Chapter 2: Literature review
Introduction
This chapter presents the literature review appraisal that exists and is linked to work contentment and inspiration subjects and how these issues are closely related to industrial performance. The chapter discusses the concept of motivation, job satisfaction, and project management and employee satisfaction. Organizational performance as well as its continuity largely depends on critical assets, employees and the managers' capabilities to create and sustain motivating environments of the employees and other human assets. The primary challenge that managers are faced with today is keeping their human capital such as the employees satisfied and motivated. Therefore, all managers must beware of the requirements and the needs of their staff and certainly what these assets are looking for. The main concern and objective of organizations are making benefit from positively feeling people towards their work in their organizations as well as motivated employees so as to eventually create a win-win scenario for the company and employees. According to Sabharwal and Corley (2009, p. 550), motivated employees increase the organizational capability to achieve its goals, mission, and objectives. Motivated and satisfied human capital is critical in building strong organizational culture. Motivation and satisfaction among employees also lead to strategic partnerships between organizational managers and its employees thus increasing the commitment and loyalty of the employees as they work in the organization.
Buttner and Moore (1997, p. 34) in their study observed that an improvement in employees attitudes by 5% led to a corresponding improvement in customer satisfaction by 1.3%. The improved employee attitude was also found to lead to increased corporate revenues by 5%. This study is a clear indicator that motivated employees are more productive than unmotivated and unsatisfied employees thus increased customer satisfaction. The extent of the motivation of the employees heavily impacts the bottom line of the company since it either makes work environments to be places where employees always look forward to interacting with or make them view it as a place where they just pick up their paycheck each end of the month (Ryan and Deci, 2000, p. 68). Well, motivating organizations have employees who are more motivated and hence they are more productive. This translates to more cost savings. This is in addition to the positive impacts on the corporate culture thus resulting in intangible but important returns.
Organizations with employees who are less motivated; they are vulnerable to both external as well as internal challenges since employees are not willing and proactive enough to go the extra mile in maintaining organizational stability. This is the basis for the underperformance of such organizations as they become even the more unstable. Firms in all industries of the economy need to motivate their human capital so as to obtain productivity gains as well as ensuring their competitiveness. Motivation in organizations is influenced by certain factors such as employees who have more responsibilities are more likely to be motivated and perform accordingly giving their best efforts. Motivation is also viewed as a way of creating an environment that encourages the employees’ willingness and determination to work with all efforts. For this reason, organizations must motivate their employees so as to enhance their competitive advantage as well as achieve their mission and vision. Also encouraged and satisfied employees have been noted to be crucial in organizational effectiveness. Business succession and survival have also been found to be closely associated with motivated employees. Irrespective of the overwhelming body of research that supports the idea of the employee performance as being closely related to the extent of motivation, other researchers argue that spending money on employee motivation is a waste of organizational money since it achieves little in the short run (Meyer, 2005, p. 34). Such research points out that employee experience and nature of the employees is what produce results in business and therefore is the basis of business growth as well as gain (Meyer, 2005, p. 23).
A project is defined a temporal endeavor that is undertaken so as to create a unique service, result or product. On the other hand, project management is defined as the application of skills, tools, techniques and knowledge in meeting the expectations and needs of organizations. The project environment is marked with increasing levels of uncertainty that must be managed well so that they are completed on time, within budget and meet the quality standards. In organizations, project management is undertaken so that businesses can meet their business objectives. Companies must, therefore, embrace relevant motivation theories that will be important in such organizations meeting their strategic business objectives of growing and performing well in their business environment that is currently faced with increasing competition.
The concept of Motivation
Inspiration is a term that originated from a Latin Phrase Movers that indicates progress. In real essence, inspiration begins with a psychosomatic, real need and defect targeted at inducing results from the leaders’ conduct. This definition asserts Herzberg assertion that psychology, as linked to inspiration, has been found to be extremely intricate. As per inspirational and cognitive extents that have been proposed by inspiring aspects that include individuation, ingenuity, accomplishments and accountability, the procedures have an explanation of personal concentration, the diligence of endeavors as well as focus on the direction of fulfilling objectives of business enterprises (Berry and Morris, 2008, p. 213). Inspiration otherwise referred to as motivation has an intention of replicating the individual attention of the employees towards conducting a single job or task using their best efforts.
