table 3: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by gender (UG students) ....................................................................................... 48

Table 4: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by possession of a job (UG students) ................................................................... 49

Table 5: Mean Ranks and overall positions in the ranking – comparisons. ...... 51

1

1. Introduction

A great amount of worldwide wealth occurs in a form of human capital.

Therefore managing human resources plays a crucial role in a process of

increasing companies’ effectiveness. The one of the most important functions of

HRM is motivation. The importance of motivating people at work is noticeable at

all levels of organization. Starting from managers who need to be aware of

factors that motivate their subordinates to make them perform well, through

employees who need to think through what expectations they have of work,

ending up with HR professionals who have to understand motivation to

effectively design and implement reward structure and systems. It seems to be

obvious that companies need motivated employees and without any doubts

motivation is an important aspect of HRM. However, because of a complex

nature of human behavior, motivation is not easy to understand and to use.

Despite many studies on that topic managers today are no closer to understand

employees’ motivation than their counterparts more than a half of century ago

(Kovach, 1980). Although, some of research suggested that money is not as

potent as it seemed to be, many companies tried to implement monetary

incentives as their main tool to motivate employees. Performance related pay

became the new mantra that was used unquestionably by plenty of companies

(Frey & Osterloch, 2002). Recently, as a result of a financial crisis, many large

and small organizations had to cut costs through reduction of employees’

salaries and bonuses. The question that has arisen is if there are other options

of motivating employees that would be equally effective but more costs efficient.

The literature on a subject of motivation shows that there are several other

ways to motivate employees. The most well know and often cited theories can

be divided into two categories: content theories and process theories. The first

group is focused on what motivate people. It is represented by authors such as

Maslow, McClelland and Herzberg who are known by almost everyone who

ever read anything about motivation. The second category – process theories,

try to find out how motivation occurs. Vroom, Adams, Locke and Latham

created the most influential process theories. The points of view presented by

authors of those theories in some aspects are complementary but in others are

2

totally opposite. That possibly was the reason for other researchers’ inspiration

to conduct own studies on motivation. It resulted in a number of possible

suggestions about motivators that could play a crucial role in increasing

employees’ performance. Some authors (Oldham & Hackman, 2010; Lawyer,

1969) indicate that job design plays important role in shaping employees

behavior while others (Roche & MacKinnon, 1970; Allender & Allender, 1998;

Lu, 1999; Tharenou, 1993; Mayfield, Mayfield, & Kopf, 1998) suggest that

leadership style and freedom given to employees are crucial in motivating

employees. Another group of researchers (Luthans & Stajkovic, 2000;

Armstrong & Murlis, 2004) try to prove that recognition can be used to motivate

people to perform well. In fact, there are many more examples of possible

motivators in the literature on a subject of motivation.

In this multitude of possible options it is not easy to answer the question – what

in fact motivates employees. The easiest way to find out is simply to ask them.

There is a long history of researches which ask employees to rank the

importance of motivating factors. Some researchers spent a great part of their

lives studying employees’ responses. In their studies they compared answers

from employees coming from different cultures, age groups, levels of

organization and even from different points of time in a history. Their results

showed that importance of motivating factors might vary among particular

groups of people. However, there are several motivating factors that are very

often ranked high positions. Interesting work, Full appreciation of work done,

Feeling of being well informed and involved and Good wages are those factors

that received high rates in many research (Lindahl, 1949 as cited in Sonawane,

2008; Harpaz, 1990; Kovach, 1980, 1987, 1995; Linder, 1998; Fischer and

Yuan 1998; Kinnear and Sutherland, 2000).

The majority of studies analyzed the importance of motivating factors among

people who already worked. There are not many researches that investigate

factors that motivate students who will join workforce in the future. Krau (1989,

as cited in Lim, Srivastava & Sin Sng, 2008) found that pre-existing work

attitudes developed before entering workforce may serve as basis for

individuals’ attitudes in their future work. Therefore, asking students about

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factors that will motivate them at work in the future makes sense and will be the

subject of investigation in the empirical part of this paper.

1.1 Problem statement and research question

Nowadays, there is a strong competition on the market of employees.

Companies start to search and recruit candidates before they finish their

education. The aim of this paper is find out which factors will be motivating for

students when they start their career. The answer to this question might be

interesting for HR professionals who prepare recruitment campaigns for

students at universities or campuses. The knowledge gained from this paper

might be useful in creating attractive offers for candidates. It can be used in job

advertisements or during events at universities such as “company dating” or

company presentations. If companies have knowledge about job factors that

students value the most, they will be able to attract more people. It will result in

a larger number of applications and better choice of candidates. As was already

mentioned, students’ attitudes towards motivating factors might be predictors of

their attitudes at work in future. It means that not only recruiters can take an

advantage of results coming from the research presented in this paper but also

managers who deal with freshly graduated employees. This study will search for

the answer to the question if monetary incentives are as important as they are

said to be and if they can be exchanged by other, more cost efficient and

equally effective motivators. Managers who know the answer will be able to use

the most efficient strategy to motivate their employees and possibly to avoid

unnecessary costs. Finally, the research conducted for the aim of this thesis

might inspire students who will begin their work careers soon, to think through

what their work expectations are. Self-reflection about factors that will be

motivating for them at work will positively influence the choice of a company and

a position they apply for. The right match between students’ expectations about

motivators and a motivation strategy used by company may result in better

performance and satisfaction of students when they will make their first step in

the career.

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1.2 Structure of the paper

The structure of this thesis can be broken down into four general parts. The first

part is an introduction. It contains basic information about theoretical

foundations of the thesis and the importance of the topic of motivation. It

presents research question and explains what the aim of the paper is. Finally, it

suggests for whom the results of this study might be useful. The limitations of

the study are concerned at the end of the introductory part.

The second part is a theoretical background of the thesis. It is based on findings

from the literature and previous research on motivation. This part contains

author’s theoretical analysis in which he synthesize and ex-pound ideas upon

the subject area in question. It consists of six subchapters which are organized

in a deductive way, from the most general to the most specific one. Firstly, the

concept of motivation is presented and clarified. Secondly, the most important

content and process theories of motivation are introduced. In the third part

existing research on the effects of motivation on employees are analyzed. Forth

subchapter contains a comparison of research and theories on monetary and

non-monetary motivators. Fifth presents findings from researches on

employees’ choices of motivating factors. The last part of the theoretical chapter

is focused on students and their motivation.

The third part of this thesis is based on author’s own research. It starts with

description of used methodology. The research method and the ways of

gathering information, collecting data and preparing the questionnaire are

presented. In the next step author justify the choice of thirteen factors used in

the questionnaire. At the end of this part choice of the sample and characteristic

of respondent are described. The last subchapter contains information about

the way data was analyzed.

The final part of the paper presents results of the research for both groups of

students. They are followed by discussion and summary of findings. The paper

is ended by a conclusion which summarizes the thesis. The last part lists the

literature used during the process of writing this thesis and is followed by

appendix that contain questionnaire.

5

1.3 Limitations

Due to the scope of this research there are several limitations that need to be

addressed. First, it has to be noted that although there are some evidence in

the literature on existing relation between pre-employment attitudes and future

behavior of employed people, it should be not taken as granted that the factors

chosen as the most motivating by students, will be also so important for them

when they start their career. The main question in the survey asked about

students’ expectations of factors that will be motivating for them in their future

job. It is possible that an experience in a real work environment will change

individuals’ attitudes towards motivating factors.

Second, the present study limited its sample to a group of students from Aarhus

School of Business and from Management and Marketing Department at

University of Gdansk (UG). This may hinder the generalizability of the results. In

other words, results should be generalized only to the population of students

from those two particular educational institutions. However, it is possible that

students from other business schools in Poland and Denmark would give similar

answers.

Third, the list of thirteen factors used in the questionnaire was made on the

basis of previous researches on that topic. The motivation factors chosen to be

ranked seem to cover the most important aspects of motivation. However, a

disadvantage of choosing this particular form of questioning is a risk to miss

some factors that are important but are not listed. To avoid this bias an open-

ended question was added. The response rate for this question was low. It

might mean that the list contained all the most important motivators. On the

other hand, it is possible that there are still some other important factors but

respondents just did not want to answer the open-ended question.

Finally, the questionnaire used in the research was designed in English and

then translated to Polish. Although, author is a Polish native speaker some

minor changes between questionnaires occurred. To minimize the difference

the questionnaire was translated back to English by other person for a

comparison and adjustment.

6

2. Theoretical Background

2.1 The concept of Work Motivation

The term motive usually is explained as desires, needs, emotions or impulses

that make someone do something Following this definition, motivation is the

state of being incited to action. When we take into consideration work

environment it becomes clear that work motivation refers to motivation within a

work setting. Typically, it refers to employees’ motivation to perform, stay and

commit in a company, cooperate, lead or support a leader, help customers and

so forth. Obviously, this definition from International Encyclopedia of

Organizational Studies (ed. Bailey & Clegg, 2008) is just an example from a

mass of work motivation definitions which can be found in almost every paper

about this topic. Some authors define what motivation is by explaining where it

comes from. In this approach work motivation has been defined as “a

psychological process resulting from the reciprocal interaction between the

individual and the environment that affects a person’s choices, effort, and

persistence” (Latham & Ernst, 2006). In other definitions work motivation is

associated with the goal attainment. People are motivated to do something if

they believe it is likely that it will bring desired result. People who are well

motivated take action that they expect will achieve their clearly defined goals

(Armstrong, 2007). Kanfer (1990, as cited in Bjorklund, 2001) stressed that

motivation is a phenomenon which cannot be directly observed. The only way to

infer motivational processes is to analyze streams of behavior caused by

environmental or inherited factors which can be observed through their effects

on abilities, beliefs, knowledge and personality.

There are probably as many definitions of motivation as researchers working on

this topic. However, there are some features of motivation that are common for

most definitions. It can be observed from the examples presented above that

when authors describe motivation they mention an action or behavior that is

directed and sustained as a result of motivation. In other words motivation is

usually described as an invisible force that pushes people to behave in a certain

way. For the purpose of this thesis definition by Pinder (1998) will be used as it

seems to define motivation both in a comprehensive and explicit way. Pinder

7

used work of Jones (1995), Locke, Shaw, Saari, and Latham (1981), Steers and

Porter (1979), and Vroom (1964) to formulate following definition (1998, p.11) :

“Work motivation is a set of energetic forces that originate both within as

beyond an individual’s being, to initiate work-related behavior, and to determine

its form, direction, intensity, and duration”.

Pinder (1998) believes that presented definition has some features that make it

better than others. Firstly, it is not general as many other definitions, it presents

motivation in a close relation to work and careers. His definition is intended to

apply behavior such as joining or leaving company, being punctual, respecting

or not supervisor’s orders, inventing better ways to performing a job and

accepting relocation to another place. According to Pinder one of the key

elements that are important in defining motivation is a concept of force. It not

only makes the definition consistent with other authors work but also allows

motivation level to be weak or strong depending on circumstances. The idea of

force suggests that motivation is related to an effort. Pinder believes that effort

is a consequence and indicator of motivation rather than the same phenomena.

He points out that his definition does not present hedonism as a primary force in

work motivation. However, it does not exclude it either. There are three more

important elements of Pinder’s work motivation definition: intensity, direction

and duration. Author describes the intensity dimension using two terms created

by Brehm and Self (1989) – potential motivation and potential arousal. The first

of those two terms is created by expectations that performance of behavior will

affect final outcome. The second term is dependent on magnitude of potential

motivation and occurs only to the extent that particular behavior is difficult. In

Pinder’s opinion intensity is not affected by the potential available and is defined

as the transient size of motivational arousal in a particular point of time. The

direction can be understood by considering towards which goals the energy of

motivation is directed. Finally, the duration suggests that goal achieving might

be a possible outcome of on job behavior. As the last but also very important

feature of the definition Pinder mentions the fact that motivation is presented as

a hypothetical construct which cannot be measured or seen directly but is

treated as an existing psychological process.

