Analyzing an Article by Sara L. Rynes, Berry Gerhart, and Kathleen A. Minette
Thesis Statement
The paper of the statement can be summarizes as following: There are varying influences on motivation of workers and money is the most important one for the workers. The journals read by the professionals claim that the money is not the most influential motivator at work place. The study by Rynes, Gerhart and Minette claims that the professionals think that money is a motivation tool however they underestimate the power of money on workers’ motivation.
The HR specialists believe the surveys to understand whether the motivators at workplace do not include social and individual behaviors as a background of motivation. In order to comprehend workers' motivation at workplace, it is required to observe and define social values and social behaviors, therefore it becomes possible to check whether the results of the surveys are correct. The workers are more sensitive to money relatively and they do not say what they really do. They care money but when asked they can say other things also important.
Fundamentally, the writers claim that the amount of money a worker receives is affecting the social status in a direct and an indirect way and it is an important determinant of the worker's social status which actually affects the other motivation resources of the worker.
The paper summarizes some other papers' to create some proofs for money. Papers’ statements are given in a table and this table includes some papers indicating that money is the most influential motivator and some other papers claiming that there are other motivators more important than money.
Some other papers given in the table claim that money is a strong influence as a motivator. These papers include some survey and statistical studies.
Criticizing the Paper
This paper reviews other articles’ conclusions to reach a result and all other papers have a different survey and research setting or they use other measures and statistical methods to study motivation of workers. Fundamentally the information ground they use does not provide a unity to compare and get results from these studies. For a useful information ground for such a study, the writers should be able to implement their own research setting or create a unity for the other studies comparison. The conclusions of other papers are not satisfactory for this study. Another scientist, by comparing the same results, can reach a reverse conclusion that assumes money's influence is exaggerated or any other contradicting thesis statement.
This weakness in this paper occurs because this paper is literature review paper. To develop this research, the authors should create their own research settings more than a literature review.
Also, the writers assume that the articles in the journals for the HR professionals are for that money is exaggerated; however, this assumption can be falsified easily. All the articles summarized in the study can be used to create different results by using a different logical approach. For instance, these articles utilize a methodology aiming at developing more natural ways to falsify other papers' claim of money is very strong motivator. These papers do not connect the money influence with the other motivators. The writers can show that they are right that these articles ignore the connection between other motivators and money.
Generally, this study’s claim is proving that there is a very important missing detail in the literature. Money is the most influential motivator and it has a strong effect on the social status of the workers also. At the recruitment processes of the workplaces, workers care the money more than the other motivators. After making an agreement on the wage, then workers discuss the other conditions.
A new frame work can be developed to improve this study which should include psychological, social, economical, and some other conditional dimensions. This way, a more organic structure could be created to analyze the cross effects of each motivator. This cross analysis will provide us a relationship network between these variables.
Also some cultural factors should be imposed into the research setting. Each country and even each region has a different cultural settings, thus the research should be able to reflect the cultural factors influence on the motivators. For example, some regions are more concerned about the social status of the work type and it might be more important than money, however, in a more capitalistic culture, money might be the most influential factor.
For a Further Research Project
Motivation is very important and workers should feel good and believe that the company will help them improve themselves. The company should have a vision promising its workers a better future as well as promising better products and services for their customers. Thus the vision and mission statements of the company and the values followed in the working process should be satisfying the workers and the influence of vision, mission and working values should be traced in all processes at work.
A company should define what type of workers to work with and define the desired characteristics of workers to be hired. In the recruitment processes, they need to call for the workers desired and the workers applying to a job in this company should know the working conditions, vision and mission of the company as well as the desired worker profile.
A more developed research project should create a model for workplace, processes, working conditions, organization and interactions at work. By creating a model, we can observe how different factors affect the workers’ motivation and we can change the conditions known at the beginning of the research, therefore we can observe how the changes at workplace and working conditions influence workers’ motivation.
Also scientific studies cannot explain all the details perfectly, so there will be some details could not be explained by scientific studies. Therefore it is very important what we cannot explain by the scientific studies and then we can design new studies. This study also should indicate the areas that could not be explained by this study and give some clues for further researches.
We need a model also to observe what is not explained in the model. If numbers are involved with a study, there are many statistical tools which can be used to determine what is explained, what is not explained and healthiness of the model etc.
The model which should be developed for a research project mentioned earlier also should create a model for functions at workplace. The model should define all the social, psychological and economical functions working at the workplace, this way we can develop an understanding of the interactions among different factors.
The last thing I would mention is the regularities at workplaces. Depending on the organization at different workplaces, some irregularities should occur. Irregularity means something not desired and not planned. More professional organizations create a department for irregularities at work place. The research model to be developed should include a part for this also. We should know how irregularities are managed at the workplace. Irregularities might create a big influence on workers’ motivations. Most people want to work in a place where irregularities are as possible as small, this way they will have more information about the future of the work and their positions at work.
Subsequently, there many factors which might influence workers’ motivations and these factors might have interactions among them. We should not forget that all the workplaces are living organizations and they have many factors, functions, and irregularities. After including all these, we can see how the motivation at workplaces are developed and continued. A better study to understand motivational factors needs create an organic model to explain the motivation motives. Only summarizing other papers in the literature and creating a literature review will not help us understand the motivation fully. A research study I suggested in this essay can be a good PhD thesis subject.
References
Clark, R. E. (2003) Fostering the Work Motivation of Individuals and Teams. Performance Improvement, 42(3), 21-29.
Locke, E.A. and Latham, G. P. (2002) Building A Practically Useful Theory Of Goal Setting and Task Motivation. American Psychologist. 57(9). 705-717.
Eccles, J., & Wigfield, A. (1995) In the Mind of the Actor: The Structure of Adolescents' Achievement Task Values and Expectancy-Related Beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 215-225.
Kluger, A., & DiNisi, A. (1998). Feedback Interventions: Toward the Understanding of a Double-Edged Sword. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7( 3). 67-72.