Inspiration is made up of various factors such as passion, diligence, and focus. On one hand, passion is closely related to how individuals relentlessly attempt and endeavor to focus on objectives that are in harmony with overall enterprise objectives. Passion was first documented by Steers and Porter in 2002 who observed that inspiration can be linked to such elements as focusing, and upholding otherwise referred to supporting (Steers and Porter, 2002, p. 90). These scholars observed that the supporting aspect of the inspiration could be influenced by a variety of aspects within an enterprise atmosphere. It, therefore, has significance when studying employee job contentment.
Wright forwarded Motivation-Hygiene theory which notes employees will mostly be motivated by innate desires about their nature and desires when accomplishing testing assignments and therefore does not require any additional advantages, increased salaries or reputation. He thus suggested that supervisors must offer opportunities to workers so that they can accomplish testing assignments. In this case, he observed that insufficiently inspired employees are more inclined to putting least attempts and therefore lower the general efficiency capability. This translates to the fact that organizations must recognize aspects that stimulate employee inspiration if they wish to enhance the productivity of their employees. Rainey (2004, p. 300) observed that inspirational theories are aimed at offering significance and superior comprehension of inspiration, thus making it possible to investigate the techniques that enhance output, competence, and work quality. This requires an extensive usage of inspirational theories as well as checking how they contribute to output enhancement and workers’ efficiency.
Job satisfaction Concept
Work contentment otherwise referred to as job satisfaction is described as a general sentiment linked to thoughts on several faces of a profession in work contexts. Work contentment in lay terms is described as predilection manifestation of skilled work in comparison with external changes that restrict data that is present at any time. This definition includes an actual contrast between employee technical experiences and psychological experiences. It also has extrinsic chances as well as individual work that occur now and in future. This, therefore, has the implication that work contentment includes the workers’ anticipation of their work location as well as outlooks that are related to the tasks that they carry out in their work.
Job satisfaction studies
Work contentment otherwise known as job satisfaction studies have predominantly remained as an outstanding subject in areas such as psychology, management, human resource management and organizational behavior. Economists, in particular, have pursued and concentrated on this area over the last few years. The studies describe how employees are always optimistic about attending their jobs and obligation to perform assignments allocated to them as their job responsibilities each day. Researchers have tended to answer the question what makes workers or employees exultant when performing as well as remaining committed to their work? Some scholars observed that work satisfaction is seen as arising from tasks that satisfy the requirements of the person Lin (2007, p. 720). Others observe that contentment in work arises from the emotive delight derived from the attainment of the objective that employees had while they were performing their role in a business enterprise. Personnel management philosophy encompasses three major elements namely organizational behavior, industrial engineering, and behavioral science. The organizational behavior theorists opine that human needs are irrational, varied and adjustable to some situations. Therefore jobs must be organized well with an efficient job structure that favors persistence of favorable job attitudes. Industrial engineers, on the other hand, observe that human beings are mechanized, economically motivated, and thus their needs are met by just attuning them to efficient work processes only. From their view, the only work of the human management personnel is facilitating and designing an appropriate incentive program as well as designing good working conditions. The behavioral scientists emphasize that group sentiments, employee attitudes, organizational psychological and social climate affect the employee performance. The three approaches need to be adopted when studying the effects of job motivation and satisfaction on employee performance.