8

2.2 Motivation Theories

The subject of motivation has been present in the literature from the early

beginning of 20th Century. Although, many theories have been developed and a

plenty of research has been conducted, factors that motivates people to perform

well at work are still a controversial topic. Many researchers as a starting point

for their work in the field of motivation used the most known theories and

models of motivation. Armstrong (2007) in his book about employee reward

management summarized those theories in a clear and useful way. According

to him, Taylor’s theory of motivation to work is related to rewards and penalties

which are directly connected to performance. Maslow’s concept of hierarchy of

needs is less instrumental approach. It defines motivation as a result of peoples

unsatisfied needs. Herzberg focused on a distinction between extrinsic and

intrinsic motivators. Those “old” theories are definitely important, however they

are not perfect. Analysis showed that they are characterized by some significant

weaknesses. Armstrong presents modern, process theories which approach

motivation from different perspective. As an example, Vroom’s expectancy

theory explains that motivation exists only when relationship between

performance and outcome is clear and usable. Goal theory emphasizes the role

of a feedback and setting goals in relation to motivation and performance.

Finally, Equity theory says that people are more motivated if they are treated

equally.

In the previous part of this paper a number of motivation definitions have been

presented. Each of existing definitions has some strengths and weaknesses.

Exactly the same can be said about motivational theories. As one can observe

from the short overview presented above there are many different theoretical

approaches to the topic of motivation. Motivation for a group of authors is strictly

related to human needs, while point of view of other authors is much more

focused on cognitive processes that influence peoples’ behavior. In the

literature of the subject those differences between theories resulted in a division

in two categories: content and process theories. In the next part of this paper

the most important theories from each category will be presented and analyzed.

2.2.1 Content theories

The content theories are characterized by emphasis

They concern with individual goals and needs which are said to be the same for

every person. Although,

needs, they differ in defining what those needs are. The most well known and

very often cited author of motivational theory is Maslow

human needs (Fincham & Rhodes, 2005)

behavior is driven by the existence of unsatisfied needs. His hierarchy

from psychological needs and lead through security needs, social needs, self

esteem needs and self-actualization need

Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

According to Maslow, higher needs are not felt

Additionally, when the need is satisfied it does not i

anymore and as a result the focus is moved i

Deficiency

needs

s are characterized by emphasis on what moti

They concern with individual goals and needs which are said to be the same for

, they assume that all people posses a similar se

defining what those needs are. The most well known and

very often cited author of motivational theory is Maslow with his

(Fincham & Rhodes, 2005). In Maslow’s point of view hu

behavior is driven by the existence of unsatisfied needs. His hierarchy

needs and lead through security needs, social needs, self

actualization needs on the top position (see

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

, higher needs are not felt until lower needs are not fulfilled.

, when the need is satisfied it does not influence human behavior

as a result the focus is moved into a need which is higher in the

Self-

actualization

needs

Social needs

Security needs

Self-esteem needs

Physiological needs

High

9

on what motivates people.

They concern with individual goals and needs which are said to be the same for

they assume that all people posses a similar set of

defining what those needs are. The most well known and

his hierarchy of

In Maslow’s point of view human

behavior is driven by the existence of unsatisfied needs. His hierarchy starts

needs and lead through security needs, social needs, self-

see Figure 1).

until lower needs are not fulfilled.

nfluence human behavior

nto a need which is higher in the

High-order

needs

10

hierarchy. Maslow divided needs into two categories: deficiency needs and

high-order needs. Deficiency needs include basic needs such as hunger or

thirst and a need for shelter and protection. When these needs are satisfied

people become motivated by high order needs such as the need for supportive

and satisfactory relationships with others, needs for freedom, independence,

recognition and achievement and finally the need to develop one’s potential.

The self actualization which is the highest step in Maslow’s pyramid can be

described as the ending point of gradual psychological maturation process. This

final level is achieved by few people and unlike other needs is never fully

satisfied (Fincham & Rhodes, 2005).

Maslow’s work on the theory of needs has been followed by other authors who

took an attempt to improve it. One of modifications was presented in 1973 by

Alderfer, who developed and tested model with fewer needs levels (Pinder,

1998). His study, unlike Maslow’s, was based on empirical research in

organizational settings. The theory suggests three general categories of human

needs which are partly based on Maslow’s model but are not the same.

Alderfer’s model is named ERG and consists of existence needs, relatedness

needs and growth needs. The first group is closely related to Maslow’s

physiological needs and partly to security needs (only physical security).

Existence needs are concrete in nature and are usually limited. A good example

of them in organization setting is a salary. If money has to be divided between

two groups - the more money receives one group, the less gets the other group.

Relatedness needs basically consist of the interpersonal security needs, the

need for prestige and esteem from others. Satisfying relatedness needs

requires development of relations and interactions with other people. The last

group of needs in Alderfer’s theory contains growth needs. Although, growth

needs are corresponding to Maslow’s self esteem and self actualization needs

there are some major differences in a point of view of those two authors.

Maslow suggested that self-actualization consist of a fulfillment of unique,

innate potential, whereas Alderfer’s growth needs contain desire to interact with

environment by investigating, exploring and mastering it. In Alderfer’s model

growth needs change if one’s environment changes (Pinder, 1998).

11

The next important contributor to the field of content theories is McClelland

whose model became a starting point for many other authors’ research.

McClelland’s theory focuses on three motives that are relevant in an

organizational context (Miner, 2006). Maslow differentiated between any certain

transitions among the needs, whereas McClelland indicates that some people

have higher needs than others. Moreover, needs in McClelland’s point of view

change over a life as they are shaped by peoples’ experience. That is why in

some sources his theory is called “acquired needs theory”. McClelland (1990)

suggested that most of acquired needs can be classified to one of three groups:

achievement needs, power needs or affiliation needs. In his opinion some

people have a strong need for achievement others for power and finally there is

a group that desire affiliation. High achievers tend to perform better for the

intrinsic satisfaction for doing something better or just to show that they are

more capable of doing something. They prefer to work with tasks which are

moderately challenging and they actually perform better with those kinds of

tasks. In one of their papers McClelland’s and Burnham (1976) deliberate on

what makes people good managers. They suggest that high achievement is an

important factor that leads to the personal success but it does not necessarily

make someone a good manager. High achievers work on their own success by

doing everything personally and by receiving feedback that is crucial for them.

Managers are not able to do everything by themselves so they have to put

some responsibility on others. As well as that, the feedback that they receive

comes with a delay, so they are not able to find out immediately how well they

performed. Regarding those facts McClelland’s and Burnham stated opinion

that the factor that has a great influence on being a successful manager is

something else than a need for achievement. They suggested that it is the need

for power that is characterized by a desire to influence people. McClelland

(1990) found that people who desire to have some serious influence on other

have some special traits. The high need for power usually comes with features

such as competitiveness, assertiveness and aggressiveness which result in a

negative self-image. The socially acceptable way to fulfill the need for power is

the search for prestige by collecting symbols of power. People characterized by

a high need for power tend to act in a way that makes them recognized in a

group. Finally, they are more willing to take a risk. The last group of needs

12

described by McClelland’s model is the group of needs for affiliation. The term

affiliation was described by Atkinson, Hens, & Verify (1954), as “the concern

over establishing, maintaining, or restoring a positive, affective relationship with

another person or persons” (as cited in McClelland, 1990, p.347). People with a

strong need for affiliation perform better in tasks which are related to affiliative

incentives. In other words, they prefer if their work require maintaining contacts

with other people. High affiliated individuals avoid conflict and prefer to solve

problems by cooperative and confirmative behavior. The reason for that is the

fear for rejection. McClelland’s findings suggested that the need for affiliation is

not a factor that supports management. Managers high in affiliation try to spend

more time with employees and make good relations with them, but it is not a

crucial part of being a manager, who sometimes has to make hard decisions

(McClelland, 1990).

The last content theory that will be presented in this chapter is Herzberg’s two-

factor theory. The theory brought a lot of interest from academics and from

managers who were looking for ways of motivating their employees. The reason

for so much interest in Herzberg’s results comes from a dual character of his

work. His theory not only describes employees’ needs but also goes further and

presents how to enrich jobs and make workforce more motivated (Fincham &

Rhodes, 2005). Herzberg indicates that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction

are not opposite phenomena (Herzberg, 1968). According to him the opposite of

satisfaction is rather no satisfaction and the opposite of dissatisfaction is no

dissatisfaction. Herzberg suggests that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are

produced by different factors. People are satisfied at their work by factors

related to content of that work. Those factors are called intrinsic motivators and

contain achievement, recognition, interesting work, responsibility, advancement

and growth. Factors that make people unhappy with their work are called

dissatisfiers or hygiene factors. Herzberg found following dissatisfiers: company

policy, supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relationships, salary,

status, security. What makes them different from motivators is the fact that they

are not related to the content of the work but to the context of the job (Herzberg,

1974). Figure 2 presents a frequency of each factor in Herzberg’s research and

their division into hygiene factors and intrinsic motivators.

13

Figure 2: Herzberg’s theory – factors affecting job attitudes

Source: Herzberg, F. (1968). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard

Business Review. Jan2003, Vol. 81 Issue 1, p90.

In Herzberg’s research the most frequently chosen factors which led to

satisfaction were achievement and recognition, while the most frequently

chosen factors which led to dissatisfaction were company policy and

administration and good relations with supervisor.

Each of presented here content theories has some strengths and weaknesses.

It might have happened that authors of those theories focused strongly on a one

side of the problem but they missed other important side. Motivation of

employees is really important topic, so every research in this subject is

observed and evaluated by other researchers. As a result some researchers

agree with and support original theories and others disagree and criticize them.

In other words, the most well known theories in motivation bring some serious

14

controversies. As an example, Maslow theory became popular despite a little

evidence for its validity. As well as that, very often it seems to be presented in

an oversimplified way (Pinder, 1998). Moreover, Maslow’s originally did not

intend to create a theory that will be used to explain organizational behavior.

Finally, his hierarchy does not appear in some circumstances, so it cannot be

generalized to the whole population (Fincham & Rhodes, 2005). The validity

was taken in consideration in evaluation of Alderfer’s theory. Also McClelland’s

theory was followed by many others researchers who tried to check if author

was right (Rauch & Freese, 2000; Aditya, House & Kerr, 2000; Shane, Locke, &

Collins, 2003; Vecchio, 2003; as cited in Miner, 2005). In fact their results were

not always completely supportive for McClelland’s model. Herzberg’s two-factor

theory was criticized for biases caused by selection of just two occupational

groups. Another reason for skepticism is the fact that people tend to explain

their success by internal factors and their failure by external reasons. That could

influence their choices of intrinsic motivators in relation to satisfaction and of

external, organizational factors in relation to dissatisfaction (Fincham & Rhodes,

2005). Herzberg results were also attacked because he did not try to measure

relationship between performance and satisfaction (Armstrong, 2007). As can

be seen from this short overview of controversies and overlaps on content

theories not every theory managed to defend itself during decades. However

most of them influenced the growth of interest in the topic of work motivation. In

the next part of this paper more recently developed theories will be described

and analyzed.

2.2.2 Process theories

Process theories are characterized by a dynamic character, not static as

content theories. The main concern is not what motivates people but how

motivation occurs. Process theories try to explain how and why peoples’

behavior is directed to certain choices. The focus of all process theories is put

on “the role of individual’s cognitive processes in determining his or her level of

motivation” (Fincham & Rhodes, 2005, p.202). The process theory which seems

to be the core one is the Expectancy Theory. This model was originally

15

presented by Vroom (1968), however many other later researchers tried to

adapt and develop it. Vrom’s Expectancy theory compromises three factors:

valence, instrumentality and expectancy. Vroom describes valence in a relation

to peoples’ affecting preferences toward particular outcomes. The valence of

outcome is positive if a person prefers attaining it instead of not attaining.

Oppositely, the negative valence of outcomes characterize situation when a

person prefers not attaining it instead of attaining. The third possibility is zero

valence of outcome, which means that a person is indifferent between attaining

outcome or not. The instrumentality is a belief that one action lead to another.

Finally, the expectancy is defined as a belief about likelihood that a particular

behavior will be followed by a particular outcome (Vroom, 1964). Values of

those three factors can be used to calculate the motivational force of the job,.

Summarizing, Vroom’s theory suggests that a job is motivating for employees

when they can see a relation between performance and outcome, if they have

abilities to do the job and if they see outcome as satisfying their needs. Vroom’s

theory can be a suggestion for managers to focus on main aspects of their

subordinates perceptions. As well as that, it is helpful in explaining occupational

choices and in predicting tasks that people will work most and least hard at

(Fincham & Rhodes, 2005).

Another group of process theories - equity theories, are related to the

distribution of resources. There are three main aspects that are common for all

equity theories. Firstly, they suggest that employee perceive a fair return for his

contribution at work. Secondly, they imply that employees compare the return

they received to the return received by other for the same job. Finally, they

assume that employees who are in inequitable position comparing to others will

try to do something to reduce the difference (Carrell & Dittrich, 1978). The most

influential and often cited in the literature of motivation is the Equity Theory,

which was put forward in 1963 by Adams. The theory distinguishes between

employee’s inputs and outputs. Inputs are understood as the number and value

of contributions that person make to his or her work. Outputs are described as

the nature and quantity of received rewards for doing the job (Pinder, 1998).

Examples of inputs and outputs are presented in Figure 3.

16

Figure 3: The Equity Theory diagram

time seniority pay satisfaction

experience training status perks

abilities education fringe benefits advancement

According to Adam’s theory different employees stress different inputs and

outcomes as the most important for them. However, all people evaluate their

outcomes in a relation to their inputs and judge a fairness of this relation. What

is suggested by the theory is the fact that people not only evaluate the equity by

comparing the amount of their inputs and outputs but additionally they make

social comparisons with other people. They feel that they are not treated fairly if

other people receive better outputs for the same job. As was stated before,

employees who encounter inequity try to do something to reduce it. The equity

theory presents the most common consequences of perceived inequity. The

first and the most common behavior is changing employee’s own effort to

increase or reduce performance. If it is not possible to solve the problem of

unfairness by changing effort then employee try to cognitively reevaluate

outcomes and inputs. That means for example reconsideration of own

credentials or effort in a comparison to credentials or effort of a person who was

chosen as a referent. The inequity may lead to some dysfunctional reactions

such as stealing from employer. Finally, employee may simply decide to

withdraw from a company (Pinder, 1998).

EQUITY LIBRA

INPUTS OUTPUTS

17

Any chapter related to the process theories of motivation would not be complete

without mentioning results of Locke and Latham’s work. Those authors

introduced the goal setting motivation technique which, according to them, is

not only more effective than other methods, but also can be treated as a

support for them (Locke & Latham, 1979). In their approach a goal is defined as

an object or aim of an action that is attained in a specific limit of time. The one

of their core findings is that the highest level of performance and effort are

produced when the difficulty level of attaining goals is also very high. The only

limit here is an ability of a person who tries to attain a goal. Authors found that

people perform better if a specific difficult goal is set than if they are asked to

perform as well as they can (Locke & Latham, 2002). What was surprising in

Locke and Latham (1990) results was that performance does not differ

regardless goals are assigned to people or if people participate in choosing their

own goals. Authors explain it by the fact that usually superior that assigns the

goal is treated like an authority. Moreover, the act of assigning a goal means

that superior believes that subordinate has ability to fulfill that goal. In a result

people became motivated to prove their competences. Finally, the assigned

goals are helpful with defining peoples’ standards used to attain their self-

satisfaction from performance (Bandura, 1988, as cited in Locke & Latham,

1990). If there is an influence of setting goals on peoples’ performance there

must be some mechanism that explains it. In fact, Locke and Latham (2002)

basing on their own research and other researchers results (LaPorte & Nath,

1976; Wood & Locke, 1990), distinguished even four of them. First, goals direct

effort and attention toward all activities that are related to achieving them.

Difficult goals lead to more effort than easy goals, so it can be said that goals in

general have energizing function. Moreover, they prolong effort, so they affect

persistence. The forth mechanism is an indirect action caused by goals that

lead to the discovery, arousal or to use of task-relevant strategies and

knowledge. The influence of goals on performance can be stronger in some

circumstances. The one of them is a situation where an employee is committed

to his goal, which occurs when the attainment of a goal is important for him and

he believes that he is able to achieve it. Another important factor that was

mentioned by authors is a feedback that helps people to adjust a level of effort

needed to attain the goal (Locke & Latham, 2002).

18

2.3 The effects of motivation on employees performa nce

The authors of theories presented in previous parts of this paper tried to explain

what motivate people to work. The answer to this question is important because

it is obviously good to understand what influence people behavior. However, it

is not the only reason for a great interest in the topic of motivation. Managers

might look for ways to motivate employees because they assume that

motivation can lead to some positive outcomes for a company. The question

that can be stated is if motivation really has influence on peoples’ performance

at work. Researches show that indeed there is a relation between motivation

and performance (Deci & Gagne, 2005). However, motivation and performance

cannot be treated as equivalent phenomena. The distinction between them was

noted by Vroom (1964). He suggested that effective accomplishment of a task

is not only related to motivation but also to other factor. The picture that

emerged from his studies suggested that even if people are motivated they

cannot perform well if they do not posses abilities to fulfill the task. In Vroom’s

point of view motivation and abilities are equally important. In his opinion more

is to be gained by increasing ability from people who are highly motivated to

accomplish the task than from those who are not motivated. Vroom used

indication from existing data and described relationship between motivation and

performance as an inverted U function (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Hypothetical relationships between amount of motiva tion and a level of performance

0

Lev

el

of

pe

rfo

rma

nce

Amount of motivation for performance

19

In other words performance is not constantly increasing when level motivation is

rising. Vroom (1964) cited an early study of Yerkes and Dodson (1908) which

showed that that highest level of motivation does not lead to the highest

performance, especially when the task is difficult. In fact, extremely high levels

of motivation lead to lower performance than moderate levels. This relation is

explained in two ways. First assumes that high levels of motivation narrow the

cognitive field. Second suggests that highly motivated people are afraid of

failure and that results in a lower performance. Other authors mentioned several

factors that might limit employees’ performance such as restricted practices of

their superiors, limits of company policies and physical work environment –

lightening, temperature, noise or availability of materials (Hall, 1994; Baron,

1994, as cited in Pinder, 1998)

Limitations of peoples’ performance are an important subject. However, it

seems that there are more studies that search for the answer to the question

what can positively influence performance of employees. Companies often use

incentives to motivate their employees. Meta-analysis on the effects of

incentives on workplace performance conducted by Condly, Clark and

Stolovitch (2008), shows some interesting findings. The authors found that

average effect of all incentive programs in all work settings lead to 22% gain in

performance. It means that incentives can significantly increase performance

but, as authors claim, they have to be carefully implemented. Results of this

study indicated that some settings are better than others to increase

performance. For example, if we take into consideration incentive programs it

comes up that they lead to better performance of employees if a mechanism of

the program includes competition between employees to earn a bonus. Another

important feature of incentives programs is their length. Long programs

increase performance more significantly that short programs. One of the

greatest differences between levels of performance in authors’ analysis was

between incentives offered to teams and individuals. Team directed incentives

have much stronger effect on performance than individual directed incentives.

Finally, incentives have less significant impact if they are used to get people do

something than to get people do the job in a smarter way or to be more

persistent at job that people already started. The last important finding of the

20

study was a relation between a type of incentives and performance. Studies

indicated that monetary incentives resulted in a higher performance than non-

monetary incentives (Condly, Clark, & Stolovitch, 2008).

Frey and Osterloch (2002) in their book about successful management by

motivation stressed an important fact that can explain relation between

performance and motivation. They suggested that different people have

different goals in their life. Therefore, particular motivators influence

performance of individuals differently. There are employees who are motivated

extrinsically. Authors divided them into two types: Income maximizers and

Status seekers. Income maximizers are only interested in earning money for

consumption goods and they find work an unpleasant duty. Status seekers

search for social comparisons. Work for them is a tool to gain “positional goods”

that shows their high status. Employees can be also motivated intrinsically.

There are three groups of them characterized by specific features. Loyalists

identify personally with the goals of company they work for. Formalists are

focused on procedures and rules existing in a company, while Autonomists

pursuit for own ideology. Defining those types of employees helps to predict

which kind of motivators are effective in increasing individuals’ performance. As

an example, performance-related pay increases performance of Income

maximizers, especially when it is paid out as money rather than fringe benefits.

The condition that has to be met is that employees see clear relationship

between compensation and performance. Status seekers can also be motivated

by wages as long as they let them distinguish themselves from other people. In

their case compensation does not have to be in a form of money. They would

rather prefer other benefits that directly show their status. Performance-related

pay can also reduce performance. Loyalist may understand this kind of

rewarding as a signal that their work is considered by company as inadequate.

Formalists also may feel that company tries to change the way they work.

Finally, Autonomists would lose their intrinsic motivation because their self-

fulfilling work concept is put on doubt. Not-financial rewards also need to be

matched with employees’ types. For example praise would be desired by Status

seekers but would be not motivating at all for Income maximizers who cannot

buy anything for it. Autonomist may feel that management try to absorb them

21

into the organization and Formalists may not appreciate praise as they “just do

their job”. Another way to increase performance is implementing commands and

sanctions. This way would be effective for Formalists who understand them as a

guide. On the other hand, it can dramatically reduce performance of other types

of employees. Income maximizers, Status seekers, Loyalist and Autonomist see

commands as restrictions, what result in crowding-out their intrinsic motivation

to work. Participation can be helpful tool that positively affect performance of

Autonomist but it would be treated as waste of time by Income maximizers and

Status Seekers as they are not interested in the work itself. Finally, autonomy

understood as possibility to make own decision is crucial for Loyalist and would

definitely increase their performance. For other types of employees autonomy

would not be an effective way of increasing their efforts. The characteristics of

employees’ types presented here suggest that people have different

expectations and desires at work. Some rewards can be really rewarding for

them but others are rather seen as factors that negatively influence their

performance (Frey & Osterloch, 2002).

The question that occurs in this point is if monetary ways of motivating people

are better that non-monetary ways. If they are not, what the best ways to

motivate employees not-financially are. Those problems are broadly discussed

by many researchers and professionals and seem to bring many opposite

opinions. That is why they will be presented separately in the next part of this

paper.

2.4 Monetary motivators versus non-monetary motivat ors

The overview of content and process theories brings some important findings.

Definitely a motivation influence on employees’ performance exists. Motivation

can be described as intrinsic and extrinsic. Some factors are more motivating

then others. Researchers put much effort to find out which of them are the best

motivators. The most common factors that are taken into consideration comes

from two categories: monetary and non-monetary incentives. As Armstrong

(2007) wrote, money is a motivator because it satisfies a lot of needs. It is a

factor which is indispensable for life and which is needed to satisfy basic needs

22

of survival and security. Higher needs such as self-esteem can also be satisfied

by it. Money let people buy things that show their status and create a visible

sign of appreciation. In other words, money is a symbol of many intangible

goals what makes it a powerful motivating factor. Some credible studies

confirm that in fact money is a good motivator, while others, equally credible

neglect that. Rynes, Gerhart and Minette (2004) in their study on the importance

of pay in employee motivation found that money is not a motivator for every

person and not in every circumstance. However, it is an important factor for

most people. Authors suggest that money is much more important in peoples’

actual choices than in their responses to the question about importance of

money as a motivator. That might lead to an underestimation of monetary

rewards as one of motivating factors in job settings. A comparison of

researches where respondents were asked to rank factors that motivate them

with researches on actual behavior shows that people list money on a fifth

position among other motivating factors while in actual behavior money is

almost always the most effective motivator. One of explanation for that is that

respondents tend to give the answer which is socially desirable. If they are

asked what motivates other people, the most common answer is money.

Similarly, if respondents’ role is to evaluate attractiveness of holistic job

alternative, they most often choose jobs which are characterized by higher level

of salaries. The results indicate that people if asked indirectly about importance

of money as a motivator rank it much higher than if the question is stated

directly. Similar results about the importance of money as a motivator come

from Agarwal’s (2010) study based on a literature review on motivation and

executive compensation. In his opinion money is still the most crucial motivating

factor for employee that makes him perform well in the company. He agrees

that intrinsic rewards motivate executives but after a certain point of career

money seems to have greater importance. Agarwal goes further in his

conclusions as he indicates that long-term incentives are less effective than

short-term, performance based incentives. This is the result of associated risk

and uncertainty about the future which comes with long-term incentives.

Summarizing, those examples show the importance of money as a motivator.

Some of them indicate circumstances in which money can be underestimated,

23

while others try to define conditions in which money plays the most important

role.

As was stated at the beginning of this chapter money seems to be controversial

topic related to motivating employees. There are many supporters of financial

incentives but on the other hand, there is a large group of researchers who

neglect the fact that money is a good motivator. Some of them are very critic

about it. For example, McClelland (1968, p23) writes that “money isn’t nearly so

potent a motivating force as theory and common sense suggest it should be”.