Figure 1; Triangular Personnel management principles
Smith and others in their investigation found out that work contentment is one of the factors that inspire individuals to perform. Also, it's inspiration resulting to individual’s contentment to their responsibilities. Rainey (1982, p. 290) argues that it’s not the recognition delight and self-contentment factors that impact the pleasure derived by individuals from working on their jobs. He argues that individual work contentment and pleasure at work are also impacted by an environmental and psychosomatic mixture of factors. The researchers agree that work contentment predictors such as financial incentives and salary also affect job satisfaction. Enterprise remuneration as well as reimbursement payments and non-fiscal advantages, requirements and inducements play a critical role in defining employee job satisfaction perceptions.
Posner and Schmidt carried out an investigation that related the workers’ performance to work approach. Out of the study, it was established that job satisfaction endorses an impact on workers’ productivity to improve job engagement as well as enhance the performance of the employees. It results in employees feeling happy as well as being loyal. Employee Job satisfaction and performance work in succession and they are dependent on each other. The employee performance is a direct result of job satisfaction and their full participation in the affairs of their enterprises. Crewson undertook an investigation that described the impact of job satisfaction and contentment. He inferred that certain aspects that influence job contentment in enterprises enhance the performance of workers in such organizations (Crewson, 2007, p. 500). These aspects initiate situations that lead to superior performance. He, therefore, argues that there is a need for knowledge programs which relate contentment degrees with anxiety so as to allow a tradeoff between anxiety awareness in the context of objective attainment of contentment in work environments.
More studies carried out by Stein in 2006 about job satisfaction and exhaustion variables discovered that there is a damaging association between contentment and exhaustion in call center professions in the United Arab Emirates (Stein, 2006, p. 115). Work satisfaction was denoted to be closely linked to exhaustion. Regardless of other factors that call agents are exposed to, it was noted that when exhaustion is mitigated, job satisfaction is enhanced by supportive and pioneering policies. Brewer and others described work contentment as an amalgamation of physiological, psychosomatic as well as environmental factors that interact for individuals to state whether they are contented in their professions. Further studies by Crewson in 2007 calculated contentment results as an outcome of administration, satisfactory wages, and associates, all the studies described above can be summarized in this diagram
Figure 2; Personnel management studies
Job satisfaction instruments
Work satisfaction can be calculated logically and dependably using tools such as
Job Descriptive Index tool by Smith, Kendall, and Hulin in 1996.
Job Diagnostic Survey that calculates five essential spheres of contentment namely work recognition, freedom, pointer, talent assortment and assignment importance.
Job Satisfaction Survey
Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, which is the most widely used investigative feedback form that calculates work contentment. It has 100 articles that include the application of capability, actions, developments, attainment, customs, system strategies, associates, reimbursement, and freedom.
Theoretical background
This section provides an outline of two main theories that are used to explain inspiration and job satisfaction.
Motivation-Hygiene Theory
This was a theory based on various studies that were carried out by Herzberg in the 1970s and 1980s with the title “One more time: How do you motivate employees?” It states that worker's incentives in performing can be superiorly comprehended by studying the workers approach their work (Herzberg, 1987, p. 9). Herzberg first carried his study in the United States among twelve different personnel groups who included professional women, lower level supervisors, nurses, military officers, hospital maintenance personnel, engineers, managers who were men and were waiting to retire, scientists, teachers, accountants, Hungarian engineers and Finnish Engineers (Herzberg, 1987, p. 7). The studies were later undertaken all over the world, and the results were the same. The idea is to study the internal outlook of an individual including their mental condition so that business managers can get realistic data in the context of employee inspiration. This method as suggested by Herzberg was aimed at investigating individual sentiments of workers in the context of their jobs and outlooks. When this was done, Herzberg created two group lists of aspects with the first group having sentiments that pleased employees and were superior in the approach of an employer and were linked to the work environment. The next list included factors that were indirectly linked to work but encircled it. The first list also had factors known as stimulators of work facets and included factors such as liability, the chance of advancement, identification, personal development and work. The hygiene aspects of work include an interpersonal link to managers, juniors, and contemporaries, income, ranking, operative scenario, corporate management, and strategy, administration technology, work guarantee and individual life. These lists show that stimulators are internal to tasks such as identification with a complete assignment while hygiene factors encompass external aspects such as associates who are relevant to the real work of an employee. The motivator factors also called responsibilities elements, translate into real life situations in the name of self-scheduling, control of resources, communication authority, and accountability in life. On the other hand, the motivator factors related to growth and advancement elements translate to dynamic learning thus unique expertise. The results of the study led to the beginning of the job enrichment programs in workplaces where the main argument was that when you have employees on job use them and if they cannot be used, fire them by either automation or selecting other employees with lesser abilities, otherwise if they cannot be used or fired, they must be motivated. Herzberg reported that companies needed to identify external clients that they served in their work, and core internal jobs that serve that client. They were then to enrich such core jobs that serve the internal and external client. Critics of this theory and job enrichment predicted that job enrichment in the 1980s would only to serve to reduce the number of employee, restructuring and downsizing in America produced more job enrichment that had positive impacts (Herzberg, 1987, p. 17). Fewer employees performed the same task thus job enrichment was ultimately inevitable. However, it was also noted that enriched jobs led to efficiency among the enriched jobs and eventually led to more jobs and competitive edge of the company.