As an example he cites other authors’ research that showed no influence of

money on peoples’ motivation in boring and fatiguing jobs but indicated other

factors that had influence such as freedom to schedule their work by

employees. The results that support McClelland words come from McKinsey

Quarterly recent survey conducted in June 2009 (Dewhurst, Guthridge, & Mohr,

2009). Responses received from 1,047 executives, managers, and employees

around the world showed that three noncash motivators (praise from immediate

managers, leadership attention, a chance to lead projects or task forces) are

more effective motivators than the three highest-rated financial incentives (cash

bonuses, increased base pay, and stock or stock options). The study on health

workers motivation which was not related to business environment also showed

that non-financial motivators play important role in employees’ motivation

(Mathauer & Imhoff, 2006). Presented examples support hypothesis that money

is not as good motivator as it is said to be. This might result in asking which

motivators have stronger influence on employees’ behavior than money.

The one of non-financial motivators that plays important role in shaping

employees’ behavior is job design. In 1975 Oldham and Hackman introduced

The Job Characteristic Model (Figure 5). Essential point of this model is that

“the presence of certain attributes of jobs increases the probability that

individuals will find the work meaningful, will experience responsibility for work

outcomes, and will have trustworthy knowledge of the results of their work”

(Oldham & Hackman, 2010).

24

Figure 5: The Job Characteristic Model

Job Characteristics Critical Psychological

States

Personal & Work Outcomes

Skill Variety

Task Identify

Task Signifcance

Experienced Meaningfulness

of the Work

High Internal Motivation

High Quality Work

Performance

Autonomy Experienced Responsibility

for Outcomes of the Work

High Satisfaction with the

Work

Low Absenteeism and

Turnover

Feedback Knowledge of the Actual

Results of the Work Activities

High “Growth” Satisfaction

High Work Effectiveness

Growth Need Strenght

Knowledge and Skill

“Context” Satisfaction

Source: based on Figure 1 in: Rungtusanatham, M., & Anderson, J. (1996). A clarification on

conceptual and methodological issues related to the Job Characteristics Model. Journal of

Operations Management; , Nov96, Vol. 14 Issue 4,p358.

Authors of the Job Characteristic Model as a core of their theory presented

three psychological states (Experienced Meaningfulness of the Work,

Experienced Responsibility for Outcomes of the Work, Knowledge of the Actual

Results of the Work Activities) and related them to job characteristics and

personal and work outcomes. In their opinion if employees experience the work

to be meaningful, feel personally responsible for outcomes and have knowledge

of the results of their work it results in their motivation to perform well (Oldham

& Hackman, 2010). Oldham & Hackman based their work on Vroom’s

expectancy theory. The same approach was chosen by other authors who

worked on motivating aspects of job design and the similar results were

observed. Lawyer (1969) in his paper about job design and employees

25

motivation tried to answer the question why changes in job design should be

expected to affect motivation of employees. According to Vroom’s theory there

are two variables that determine motivation: effort reward probability and reward

value or valence. Changes in job design may influence individuals’ motivation if

they change the value of outcomes which are dependent on effort or if they

positively affect employees’ beliefs about the probability of results in relation to

the level of needed effort. The one of important determinants of job design is its

content. Lawler presented three characteristics of job that may lead to

employees’ assumption that their good performance will bring intrinsic rewards.

First, employees must receive meaningful feedback that let them evaluate their

performance. Second, job must require using abilities that employee value - that

will result in the feeling of accomplishment and growth. And third, employees

must have control on setting their goals - that will bring the feeling of self-

control. Lawler going further into the topic propose job design changes that lead

to work enlargement. One of them is the number and variety of task that

employee do (vertical enlargement). The other one is a degree to which

employee controls planning and execution of his job (horizontal enlargement).

In Lawler’s opinion the best effect can be achieved if both ways of changing job

design are used simultaneously. The additional finding was that job

enlargement lead to increased product quality more than to increased

productivity (Lawler, 1969). To summarize, it can be said that well designed job

is meaningful for employees. It improves workers morale and positively

influences their productivity what results in a better overall performance of a

company.

The job can be made meaningful by involving employee in a problem solving by

letting him plan, organize and control the job that he does. The level of

responsibility and freedom given to employee is closely related to the leadership

style that characterizes his superior. Roche and MacKinnon (1970) developed a

program for managers that helps motivate their employees. The crucial goal of

this program is to make work meaningful. Theoretical base for the meaningful

work program was the Motivation-maintenance theory, which says that

employees are motivated by challenging tasks that lead to growth,

advancement, recognition and achievement, and well known Theory X & Y by

26

McGregor that distinguished two managerial styles. The first one is

characterized by bureaucracy and authoritarism while the other one by a

democratic approach to employees that gives them a chance for being creative

and responsible. Authors of the meaningful-work program suggested that

leaders should not act in a traditional way by setting goal, defining standards

and controlling results. Instead of that they should participate with employees in

solving their problems, setting their goals and enable them to check their

performance. This approach to motivating by appropriate leadership style was

confirmed in a practice. The research results showed significant increase in

morale and production level (Roche & MacKinnon, 1970). As some authors

suggest (Allender & Allender, 1998) leadership style of managers should be

matched with a proper style of teams. The combinations of two variables (a

concern with task and a concern with relationships) were used to group leaders.

Two other variables (level of motivation and level of skills) were used to group

teams. Authors proposed the best matches of particular leadership styles and

team dispositions (Figure 6 – matched by color):

Figure 6: Management leadership styles and team dispositions

LEADER TEAM

Low Task/

High Relationship

MOTIVATOR

High Task/

High Relationship

DIRECTOR

Low Motivation /

High Skills

SLACKERS

High Motivation /

High Skills

ACHIEVERS

Low Task /

Low Relationship

DELEGATOR

High Task /

Low Relationship

COACHER

Low Motivation /

High Skills

INCOMPETENTS

High Motivation /

Low Skills

DILIGENTS

Source: Based on Figure 1 and 2 in: Allender, H., & Allender, J. (1998). Identifying the right

management job for you. Industrial Management , Mar/Apr98, Vol. 40 Issue 2, p30

Authors reported that the successful combination of leadership styles with team

styles leads to higher productivity. The reason for that may lie in the fact that

leaders’ behavior influence employees’ well-being (Lu, 1999). A poor fit

between motivations of employees and a level of leader’s support might result

in a decrement in employees’ well-being. Moreover, research showed that

wrong supervisory style may lead to undesired behaviors of employees such as

absenteeism (Tharenou, 1993). The way managers behave is not the only

27

important factor. Also the way he communicates with employees seems to play

an important role. Miles, Steven and Waley (1996) proved that communication

between superiors and subordinates is a strong predictor of employees’ job

satisfaction. Also a language used by leaders can influence their subordinates’

motivation to work. The Motivational Language Theory developed by Sullivan

(1988) has been tested and results showed a significant relation between a

language used by leader and employees’ performance and job satisfaction

(Mayfield, Mayfield, & Kopf, 1998). The theory indicates that performance and

job satisfaction increase if leaders clarify task, goals and rewards to employees.

As well as that, managers should share their affect with employees for example

by compliments for a well done job. Finally, they should explain the

organization’s cultural environment to employees. There is no evidence in the

literature that leaders’ language abilities are innate. That gives the possibility to

provide training for leaders that help them influence employees’ behavior by

motivational language (Mayfield, Mayfield, & Kopf, 1998). To summarize, as can

be seen from the examples of research on influence of leadership style on

motivation, the way managers act and treat subordinates can significantly

increase their performance.

Another often used tool to motivate employees is recognition. Indeed, it can be

a powerful reinforcer that affects peoples’ performance. Employee not only

wants to know how well he performed but also desires the feeling that his effort

is appreciated. Recognition is a reward for employee’s performance that is

defined as “acknowledgement, approval and genuine appreciation (not phony

praise)” (Luthans & Stajkovic, 2000, p1). There are several ways in which

recognition can occur. It can be a verbal or written praise, formal or informal,

administrated on public or privetely. Reaserch shows that recognition indeed

has a positive influence on employees’ motivation. A motivational function of

recogntion can be explained by the Reinforcement Theory and the Social

Cognitive theory (Luthans & Stajkovic, 2000). Those theories suggest to relate

recognition to the real achievements and reward them immediately after

accomplishment (Armstrong & Murlis, 2004). The Maritz Pool Survey

(www.maritz.com) conducted in 2005 on 1002 employees showed that

managers do not meet employees’ needs regarding recognition. The most often

28

used form of recognition is a verbal praise. Results show that just 50% of

employees want to receive it and 40% would rather prefer written praise.

Personality might be an important factor that creates people preferences about

the form of recognition. Some people may be proud to be honored in a front of

wide public, whereas the others might be simply embarrassed. The main and

the most important finding of this study is that a great part of employees agrees

that recognition motivate them and affect their performance. Summarizing,

recognition can be a powerful tool used to motivate employees. It is desired by

employees and significantly increases their performance. Some authors

(Luthans & Stajkovic, 1999) suggest that social reinforcers such as recognition

may affect employees’ performance at the same level as pay.

The approaches presented in this subchapter show that there is no clear

answer to the question which kind of motivators are the best to increase

peoples’ performance. There is a strong support for the economic man

approach which priorities money as a motivating factor. On the other hand there

is a group of researchers who completely disagree with that model saying that

money does not significantly affect peoples’ motivation. Finally, there is a

number of researchers who do not focus on money at all. Instead of that they

put their interest and effort to analyze other motivators. Their findings show the

importance of leadership style and language used by leaders in increasing

subordinates’ performance. They suggest that job design is a crucial in

motivating employees. Also recognition is considered by some of them as a

powerful motivator. The question that may come out after reading the overview

of those complimentary or sometimes opposite models is what employees

themselves think that motivates them the most. The answer to this question will

be searched in the next subchapter.

2.5 Motivation factors – employee choices

Employee motivation can be investigated in many different ways. The one of

approaches to research on employee motivation is looking for factors that are

most often chosen by employees when they are asked to decide what motivates

them at work. The most common method to collect data in this kind of studies is

29

a survey. It usually consists of a number of motivating factors that are supposed

to be ranked or assessed. There is a long history of research on motivating

factors. Sonawane (2008) in her paper about rewards mentioned the most

important studies on this topic. As she suggests one of the first survey about

motivating factors was conducted by Lindhal in 1949. The result of those

studies indicated “full appreciation of work done”, “feeling of being in on things”

and “interesting work” as the most important motivators for employees. Another

mentioned author who through questionnaires distinguished the most important

factors was Herzberg (1968). He suggested that the order for crucial factors is

following: Security, Interesting work, Opportunity for advancement,

Appreciation, Company and management, Intrinsic aspects of the job. Another

example comes from Keller’s (1965) research. In his research ranking was

opened by Job satisfaction on the first position and was followed by Pride in

organization, Relation with fellow workers, Relation with superiors, Treatment

by management, Opportunity to use ideas, Opportunity to offer suggestions at

work and Appreciation of one’s effort. Sonawane (2008) cited Jurgensen (1978)

as his studies showed interesting differences between subgroups of

respondents. The study was conducted on a sample of fifty-seven thousands

job applicants. It showed significant difference between male and female

choices regarding motivating factors. Males indicated Security, Advancement,

Opportunity and Type of work while females chose Type of work, Company and

Security as the most important factors. Another cited study was conducted by

Sharma (1989) in 51 organizations in India. Author found that Safety, Security

and Monetary benefits were recognized as the most important by Indian

workers. As was suggested in a previous chapter of this paper leadership style

plays important role in motivating employees. This suggestion is confirmed by

results of the survey that asked people to rank factors taken into consideration

when they decide whether take the job or not. Respondents’ choices included

Open communication, Effects on personal/family life, Nature of work,

Management quality (Nelson, 2001, as cited in Sonawane, 2008). Job design

factors such as Advancement opportunities, Flexible work schedules and

Opportunities to learn new skills were chosen in a survey by Watson Wyatt in

2006 (as cited in Sonawane, 2008). Kinnear and Sutherland (2000) focused on

knowledge workers and factors that motivated that occupational group. They

30

found that Financial reward and recognition was the motivator ranked at first

place. Knowledge workers were also strongly motivated by Freedom to act

independently, Developmental opportunities and Access to new technologies. A

comparison of this study with other studies leads to the conclusion that specific

occupational groups may be motivated by other factors than other groups. The

difference between groups of respondents was also noticed by Kovach (1980,

1987, 1995). His studies seem to cover many important areas from previous

research on motivational factors mentioned in this short overview. Moreover, he

was followed by other researchers who replicated or modified his researches to

find out more about the topic. All these features make Kovach’s work interesting

and therefore will be a subject of more detailed analysis.

Kovach has been doing research and practically work on employees’ motivation

for over 20 years. He conducted survey in 25 organizations and had responses

from 1000 participants. Respondents were asked to rank factors on the list that

contained: 1. Interesting work, 2. Full appreciation of work done, 3. Feeling of

being in on things, 4.Job security, 5. Good wages, 6.Promotion and growth in

the organization, 7.Good working conditions, 8. Personal loyalty to employees

9. Tactful discipline, 10.Sympatetic help with personal problems. Presented

order of factors is the actual order that came out from Kovach’s (1980,1995)

results. The three most important factors in respondents’ opinion were

Interesting job, Full appreciation of work done and Feeling of being on things.

Kovach compared those findings with findings from similar surveys from 1946

and 1980. The comparison showed the difference between answers from 1946

and both later surveys. Workers in the middle of the century on the first position

placed full appreciation of work done. Interesting work was placed on the sixth

position and sympathetic help with personal problems was on the third position -

much higher than in later studies. Those differences could be caused by

economic growth and changes in standard of living. The difference between

employees’ choices in the different points of time is interesting but it was not the

main finding of Kovach’s studies. The crucial part of Kovach’s research was

comparison of responses given by employees and supervisors who were asked

to rank factors that motivate their subordinates. It became clear that supervisors

have very inaccurate perceptions about their employees needs. The most

31

important factors for employees according to managers were: 1.Good wages,

2.Job security, 3.Promotion and growth in the organization. Supervisors’

answers where the same in different points of time. Kovach (1987, 1995)

suggests possible reasons for such significant differences. Employees might

give more socially desired answers, but on the other hand they may be simply

better witnesses of own motivation that their supervisors. Supervisors may

choose factors that they are not directly responsible for, such as wages. Finally,

managers might be motivated by other factors than employees. Possibly, by

taking themselves as a reference point they rank factors in a different way than

people on lower positions. Another step that Kovach (1995) took was comparing

subgroups. He indicated that there was no statistically significant difference

between males and females. However, it could be noticed in the ranking that

women chose Full appreciation of work done on the first position while man

chose Interesting work. The comparison between different age groups showed

that employees who were under 30’s were characterized by similar answers as

supervisors. Differences were also observed between groups with lowest

income and lowest position in the organization and groups with high income and

position. Kovach’s studies were replicated by other authors. Linder’s research

(1998) indicated Interesting work and Good wages as the most important

motivators for university workers. Results from a survey conducted by Harpaz

(1990) on a representative sample of employees in seven countries showed the

same two factors as the most important motivators. Fischer and Yuan’s

research (1998) also compared employees from various countries. They

indicated that Chinese employees ranked Good wages, Good working

conditions and Personal loyalty of boss as the most important factors. Their

findings showed that Chinese managers, oppositely to US managers, were able

to provide appropriate answers to the question what motivate their employees.

To summarize, there are several factors such as Good wages, Interesting work,

Job security and Promotion and growth that were ranked highly in a majority of

studies. However, presented results suggest that employees’ choices may differ

according to respondents’ culture, occupation, gender, position in the

organization and salary. This means that organizations which want to focus on

32

motivating particular group of employees need to be aware of the fact that some

factors that motivated one group could not work well with other group.

2.6 Students’ motivation

The studies presented above do not distinguish between the levels of

experience employees possess. They are not concern if employees have been

already working for many years or just entered the market. The aim of this

paper is to find out what factors are considered as motivating at work by

students, who will join the workforce soon after their graduation. The literature

review shows that there is a group of authors who decided to focus on young

people who have not started working yet. The question that is often asked is

how far students’ pre-existing attitudes to motivating factors are predictors of

their future work motivation. Krau (1989, as cited in Lim, Srivastava & Sin Sng,

2008) found that work attitudes developed before entering workforce may serve

as basis for individuals’ attitudes in their future work. Another support for this

approach comes from Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior. It says that

intentions to perform behaviors can be predicted from attitudes toward those

behaviors. Also anthropological studies (Leibow, 1967, as cited in McCall &

Lawler, 1976) show that work attitudes are developed before entering the

workforce. It seems that researches focused on students are relevant for all

companies that hire graduates. Therefore, several authors used students as a

group of their main interest. For example, Lim, Srivastava and Si Sng (2008)

analyzed survey data from college students in Singapore to find relation

between money motives and motivation to work. They divide money motives

into three categories. Positive money motives reflect obtaining money as a

measure of achievement and success as well as a way to cover life necessities.

Freedom of action motives imply that people earn money to spend it in a way

they (shopping, leisure time, charity etc.). Negative motives leads to obtaining

money to have a superior position in social comparisons. The findings show

existence of relation between those motives and motivation to work. They

suggest that people who want to earn money to provide life security for their

families and to measure their work achievements are more likely to work hard in

organizations. People who are high on other motives might be distracted by

their reasons to work (spending money on things, comparisons) and in result

33

they work less hard because working itself is not gratifying for them. McCall and

Lawler (1976) investigated work reward expectations and generalized work

attitudes of high school students. Authors found a relation between pre-

employment work attitudes and demographic variables such as race, sex, social

class and parental reward values. They suggested that pre-employment work

attitudes, together with other factors such as a characteristic of work situation

and a reality of a labor market, influence future job choices and job attitudes.

The effects of culture and gender on work goals among business students in

Canada and China were analyzed by Bu and McKeen (2001). Significant

differences were found between those two groups. Chinese students showed

weaker concern for a balanced life and stronger interest in intrinsic rewards,

simplicity/routine and moral congruence. Their attention to extrinsic rewards and

organizational influence were equal comparing to Canadian students attention.

Another comparison of students from different countries has been made by

Sagan, Tomkiewicz, Adeyemi-Bello and Frankel (2008) who focused on

students from Poland and Russia. They found that students from Poland had a

greater preference for intrinsic factors while Russian students had greater

preference for extrinsic factors. Russians were much more interested in

possessing high position in a company than Poles. Good wages were also more

important for Russians. Students from Poland were more interested in work that

requires creativeness, variety of duties, intellectual stimulation, developing own

methods of work and duties concerning problems of central importance to the

company.

The overview of research on motivating factors presented in this paper shows

some differences between findings. There are factors that constantly were

chosen as the most important by the majority of employees. On the other hand,

there are authors who indicate particular groups of employees that were

motivated by other factors. Finally, there are researches that focused

exclusively on students and their job attitudes as predictors of their future work

motivation. The empirical part of this paper will be based on research inspired

by studies presented in this chapter. The particular group that will be taken into

investigation is a group of students from Denmark and Poland who will join the

workforce after their graduation.

34

3. Methodology

3.1 Research method

The goal of this paper is to find out which factors motivate future business

persons. The chosen research approach has a form of theoretical analysis with

a subsequent empirical illustration, which has been carried out on the basis of a

survey conducted among ASB and UG students. The method of investigation

that has been chosen is a deductive approach. The investigation starts from the

most important, general motivation theories and is narrowed down to the

specific subject - factors that motivate employees. Basing on other researches

that investigated motivating factors, own research has been designed. Its

purpose is to test if motivating factors indicated by researchers as the most

important play also a crucial role for other, not investigated yet group of people.

The decision to apply a quantitative research comes from the fact that the list of

motivating factors could be developed from theories and other researchers’

studies. If there was no research on that topic a qualitative approach would be

more appropriate way to gather data. As initial understanding of an issue has

been already developed quantitative interviewing is chosen. The numerical

character of data gives opportunity to point the most important motivating

factors. As well as that, it allows generalizing results and characterizing a

particular group of people. Moreover, it provides possibility to compare results

with previous findings and to see if there is a consensus on that particular issue.

3.1.1 Information gathering

The first part of the paper is based on findings from the literature and previous

research on motivation. It consist of author’s theoretical analysis in which he

synthesize and ex-pound ideas upon the subject area in question. ASB library’s

data base contains a considerable amount of books on the topic of motivation

and was a basic source of information. Library provides access to Business

Source Complete Database which was used as the main tool to search for

35

relevant articles on the subject. The keywords used to search were: “employee

motivation”, “incentives”, “rewards”, “job performance”, job satisfaction” and

“work attitudes”.

3.1.2 Data collection

The second part of the paper is based on a survey administrated to students at

ASB and Management and Marketing Department at University of Gdansk (UG)

in Poland. The aim of the survey is to find out which factors students as future

employees find motivating at work. The tool that has been chosen to collect

data is self administrated questionnaire. This type of collecting data does not

require interviewer. Respondents are asked to fill the questionnaire and they

read instruction on their own. The questionnaires were distributed in two

different ways. In the first option, questions were sent by an e-mail with a link to

an online survey on the internet. In the second option, they were distributed by

hand – in this case students had to answer the questionnaires in a class. There

are two reasons that justify the decision to use those two methods. The

advantage of an internet based survey is its low costs and the ability to cover a

large group of students. Response rates may often be low when doing a survey

by email which is a consequence from the lower level of control in this type of

data collection. The period for data collection is long and respondents might be

not motivated to fill out the survey when they receive an email or may simply

forget about it. As a result a response bias may occur if some of subgroups are

more likely to cooperate than others. In order to reach high response rate

questionnaires were also handed in the class. Students were asked to complete

them right away. There were several factors controlled to avoid biases. Author

used exactly the same word formation to convince students to participate in an

internet based and in a paper based questionnaire. To avoid double responses

the group of students that participated in a paper based survey did not receive

emails with invitation to internet based survey. Answers from both groups of

responses were compared to check if there are no significant differences

between them. Combination of those two approaches allowed getting a lot of

responses from various groups of students in a short time and at low cost.

36

3.1.3 Questionnaire

Questionnaire (Appendix) consists of three questions related to motivating

factors, three demographical questions and question about having study related

job. Respondents are informed about confidentiality and anonymous character

of the survey. They are encouraged to take a part in a survey in by information

that participation does not consume much of their time. In the first question

respondents are asked to rank thirteen motivational factors in order which each

of them will motivate them at work or is motivating if they already have a study

related job: 1=most important….13=least important. Second question consist of

the same list of factors but in this case respondents are asked to choose three

the most important factors for other people. Third question is open-ended

question with a space for additional factors that might motivate respondents and

are not included in the list. Demographic section contains questions about

respondents’ gender, age, nationality. The last question asks if respondents

have study related job. The internet based questionnaire has exactly the same

form as the paper based questionnaire. There is the same order of questions

and the same graphic design. The questionnaire that was distributed among

students in Management and Marketing Department at University of Gdansk

was translated into Polish.

3.2 Choosing factors of investigation

The decision to investigate particular factors comes from a literature review and

previous research on that topic. The thirteen factors that have been chosen are:

• Job security

• Interesting work

• Personal loyalty to employees from superiors

• Good wages

• Good working conditions (such as light, temperature, cleanliness, low

noise level)

• Promotion and growth in the organization

• Tactful discipline from your superiors

37

• Full appreciation of work done

• Open communication

• Feeling of being well informed and involved

• Freedom to plan and execute work independently

• A good match between your job requirements and your abilities and

experience

• Participation in goal setting

Nine of presented factors come from Kovach’s (1987) and his followers

(Harpaz, 1990; Linder, 1998; Fisher&Juan, 1998) researches. Except those

nine factors Kovach included also one more factor – “sympathetic help with

personal problems”. This factor has been excluded from this research. The

reason for that is its low importance among all groups of respondents that have

been investigated in Kovach’s research. It might have been caused by a

common trend that makes employees keep their personal problems out of work.

Author assumed that students would also give this factor low position in the

ranking therefore it has not been included. Instead of that four other factors

have been added to the research. The reason for that is a notion that Kovach

could miss some important factors that have been mentioned in other models.

The factors that have been added were used previously by other researches

and they are: “open communication” (Nelson, 2001, as cited in Sonawane,

2008), “freedom to plan and execute work independently” (Kinnear &

Sutherland, 2000), “a good match between job requirements and abilities and

experience” (Harpaz, 1990) and “participation in goal setting” (Reif, 1975). The

main reason for using those particular thirteen factors is the fact that they cover

the main motivation theories and models.