Job satisfaction Locke and Latham’s Theory
Locke’s theory is a criticism of the two-factor theory, and it investigates and analyzes linked subjects like aims as well as the performance of employees. In their study, they evaluated work motivation effectiveness by examining the internal and external factors which cause employees to work vigorously and excitedly thus resulting in more job satisfaction. It assumes that work frustration and contentment are direct outcomes of several reasons and that that the two-factor premise can be viewed as a twin premise of individual requirement where real requirements work by juxtaposing with hygiene factors as well as advancement and psychosomatic requirements which operate like stimulators (Locke & Latham, 2004, p. 388). As such, Locke's' list of censures include factors such a psyche-body dichotomy, occasion taxonomy system and requirements unidirectional. Locke argued that the body and mind are innately linked. He proposed that primary requirements of human beings are for existence while natural requirements are only attainable by applying psyche. The initial group as suggested by Herzberg is unidirectional since they are psychosomatic and tangible requirements. They suggested that new strategy factors otherwise known as hygiene factors must have considerable impacts on employees’ work attraction or their achievement to it so as to be strong to it drive a worker to such kinds of job and perform well (Locke and Latham, 2004, p. 390).
Factors that Affect Job Satisfaction
Considerable research carried out with an objective of understanding factors that affect employee job satisfaction. There are several aspects related to job satisfaction that includes organizational environment, monetary emoluments, co-workers and social conditions in the work environment. Dawis and Lofquist believe that there are various features that employees need so that they have an aggregation of leading them to have positive expectations from their jobs
(Dawis and Lofquist, 1984, p. 23). These features include salary, working conditions, management politics, colleagues, profile and job features. Other features that have been under investigation by researchers are closely related to outcome feedback, discretion feedback, and process feedback.
Job features
Shah and Shah in 2008 investigated how job features interact with job satisfaction such as work overload and deadline pressures. In his study titled “Job satisfaction and fatigue variable, they found out that there exists a negative relationship between fatigue as well as satisfaction from a job that an employee carries out daily in an organization (Saleem, Mahmood and Mahmood, 2010, p. 213). They also included occupational position features such as types of work, profile job ambiguity, actual and perceived conflict role, as well as other background features such as gender, age and personality features such as self-esteem, the extent of assertiveness and locus of control. The researchers clearly demonstrated that there on the job as well as off the job factors that lead to job dissatisfaction. When fatigue is minimized, the employee job satisfaction and motivation is improved. This can be done through encouraging and innovative strategies that improve the internal and external characteristics of employees in their job (Saleem, Mahmood and Mahmood, 2010, p. 213).