Employing each of the thirteen factors can be justified by theories presented in

the first part of this paper. If we analyze chosen factors in the light of Maslow’s

hierarchy of needs “interesting work” might be understand as self-actualizing

need, “good wages” as physiological factor, “full appreciation of work done” as

an esteem need, “job security” as safety factor. Particular factors can be

explained also by other theories. For example, “full appreciation of work done”

can be supported by Adam’s equity theory. Worker might feel de-motivation if

38

there will be inequity in appreciation given to another employee for the same

quality of work done. Vroom’s theory can be used to explain why “interesting

work” might be motivating for employees. For example, if management offers

employees of university more opportunities to explore and design their area of

interest for better performance, they will be motivated to put more effort as they

expect desirable outcome in a form of interesting job (Lindner, 1998).

Motivational influence of job design presented in Oldham and Hackman’s Job

Characteristic Model (1975) could be an explanation source for factors such as

“freedom to plan and execute work independently” or “feeling of being well

informed and involved”. Leadership style theories can be related to

“participation in goal setting”, “tactful discipline and personal loyalty from

superiors” and “open communication”. Further analysis of the most important

factors and their relations to motivational theories will be presented in a

discussion section of this paper. As can be seen from examples above, there is

a strong theoretical support for a decision to apply those particular factors. The

other advantage of applying factors that already have been investigated is

opportunity to compare results with previous researches. That might for

example show that particular group of people is motivated by other factors then

another groups.

Obviously there is a possibility that authors of mentioned research missed some

factors which are important for employees or that some new factors have

became important since their studies. Therefore, open ended question about

other motivating factors that are not listed has been added to the questionnaire.

Analysis of answers for this question could be a good indicator of factors that

motivate this particular group of people but it can also be a base for other

research in a future.

The question about factors that motivate other people comes from an

assumption that people judge themselves in other way than they judge others.

Kovach (1987), Harpaz (1990) and other authors found that managers, when

asked to rank factors that motivate employees, chose totally different factors

then employees themselves. In researchers opinion one of possible

explanations is that managers are motivated by other factors then employees,

39

and they use themselves as a reference point. On the other hand managers

might simply think that employees are motivated by not socially desirable

factors such as money. Finally, it is possible that employees’ tend to show

themselves in a better light and that is why they give more socially desirable

answers. Regarding all those differences and possible solutions it seems to be

interesting to find out how students judge themselves and judge other people. If

there is a difference in those judgments then explanation could be searched in

attribution theories or other psychological theories. The comparison of answers

from questions about own motivators and others motivators might help in

answering to a general question how students perceive own motivation. On the

other hand it could bring another dilemma – which factors are in fact the most

important motivators.

The decision to use demographic questions in the questionnaire is also based

on Kovach’s research. He found differences between gender and age groups.

Other researchers who followed his work found some differences between

answers of employees coming from different cultures. That was the reason to

ask respondents about nationality. Finally, the question about having a study

related job has been included as author of this paper assumed that students

who already have a job might give different answers than those who based only

on their expectations about their future job.

3.3 Sample

The most basic sampling decision that has to be made is who or what the

population of interest is (Czaja & Blair, 2005). In this particular research two

groups of students are taken into consideration. The first group consists of

students from Aarhus School of Business, while the second group consists of

students from Management and Marketing Department at University of Gdansk

in Poland. There were no restrictions about the level of education, the program

of studies or the age of participants. The questionnaires were distributed

randomly among students to ensure wide range of participants’ backgrounds

and lines of studies.

Figure 7: Respondents characteristics

Group 1 ASB students

N= 152

Mean age = 24

The sample of ASB students

rejected as the answers were not complete, so the final number of responses

were 152 (N=152). The average age of

44,7% of males and 55,3

respondents were Danish. ASB is well known for its international character so

the rest of respondents came from many other countries such as Bulgaria

Poland, Romania, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Iceland, Italy, Latvia,

Lithuania, Norway, Mexico, USA, Australia,

Spain, Russia and Finland. The number of student

was 51 which is 33,5% of to

The sample of Management and Marketing Department students from

University of Gdansk contained

participants was 23 There were

44,70%55,30%

33,50%

66,50%

Respondents characteristics

ASB students

Group 2 Management and Marketing

Department students

age = 24

N= 148

Mean age =

Gender

Have a job

ASB students consisted of 154 people. Two questionnaires were

rejected as the answers were not complete, so the final number of responses

The average age of the participants was 24. There were

44,7% of males and 55,3 % of females. As for nationalities, more than a half of

respondents were Danish. ASB is well known for its international character so

the rest of respondents came from many other countries such as Bulgaria

and, Romania, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Iceland, Italy, Latvia,

Lithuania, Norway, Mexico, USA, Australia, Canada, China, Portugal, Slovenia,

Spain, Russia and Finland. The number of students who had a study related job

was 51 which is 33,5% of total sample size.

The sample of Management and Marketing Department students from

of Gdansk contained 148 people (N=148). The average age of

There were 43,1% of males and 57,9%

Male

Female

43,14%56,86%

Yes

No

35,29%

64,71%

40

Management and Marketing

Department students

age = 23

. Two questionnaires were

rejected as the answers were not complete, so the final number of responses

nts was 24. There were

more than a half of

respondents were Danish. ASB is well known for its international character so

the rest of respondents came from many other countries such as Bulgaria

and, Romania, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Iceland, Italy, Latvia,

Portugal, Slovenia,

who had a study related job

The sample of Management and Marketing Department students from

). The average age of

43,1% of males and 57,9% of females.

Male

Female

Yes

No

41

Management and Marketing department do not have many international

studies, so the nationality of all respondents was Polish. The amount of

students who had a study related job was 35,2% of total sample size.

3.4 Data analysis

The on-line questionnaire was created on questionpro.com. This web site gives

opportunity to collect responses and create basic reports. Another useful

feature of questionpro.com is a possibility to download raw data in Excel and

SPSS format. Therefore, those two programs were used to conduct further

analysis. The group of ASB students and Management and Marketing

Department students were analyzed separately and were compared at the end.

The first step was to calculate mean ranks of the factors by all students from

ASB and all students from Management and Marketing Department. The factor

with lowest mean rank was given position number one and factors that followed

it were given further positions. That allowed creating a ranking of most

important factors. Another step was to find the percentage of respondents who

gave particular factors particular positions. Next step was to check whether

factors highly ranked in question 5 are the same as those reported as the most

important for other people in question 7. Finally, segmentation of data was done

to separately analyze answers from different subgroups such as gender groups,

age groups and a group of people who have or not a study related job. The last

step was to analyze answers from the open-ended question about factors that

are not listed in the previous question. At the end responses from ASB students

and Management and Marketing Department at UG were compared. To analyze

the differences between responses from different subgroups several statistical

tests were used. Nonparametric U Mann-Whitney test was used to assess

whether difference between subgroups in distribution of mean ranks of

motivation factors was statistically important. Additionally, to check if there is an

agreement between subgroups Spearman’s rho correlation test was used.

42

4. Results

The results will be discussed in three sections. First, general results and

comparisons within ASB students will be presented to explore whether there are

differences among different groups by gender, age or having a job. Factors that

motivate students will be compared with factors that in students’ opinion

motivate other people. Finally, students’ suggestions about other, not listed

motivating factors will be presented. In the second section, the same will be

done with results from Management and Marketing students. Third section will

contain comparisons of results from those two groups of respondents.

4.1 ASB students

Figure 8 presents the mean ranks given to each motivation factor by ASB

students. The most important factor chosen by students was Interesting work. It

leads not only in the ranking based on mean ranks but also in the percentage of

respondents who ranked it in the position number one. Interesting work was

placed on the first position by 55% of ASB students. Another 20% of

respondents placed it on the second or the third position. Good wages were the

second in importance by mean ranks. This factor was ranked in one of the first

three positions by 74% students. The third the most important factor by mean

ranks was Feeling of being well informed and involved. The three the most

important factors – (1) Interesting work, (2) Good wages and (3) Feeling of

being well informed and involved, were followed by other factors in a following

order: (4) Full appreciation of work done, (5) Promotion and growth in the

organization, (6) Freedom to plan and execute work independently, (7) Job

security, (8) Open communication, (9) A good match between job requirements

and abilities and experience, (10) Good working conditions, (11) Participation in

goal setting, (12) Personal loyalty to employees from superiors, (13) Tactful

discipline from superiors. As can be seen from this ranking two the least

important factors were related to supervisor and his behavior. Tactful discipline

from superior was ranked in the last place by 22% of students and more than

50% placed it on one of the last three positions. Similar situation occurred with

43

Personal loyalty to employees from superiors which was ranked on place 12 in

mean ranks and was placed on the last three positions by 30% of respondents.

Figure 8 : Mean ranks and the order of factors – ASB students

The results of the analysis of motivation factors according to the gender are

presented in Table 1. The results suggest that there is no reason to say that

there is a statistically significant difference between the underlying distributions

of the means ranks of males and the mean ranks of females (U=83,5, p=,959).

The Spearman’s rho correlation test used to check what is the relation between

overall ranks given by males of females indicated strong agreement between

those groups (rho=,857, p<0,01). However, when we look into the overall ranks

given by males and females we can see some differences in the order of

factors. Promotion and growth in the organization seemed to be very important

for males (3rd position) and less important for females (6th position). On the

third position women placed Feeling of being well informed and involved while

6,99

(7)3,11

(1)

8,34

(12)

5,49

(2)

8,16

(10)

6,58

(5)

9,76

(13)6,49

(4)

7,06

(8)

6,34

(3) 6,88

(6)

7,49

(9)

8,32

(11)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12Motivating factors

44

men ranked it fifth. Open communication and a Good match between job

requirements and abilities were also ranked slightly higher by females than by

males. Participation in goal setting and Freedom to plan and execute work

independently was ranked higher by males.

Table 1: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by gender (ASB students)

Factors Male Female

Job security 6,94 (7) 7,04 (9)

Interesting work 3,50 (1) 2,79 (1)

Personal loyalty to employees from superiors 8,34 (11) 8,33 (11)

Good wages 5,54 (2) 5,44 (2)

Good working conditions 8,47 (12) 7,92 (10)

Promotion and growth in the organization 6,16 (3) 6,92 (6)

Tactful discipline from superiors 9,21 (13) 10,20 (13)

Full appreciation of work done 6,28 (4) 6,67 (4)

Open communication 7,26 (8) 6,89 (5)

Feeling of being well informed and involved 6,49 (5) 6,21 (3)

Freedom to plan and execute work independently 6,74 (6) 7,0 (8)

A good match between job requirements and abilities and experience

8,16 (10) 6,94 (7)

Participation in goal setting 7,91 (9) 8,65 (12)

The same statistical tests were used to compare groups of students who had a

job and those who did not have a job. Similarly to comparison of gender groups,

U Mann-Whitney test shows that the current evidence is not strong enough to

say that possession of job lead to different outcomes (U=83, p=,939). Two sets

of overall ranks given by compared groups are similar to each other (rho=,962,

p<0,01). The comparison of mean ranks and overall positions of particular

factors are presented in Table 2. Although, the differences between two groups

are minor it can be seen that students who had a job ranked Full appreciation of

work done higher.

45

Table 2: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by possession of a job (ASB students)

Factors Have a job Do not have a job

Job security 6,82 (6) 7,08 (7)

Interesting work 2,75 (1) 3,29 (1)

Personal loyalty to employees from superiors 8,69 (12) 8,16 (11)

Good wages 5,61 (2) 5,43 (2)

Good working conditions 8,31 (10) 8,09 (10)

Promotion and growth in the organization 6,71 (5) 6,51 (4)

Tactful discipline from superiors 10,37 (13) 9,45 (13)

Full appreciation of work done 6,22 (3) 6,63 (5)

Open communication 6,80 (7) 7,19 (8)

Feeling of being well informed and involved 6,35 (4) 6,33 (3)

Freedom to plan and execute work independently 6,90 (8) 6,87 (6)

A good match between job requirements and abilities and experience

6,92 (9) 7,77 (9)

Participation in goal setting 8,55 (11) 8,21 (12)

The last question in the questionnaire asked about factors that motivate other

people. As can be seen in Figure 9 students from ASB most often chose Good

wages (74%), Interesting work (61%) and Job security (45%). Also Promotion

and growth in the organization and Full appreciation of work done were

frequently chosen by them (31% and 22%). It is worth to notice that ASB

students chose differently the most important factors when they were asked to

rank the factors that motivate themselves than when they indicated factors that

motivate other people. In their opinion three the most important factors that

motivate other people are Good wages, Interesting Work and Job security while

the most important factors that motivate them are Interesting work, Good wages

and Feeling of being well informed and involved. Surprisingly, that last factor

was seen as one of three the most important motivators for other people just by

11% respondents. Job security which was seen as factor that highly motivates

other people was ranked sixth place in a ranking of students “own” motivators.

Another interesting finding is that Good wages which in students’ personal

motivators ranking were placed on a second position, in the last question was

the most often chosen factor.

Figure 9 : Factors that motivate other people by ASB students

One of the questions in the survey asked participants to state other important

motivators if they were not listed in a previous question. There were not many

answers for this question. However, examp

presented as they might be useful in future research

indicated by students were

• Friendly atmosphere in a workplace

• Retirement benefits, bonuses

• Colleagues

• Fit of company values and personal values

• Flexible job

• Fringe benefits (company car, laptop, gym)

• International environment / possibility to travel

All presented motivators were stated in a similar form

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

45%

61%

5%

Motivating factors

Factors that motivate other people by ASB students

One of the questions in the survey asked participants to state other important

motivators if they were not listed in a previous question. There were not many

answers for this question. However, examples of stated motivators will be

presented as they might be useful in future researches. The motivators

were:

Friendly atmosphere in a workplace

Retirement benefits, bonuses

Fit of company values and personal values

Fringe benefits (company car, laptop, gym)

International environment / possibility to travel

motivators were stated in a similar form by two or more students

74%

13%

31%

1%

22%

13%11% 11%

Motivating factors - other people

46

Factors that motivate other people by ASB students

One of the questions in the survey asked participants to state other important

motivators if they were not listed in a previous question. There were not many

les of stated motivators will be

. The motivators

by two or more students.

11%

3%

47

4.2 University of Gdansk students

The most important factor for students from Marketing and Management

Department at Gdansk University is Good wages. This factor was ranked first

by 33% of students. Another 42% placed it on the second or the third position.

Good wages were followed by Interesting work on the second place and Job

security on the third place. Interesting work was ranked one of the first three

positions by 60% of students. Almost 20% of them placed it on the first position.

Job security was seen as one of the three most important factors by 52% of

students, 16% of them ranked it as first in importance.

Figure 10: Mean ranks and the order of factors – UG students

As can be seen in Figure 10 three the most important factors – (1) Good wages,

(2) Interesting work and (3) Job security were followed by other factors in

4,64

(3)4,14

(2)

6,9

(6)

3,36

(1)

8,48

(11)

5,35

(4)

7,96

(8)6,73

(5)

8,22

(9)8,38

(10)7,74

(7)

8,92

(12)

10,19

(13)

0

2

4

6

8

10

12Motivating factors

48

presented order: (4) Promotion and growth in the organization, (5) Full

appreciation of work done, (6) Personal loyalty to employees from superiors, (7)

Freedom to plan and execute work independently, (8) Tactful discipline from

superiors, (9) Open communication, (10) Feeling of being well informed and

involved, (11) Good working conditions, (12) A good match between job

requirements and abilities and experience, (13) Participation in goal setting.

The least important factor – Participation in goal setting was ranked last by 33%

of respondents. Another 30% of respondents placed it on eleventh or twelfth

positions.

Table 3: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by gender (UG students)

Factors Male Female

Job security 4,95 (3) 4,40 (3)

Interesting work 4,25 (2) 4,05 (2)

Personal loyalty to employees from superiors 6,93 (6) 6,88 (6)

Good wages 3,20 (1) 3,48 (1)

Good working conditions 7,68 (8) 8,95 (11)

Promotion and growth in the organization 5,45 (4) 5,28 (4)

Tactful discipline from superiors 7,64 (7) 8,21 (13)

Full appreciation of work done 6,64 (5) 6,79 (5)

Open communication 8,14 (10) 8,28 (8)

Feeling of being well informed and involved 8,36 (11) 8,42 (10)

Freedom to plan and execute work independently 7,89 (9) 7,62 (7)

A good match between job requirements and abilities and experience

9,61 (12) 8,40 (9)

Participation in goal setting 10,07 (13) 10,28 (12)

Table 3 presents comparison of mean ranks and overall positions of the factors

between males and females from Management and Marketing Department.

Those two subgroups were also similar to each other. The same as in ASB’s

sample U Mann-Whitney test did not confirm significant difference between

them (U=80, p=,817). Spearman’s rho test results showed a strong agreement

between genders in the way they ranked motivation factors (rho=,824, p=0,01).

When one looks into the overall ranks given to particular factors it can be seen

that the order of the first six motivation factors is exactly the same in both

49

groups. There are some differences in the order on further positions in the

rankings. Good working conditions and tactful discipline from superiors seem to

be more important for man than for women. A good match between job

requirements and abilities is more valued by women.

Table 4: Mean ranks and overall positions in the ranking of motivation factors by possession of a job (UG students)

Factors Have a job Do not have a job

Job security 5,11 (4) 4,38 (3)

Interesting work 4,61 (2) 3,88 (2)

Personal loyalty to employees from superiors 7,53 (6) 6,56 (5)

Good wages 4,31 (1) 2,85 (1)

Good working conditions 8,61 (11) 8,41 (10)

Promotion and growth in the organization 4,75 (3) 5,68 (4)

Tactful discipline from superiors 8,08 (10) 7,89 (8)

Full appreciation of work done 6,47 (5) 6,86 (6)

Open communication 7,94 (9) 8,36 (9)

Feeling of being well informed and involved 7,72 (8) 8,74 (11)

Freedom to plan and execute work independently 7,58 (7) 7,82 (7)

A good match between job requirements and abilities and experience

8,89 (12) 8,94 (12)

Participation in goal setting 9,39 (13) 10,62 (13)

The same as in the ASB students’ case responses of UG students were

compared according to possession of job (Table 4). No significant differences

were found between distributions of ranks by people who worked and those

who did not work (U= 82, p=,898). Spearman’s rho test also showed strong

agreement between those two groups (rho=,951, p<0,01).

In the question about factors that motivate other people Polish students chose

Good wages (96%), Job security (68%) and Interesting work (49%) as the

factors that are the most important. What is important is the fact that those

factors were also ranked three the highest places in the ranking of factors that

motivate students. The only difference is their order. Job security was placed in

the position number three in students’ “own” motivators ranking and Interesting

work was in the second place, while in the last question Job security was

chosen more frequently than Interesting work.

Promotion and growth in the organization was the forth the most often chosen

factor in the last question (30%) and it took the same position

motivating factors from the question about students’ own motivators. The

distribution of students’ answers

Figure 11: Factors that motivate other people by

Not many polish students answered

that are not listed in previous question but are important for them. The

responses included:

• Good atmosphere/ good relations with co

• Low stress level

• Prestige

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

68%

49%

5%

Motivating factors

quently than Interesting work. It is worth to notice that

Promotion and growth in the organization was the forth the most often chosen

factor in the last question (30%) and it took the same position in the ranking of

motivating factors from the question about students’ own motivators. The

distribution of students’ answers is presented in Figure 11.

Factors that motivate other people by UG students

h students answered to the open-ended question about factors

that are not listed in previous question but are important for them. The

Good atmosphere/ good relations with co-workers

96%

10%

30%

6%12%

5% 5%8%

Motivating factors - other people

50

It is worth to notice that

Promotion and growth in the organization was the forth the most often chosen

in the ranking of

motivating factors from the question about students’ own motivators. The

students

ended question about factors

that are not listed in previous question but are important for them. The

6%1%

51

• Fit of company values and personal values

• Fringe benefits

Each of these motivators was stated by one or more respondents.

4.3 Comparison

The last step of analyzing results is a comparison of the importance of factors

that motivate students from ASB and from University of Gdansk. The mean

ranks and overall positions of motivation factors are compared in Table 5.

Additionally, Table 5 presents overall rankings from Kovach’s research.

Table 5: Mean Ranks and overall positions in the ranking – c omparison

Factors ASB students UG students Kovach’s sample

Kovach’s sample -under 30

Job security 6,99 (7) 4,64 (3) (4) (2)

Interesting work 3,11 (1) 4,14 (2) (1) (4)

Personal loyalty to employees from superiors

8,34 (12) 6,90 (6) (2) (5)

Good wages 5,49 (2) 3,36 (1) (5) (1)

Good working conditions 8,16 (10) 8,48 (11) (8) (8)

Promotion and growth in the organization

6,58 (5) 5,35 (4) (6) (3)

Tactful discipline from superiors 9,76 (13) 7,96 (8) (9) (9)

Full appreciation of work done 6,49 (4) 6,73 (5) (2) (5)

Open communication 7,06 (8) 8,22 (9) x x

Feeling of being well informed and involved

6,34 (3) 8,38 (10) (3) (6)

Freedom to plan and execute work independently

6,88 (6) 7,74 (7) x x

A good match between job requirements and abilities and experience

7,49 (9) 8,92 (12) x x

Participation in goal setting 8,32 (11) 10,19 (13) x x

Mean ranks from ASB and UG students were compared to find if there are

significant differences between them. U Mann-Whitney test did not show any

52

reason to say there is a statistically significant difference between distribution of

ranks by two compared groups (U=77, p=,701). Spearman’s rho test showed

positive correlation between answers of ASB and UG students (rho=,599,

p<0,05). However, when we one looks at the ranking of factors it can be noticed

that some factors were ranked higher by one of the groups. Interesting work

was the factor that was given the first place by ASB students. UG students

placed it on the second position and they ranked first Good wages which were

ranked second by students from ASB. Comparing it with Kovach’s findings, one

can see that Interesting work was also in the first position in the ranking.

Although, Good wages were not so important in findings based on the whole

Kovach’s sample, they were given the first place among respondents under 30.

Students from Poland valued Job security which was placed on third position by

them. ASB students did not find it so important and ranked it seventh. Another

difference can be noticed between ranks of Feeling of being well informed and

involved. This factor was one of the most important for ASB students (the third

place) and one of the least important for UG students (the tenth place). The two

factors that were related to the behavior of superiors – Personal loyalty to

employees from superiors and Tactful discipline from superiors were more

important from students from UG (twelfth vs sixth, thirteenth vs sixth).

The comparison of the answers to the question about factors that motivate other

people showed that students from both groups chose the same three factors.

The most often chosen factor was Good wages. It was followed by Job security

and Interesting work. Job security was the second most often chosen factor in

UG students group and Interesting work the third. The order was conversed in

ASB group.

The open-ended question analysis showed that students from both groups

mentioned good relations with colleagues, fit of own values with company

values and fringe benefits as motivating for them.

53

5. Discussion

According to the results presented in a previous part of this paper Interesting

work and Good wages are two the most important motivation factors for

students from ASB as well as for students from Management and Marketing

Department at University of Gdansk. The same factors were found the most

important in Harpaz (1990) and Linder’s (1999) researches. Kovach (1995) in

his study also indicated Interesting work as the most important factor. Good

wages were not so important for his respondents when he analyzed the whole

group but it was the most important factor for the group under 30 years old.

Interesting work seems to be the factor that is indicated as one of the most

important in many researches in various settings and environments. Good

wages are seen as very important by some groups of respondents and not by

others. It can be assumed that there is something special about the groups that

find monetary rewards a crucial motivation factor.

Before we try to find out what characterize students that makes them value

good wages, we will look at other factors that were highly ranked by them. The

third the most important factor chosen by ASB students was Feeling of being

well informed and involved. This factor was not very important for Polish

students. They gave the third position to Job security, which conversely was not

valued so much by ASB students. The difference might be caused by some

cultural issues or a current situation in both countries. The results of research

by Fisher and Yuan (1998) that focused on differences between factors that

motivated employees from different countries showed that cultural differences

have an influence on chosen motivation factors. However, those authors

compared Chinese and American employees which are characterized by strong

differences in their cultures. The difference between Polish and Danish culture

is not so strong. Therefore, explanation for not exactly the same order of

motivation factors might be the situation in the country. In Poland students who

graduate from business schools have problems with finding jobs. It is quite easy

to find an unpaid traineeship but when it is completed companies usually do not

offer a proper job to the trainees. That causes the feeling of insecurity and might

be the reason why Polish students ranked highly job security.

54

What is also congruent to Kovach’s findings (1995) from the sample of

respondents under 30 years old is that respondents, both from ASB and UG,

agreed that Promotion and growth in the organization and Full appreciation of

work done were included in the top five factors according to their importance. In

other words, it can be said that recognition seems to be an important aspect of

motivation. Although, both groups of students wanted superiors to appreciate

and reward their effort only UG students thought also about relations with them.