Ten Key groups for employee job satisfaction
Recent investigations carried out by Simon in 2007 observed ten key groups for employee satisfaction which are management and relationship with employees, inter-employees relations, skills and educational development, employee motivation, Job promotion and appraisal, wages, salaries and emoluments, and process and systems in organizations. Other investigators have also identified elements such as age, gender, work environment, educational qualifications, workplace location which include urban or rural, working conditions and content of work as positively or negatively affecting job satisfaction. To achieve the best results in motivating employees in any industry, human resource managers must integrate as well mix these factors well so as to achieve the required levels of employee performance. These factors primarily follow into the motivation and hygiene categories of the factors of factors that had been suggested by Herzberg. These factors are explored in detail in the section below.
Rewards and recognition
Organizations must pay more effort and importance to the development of better recognition and reward systems so that their employees can develop to be happier and satisfied. Employee deserves to be recognized for efforts in well-done jobs or assignments. When there is less motivation from rewards and recognition, or there is an unfair and faulty system, employees feel out of place and will be unmotivated to carry out their job (Danish and Usman, 2010, p. 59).
Individual Training
Companies that provide employees with proper, as well as adequate training, have been noted to have employees who do better jobs. When companies provide their employees with opportunities for development, they equip them with skills and talents that enable them to do their jobs efficiently (Liden, Wayne and Sparrowe 2007, p. 407). Employees who receive frequent training have been noted to have developed tremendously and are satisfied in their jobs. This is because they can gain self-confidence and competence that they need to carry out their jobs.
Teamwork
In an environment with good team synergy, effectiveness is achieved fueled by motivated employees. This will, in turn, improve the performance of employees. It has been noted that highly motivated employees tend to achieve personal goals as well as team goals. Teams are effective mechanisms to achieve organizational goals that must be enabled through a cohesive teamwork.
Working Conditions
The Workplace environment has conditions that propel the comfort of employees when they are carrying out their duties. These include right temperatures and sufficient lighting. It has been noted that bigger, cleaner and better workplaces lead to motivated and satisfied employees. Naturally, environments that give the employee the least physical discomfort lead to highly satisfied employees (Broad, 2007, p. 1).
Employee empowerment and participation
Job Satisfaction, Motivation, and performance in Project Based Organizations:
A study carried out in American Project Research Laboratory meant to identify connection between job contentment and motivation using Herzberg’s Motivation –Hygiene factors theory found out those project managers and scholars agree on the vital role that is played by the hygiene and motivational factors in improving the performance of employees (Steers, J., and Porter, 2009, p. 90). This study established that it was paramount for agencies first to provide good working conditions such as hygiene elements, fair company policy, clean surroundings and administration. They then need to focus on motivating factors such as work profile, acknowledgment, reward and recognition, appraisals and employee development programs. By companies concentering on factors that negatively affects the enthusiasm and positivity of employees, they create satisfied employees. More studies have been carried out to compare Herzberg two-factor theories among employees working in project-based organizations and found out that motivator or intrinsic elements in employment played a significant role in private organizations but among the public sector enterprises hygiene or extrinsic factors were observed. Overall the existing studies that exist point out that work environment elements play a significant role in project team’s performance and job satisfaction.
Summaries and Research Gaps
This chapter has focused on the relevant literature that is related to job satisfaction, motivation and employee performance. It has been established that employee motivation is a key factor which influences human to working better. Increased motivation results to higher productivity and thus more profit. It is, therefore, paramount that to understand motivational theories that help to create a motivational atmosphere in organizations. Although more studies have been carried on the employees’ job satisfaction and motivation, few studies have actually been carried out on the costs that human problems in organizations cause such as absenteeism, turnover, higher wages, greater fringe benefits, safety rules violations and output restriction. It has also not been possible to document how improved personnel management through motivator-hygiene theory has been effective in improving the industrial performance of project-based organizations.
Hypothesis development
This study seeks to prove the hypothesis from the study that there exists a strong and direct relationship between recognition and rewards and employee job satisfaction, that there exists a strong and positive link between employee satisfaction and good teamwork. That there is a robust and positive connection between employee job satisfaction and training and development, and that there exists a robust and direct link between job satisfaction as well as employee empowerment and job satisfaction.
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