It is worth to notice a difference between the way students ranked factors

related to superiors’ behavior: Tactful discipline from superiors and Personal

loyalty to employees from superiors. None of the groups placed them in the top

positions. However, UG students ranked them higher than students from ASB. It

might be also caused by cultural differences. Polish culture is rather formal and

hierarchical therefore relations with superiors are important aspect of work.

The most important factors chosen by students can be analyzed in the light of

Maslow’s theory of needs. Interesting work is related to self-actualizing need,

Good wages to physiological need, Job security to safety need, Feeling of being

well informed and involved to social need and finally Promotion and growth in

the organization and Full appreciation of work done to self-esteem need.

According to Maslow the higher needs occur when the lower needs are fulfilled.

This might explain why good wages are one of the most important factors for

students. Money is needed to satisfy all basic needs related to everyday

expenses. Before students start their work career, they are usually supported by

parents or the government. When they enter the workforce they want to be

independent and the first step to do this is to pay their bills on their own. It is

possible that after a couple of years of work the wages become less important

for them. McClelland (1968) suggested that needs change over life as they are

shaped by peoples’ experience. The empirical evidence for this comes from

Kovach’s (1995) study where the importance of wages was lower in groups of

older employees and employees higher in the hierarchy. In the present study

there were no significant difference between students who had a job and those

who did not. The possible explanation for that might be that time of students’

service as employees was too short to change their expectations about work.

55

Kovach (1995) not only indicated the difference between age groups but also

between genders. In the research presented in this paper this difference also

occurred. Similarly to Kovach’s findings it was not statistically significant.

However, because a similar group of factors was more important for women

than for men in both studies the difference is worth to mention. Kovach

suggested that perhaps female employees are more interested in interpersonal

relations and communication than male employees. That has been confirmed in

the study of students. The factor that was not included in Kovach’s research –

Open communication, was in fact more important for female students than for

male students. The explanation for women’s interest in those particular factors

might be related to their orientation to work as a life role (Harpaz, 1990).

The questionnaire designed for the purpose of the research contained

questions that were not included in researches that were used as an inspiration

for own research. The question about the factors that motivate other people was

used to see if students give the same answers as in the question about

themselves. As results showed students from Poland chose exactly the same

top three factors in both questions. Students from ASB answered differently. As

three the most important factors that motivate other people they indicated Good

wages, Interesting Work and Job security while the most important factors that

motivate them were Interesting work, Good wages and Feeling of being well

informed and involved. Possible reason for that difference might be the fact that

some people tend to describe themselves in a socially desired way. In some

environments being motivated mostly by money can seen as not appropriate.

On the other hand, need to be well informed and involved is usually a sign of

strong commitment at work. This difference between ASB students’ opinions

about their own motivation and motivation of other people is definitely

interesting and should be investigated in future researches. Also findings from

the open-ended question might be used in the future. Factors mentioned by

students such as Good relations with co-workers, Fringe benefits and Fit of

company and personal values could be added to the list of motivation factors in

the questionnaire to check how important they are comparing to other factors.

The questionnaire that was given to students contained some additional

motivation factors that were not included in Kovach research (1980,1987,1995).

56

Although, none of them were ranked as one of the top factors according to

importance, they are still worth to mention. Freedom to plan and execute work

independently seems to be quite important for students from both groups. UG

students ranked it sixth and ASB students ranked it seventh. Also Open

communication was seen as moderately important factor (eighth and ninth

place). A good match between job requirements and abilities and experience

and Participation in goal setting were not very important for both groups of

students. ASB students ranked those factors slightly higher (ninth and eleventh

place) than UG students (twelfth and thirteenth place). The decision to add new

factors to the questionnaire was justified by theories of motivation. Research on

the particular group of respondents showed that students value motivation

factors related to their independence and to the way they communicate at work.

Less important for them is participation in operational decisions and match

between their skills and job requirements. The reason for low importance of

those two factors might be related to students’ flexibility and can-do attitude.

The research presented in this paper brings several implications for managers

and HR professionals. However, the results might be interpreted in many ways

according to different motivation theories. It has been found which motivation

factors are the most important for students from ASB and UG. The question that

can be asked is if all of those factors will lead to increased motivation and better

performance of future employees. Many authors of theories tried to find the right

order of fulfilling employees’ needs. According to Herzberg (1968, 1974) work

factors can be divided into two groups: satisfiers and dissatisfiers. The most

important factors chosen by students come from both categories. Interesting

work, Promotion and growth in the organization and Feeling of being well

informed and involved would be categorized as satisfiers. Good wages and Job

security as dissatisfiers. Those last factors according to Herzberg’s two factor

theory may lead to dissatisfaction of employees but not necessarily to their

stronger motivation. Therefore, they should be fulfilled before other factors.

Different approach should be taken according to Adam’s theory. Managers or

HR professionals responsible for motivating employees should firstly focus on

those factors that may lead to the feeling of inequity. In other words, from the

most important factors chosen by students’ Good wages, Promotion and growth

57

and Full appreciation of work done should be satisfied first to make sure that

employees are not dis-motivated by the existing inequity. Following Vroom’s

theory the attempt to motivate employees should begin with rewarding them for

the effort put in achieving organizational goals (Lindner, 1998). When students

in their future job see a direct relation between their hard work to achieve

company’s objectives and rewards such as money or possibility to work on

interesting tasks, they will be more motivated to perform well.

The variety of possible options of motivating employees and a large number of

theories that are in some points opposite might lead to confusion. Motivation is

a very complex phenomenon which can be approached from many different

angles. However, disregarding which theory is followed there are some clues for

managers and HR professionals that come from the results of the research

conducted for the aim of this thesis. The most relevant finding is that students

from ASB and UG thought that Interesting work and Good wages would be the

most important motivation factors in their future job. A good salary is definitely

powerful motivator as it satisfies many needs, starting from basic needs ending

at high order needs. It is also much easier to pay someone more than to make

his job interesting. However, interesting work seems to be also very important

for future business persons, so without any doubts this need should be satisfied

as well. The possible options of making job more interesting are based on job

design techniques. By job enlargement a number and variety of task could be

increased and a job itself might be seen as more interesting. Job enrichment

seems to be also a good way of motivating employees. Increasing employees’

responsibility not only could make a job more interesting but also might affect

the level of pay (Lindner, 1998). Obviously, HR departments that prepare

campaigns to attract students as well as managers who deal with freshly

graduated employees should remember not only about wages and interesting

work but also about other important factors indicated in this research. Besides

good salary and interesting work students seem to value being engaged in

company’s life and being appreciated and recognized. Therefore, organizations

should create environment that fulfills the needs of participation and belonging

and provides a possibility to demonstrate an effort that can be noticed and

rewarded.

58

6. Conclusion and future research

The aim of this paper is to find out which motivation factors are considered as

the most important by future business persons. The theoretical part of the thesis

showed that a nature of motivation is very complex and there are no simple

answers to the question what motivate employees. The results of the research

conducted in order to find and analyze factors that motivate students from two

business schools demonstrated that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are in

the top of the list. Those findings suggest that managers and HR professionals

who deal with students or fresh graduates should not base only on money as a

primary motivation tool. On the other hand, although non-monetary motivators

are definitely powerful, they are not likely to lead to the optimal performance if

they are the only source of motivation. The results of this research suggest that

the most appropriate motivation and reward system should try to satisfy a

variety of needs from more than one category. The perfect job for future

business person should be interesting and well paid. Moreover, the work

environment should create the feeling of involvement, appreciation and safety.

Perhaps there should be also a great chance for promotion. The described job

definitely would motivate employees to perform very well. Although, it might be

hard to offer a position that satisfies all those needs, organizations should be

aware of their existence. Companies can meet the challenge of attracting,

motivating and retaining employees by being prepared for a variety of the

expectations they have. The information gained from this paper might be a good

starting point for creating motivation systems for freshly graduated employees

as well as for planning recruitment campaigns focused on students from the

business schools.

In further research it should be determined whether findings from this study

would be confirmed in other business schools in Poland and Denmark.

Research on larger sample size would allow generalizing the findings to the

whole population of business students in those countries. Future research could

also consider other factors that might be motivating for students, such as a

good atmosphere at work, fringe benefits, fit of personal values and company

values. Finally, a longitude study that compare pre-employment attitudes toward

motivation factors with actual attitudes of the same respondents after a few

59

years of employment would show how the expectations about own motivation

turn into a real behavior and evolve during a career.

60

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8. Appendix

QUESTIONNAIRE IN ENGLISH

Dear fellow students

In the course of my Master Thesis project, I would like to ask you to fill a short questionnaire about factors that will motivate you in your future job (or motivate you if you already have one).

Your answers are anonymous and confidential. It will take no more than 3 minutes to complete the questionnaire.

1. Gender:

Male

Female

2. How old are you?

3. What is your nationality?

4. Do you already have a study related job?

Yes

No

5. Please rank the following factors in order of ho w each one will motivate you in

your future job or motivates you if you already hav e a study related job.

(Where 1 = Most, 13 = Least)

Job security

Interesting work

Personal loyalty to employees from your superiors

Good wages

Good working conditions (such as light, temperature, cleanliness, low noise level)

Promotion and growth in the organization

Tactful discipline from your superiors

Full appreciation of work done

Open communication

Feeling of being well informed and involved

Freedom to plan and execute work independently

A good match between your job requirements and your abilities and experience

Participation in goal setting

6. If there is any other factor that you find motiv ating at work please state it here:

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

……

7. What are three the most important factors that motivate other people?

(Please mark them using X)

Job security

Interesting work

Personal loyalty to employees from superiors

Good wages

Good working conditions (such as light, temperature, cleanliness, low noise level)

Promotion and growth in the organization

Tactful discipline from superiors

Full appreciation of work done

Open communication

Feeling of being well informed and involved

Freedom to plan and execute work independently

A good match between job requirements and abilities and experience

Participation in goal setting

Your help is very much appreciated. Thank you for your support.

QUESTIONNAIRE IN POLISH

Drogie koleżanki i koledzy!

W ramach badania bedącego elementem mojej pracy magisterskiej, chciałbym poprosić Was o wypełnienie krótkiego kwestionariusza dotyczącego czynników, które będą motywowały Was w pracy po studiach (lub już motywują, jeśli pracę posiadacie)

Wasze odpowiedzi są anonimowe. Wypełnienie kwestionariusza zajmie około 3 minut.

1. Płeć:

Mężczyzna

Kobieta

2. Wiek

3. Czy masz prac ę związaną z kierunkiem twoich studiów?

Tak

Nie

4. Prosz ę poukładaj poni ższe czynniki w kolejno ści od najbardziej

motywuj ącego do najmniej motywuj ącego.

(gdzie 1=Najbardziej motywujący……. 13=Najmniej motywujący)

Gwarancja stałego zatrudnienia

Ciekawa praca

Lojalność pracodawcy wobec pracownika

Dobre zarobki

Dobre warunki pracy (oświetlenie, czystość, temperatura, poziom hałasu)

Możliwość osobistego rozwoju i doskonalenia zawodowego

Życzliwość przełożonego

Docenianie osiągnięć przez pracodawcę

Otwarta komunikacja w firmie

Poczucie zaangażowania i pełnego uczestnictwa w działaniach firmy

Możliwość samodzielnego planowania i wykonywania pracy

Dobre dopasowanie stawianych wymagań do umiejętności i doświadczenia

Współudział w ustalaniu celów

5. Jeśli na powy ższej li ście nie znalazłe ś czynnika, który uwa żasz za

motywuj ący podaj go tu:

……………………………………………………………………………………………

……………

6. Jakie 3 czynniki najcz ęściej motywuj ą ludzi?

(Zaznacz X)

Gwarancja stałego zatrudnienia

Ciekawa praca

Lojalność pracodawcy wobec pracownika

Dobre zarobki

Dobre warunki pracy (oświetlenie, czystość, temperatura, poziom hałasu)

Możliwość osobistego rozwoju i doskonalenia zawodowego

Życzliwość przełożonego

Docenianie osiągnięć przez pracodawcę

Otwarta komunikacja w firmie

Poczucie zaangażowania i pełnego uczestnictwa w działaniach firmy

Możliwość samodzielnego planowania i wykonywania pracy

Dobre dopasowanie stawianych wymagań do umiejętności i doświadczenia

Współudział w ustalaniu celów

Dziękuję za pomoc!