The Impact of Monetary Incentives on Employee Motivation - 11000 Words

The Impact of Monetary Incentives on Employee Motivation, using the Chinese Hotel Industry as a Case Study (Dissertation Sample) Content: The Impact of Monetary Incentives on Employee Motivation: A Case Study of the Hotel Industry in China.NameInstitutionDateABSTRACTThis study employs a descriptive research design to investigate the impact that monetary incentives have on employee motivation. The main focus of study is investigating the correlation between monetary and non-monetary incentives on employee motivation and job performance. The researcher obtained the feedback of 300 employees surveyed by their managers in three five-start Chinese hotels, Shangri-la Hotel, Pullman Lifestyle Hotels, and the InterContinental Hotel, all located within Tangshan City in Hebei Province, China. The data was used to test the assumption that both monetary and non-monetary incentives do not necessarily influence employee motivation and performance. The specific assumption tested is that monetary based compensation incentives directly influences employee motivation while non-monetary incentives do not necessarily inf luence employee motivation.Key words: motivation, intrinsic incentives, extrinsic incentives, hotel industry, monetary incentives, non-monetary incentives Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u  HYPERLINK \l "_Toc451005972"
ABSTRACT  PAGEREF _Toc451005972 \h
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Table of Contents  PAGEREF _Toc451005973 \h
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CHAPTER ONE  PAGEREF _Toc451005974 \h
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1.0 Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc451005975 \h
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1.1 Background of the Study  PAGEREF _Toc451005976 \h
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1.3 Purpose of the Study  PAGEREF _Toc451005977 \h
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1.4 Objectives of the Study  PAGEREF _Toc451005978 \h
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1.5 Research Questions  PAGEREF _Toc451005979 \h
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1.6 Statement of Hypothesis  PAGEREF _Toc451005980 \h
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1. 7 Significance of the Study  PAGEREF _Toc451005981 \h
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1.8 Scope of the Study  PAGEREF _Toc451005982 \h
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1.9 Limitations of the Study  PAGEREF _Toc451005983 \h
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CHAPTER TWO  PAGEREF _Toc451005984 \h
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LITERATURE RE VIEW  PAGEREF _Toc451005985 \h
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2.1 Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc451005986 \h
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2.2 Theories of Motivation  PAGEREF _Toc451005987 \h
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2.2.1 Content Theories  PAGEREF _Toc451005988 \h
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2.2.2 Process Theories  PAGEREF _Toc451005989 \h
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2.3 The Concept of Behavior Modification  PAGEREF _Toc451005990 \h
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2.4 Theoretical Framework  PAGEREF _Toc451005991 \h
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2.4.1 The Concepts of Motivation and Job Performance  PAGEREF _Toc451005992 \h
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2.4.2 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation  PAGEREF _Toc451005993 \h
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2.4.3 Monetary Incentives  PAGEREF _Toc451005994 \h
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2.5 The effects of motivation on employee performance  PAGEREF _Toc451005995 \h
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2.6 The State of the Chinese Hotel Industry  PAGEREF _Toc451005996 \h
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CHAPTER THREE  PAGEREF _Toc451005997 \h
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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY  PAGEREF _Toc451005998 \h
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3.1 Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc451005999 \h
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3.2 Research Design  PAGEREF _Toc451006000 \h
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3.2 Rational For Research Design  PAGEREF _Toc451006001 \h
38 3.3 Sample Population41 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc451006002"
3.5 Method of Data Collection  PAGEREF _Toc451006002 \h
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3.8.1 Validity  PAGEREF _Toc451006003 \h
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3.8.2 Reliability  PAGEREF _Toc451006004 \h
49CHAPTER FOUR...48 4.1 Results 48 4.2 Discussion..50 4.3 Conclusion52 4.4 Recommendations.54 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc451006005"
References  PAGEREF _Toc451006005 \h
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APPENDIX 1  PAGEREF _Toc451006006 \h
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QUESTIONNAIRE IN ENGLISH  PAGEREF _Toc451006007 \h
66 CHAPTER ONE1.0 Introduction The assessment of the impact of monetary incentives on employee productivity and firm performance is an endeavor that falls within the principles of economics. Many organizations tie their employees remuneration to certain verifiable measures of performance. The implementation of financial incentives is widely used because it significantly influences the indicators of organizatio nal performance, such as worker absenteeism and productivity. This overly implies that Performance-related pay (PRP) are either individual or group incentives that are connected to subjective or objective evaluation of employees input such as merit payment or payment based on results. PRP are also collective schemes anchored upon aggregated measures of organizational profitability such as share-ownership, bonuses, and profit-sharing. However, caution should be taken because poorly designed and implemented monetary incentives may lead to employees inefficiencies, especially from those workers that perform multiple activities in the organization, work in a team or experience subjective evaluations from superiors. Management scholars consistently redefine the term motivation in a bid to design the best incentive strategies to promote organizational performance. The widely acknowledged definition in organizational performance context is that motivation is the inner stimulus that energi zes, triggers, and moves human needs, fears, or senses to prompt action. This definition illustrates that motivation directs human action or behavior towards a given goal. An organizations productivity is shaped by the structure of its incentives, which is often designed to strike a balance between various management levels. A number of incentive variables can motivate employees to provide optimal effort to realize the organizations productivity. Some incentives can be in the form of monetary remuneration and are often applicable to those who embrace money as the best reward, while others may focus on enhancing employees status and prestige and are applicable to those who cherish career progress and recognition. Starke (1976:35) brings rich insight into the connection between motivation and rewards. He proposes that employees work for two major rewards: extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. The extrinsic rewards include compliments, recognition, and timely pay promotions that are unrelat ed to the task performed and controlled by superiors. Conversely, intrinsic rewards include the personal satisfaction realized by an individual after completing a task and are controlled by the concerned individual. These forms of rewards interact with each other and other incentives to promote organizational performance and employees job satisfaction. 1.1 Background of the Study For a long time, economists have been concerned about the psychological forces that influence workers level of input and productivity. Traditionally, workers labour was treated as just part of the total input required to produce goods and deliver services. As such, their efforts were considered a form of resource that can be purchased at a given wage, just in the same way that a business may purchase raw materials from suppliers at the agreed price. However, this view changed following the publication of the findings of the Hawthorne Studies in 1932, which investigated the relationship between monetary ince ntives and the level of employee motivation (Dickson, 1973). The studies findings showed that employee behavior was not solely determined by monetary incentives, but in addition, by their attitudes. These findings were the precursor to a shift in business management, whereby managers adopted the human relationship approach to human resource management (Bedian, 1993). As a result of this shift, the new paradigm focused on identifying and addressing employees needs as a means of increasing the level of employee motivation. This was also the basis fo...

The Balance Between Family Attachment and Detachment Throughout The Monks Story and The Teachers Story - Literature Essay Samples

Gita Mehta, one of the most well known authors in Indian literature, is the author of the novel â€Å"A River Sutra†. One of the primary characteristics of Mehta’s work is her capacity to exanimate and explore the human psychology and its limits, with the purpose of communicating an overall message or moral to the reader. To accomplish this, the author introduces a unique and interesting technique based on interconnected framed stories, where each one of them has it’s own personal conflict regarding love, desire and family. Moreover, this paper seeks to study and compare both â€Å"The Monk’s Story† and â€Å"The Teacher’s Story† by linking them and developing the significance of family in each one of them, but more specifically, to demonstrate the balance between personal attachment and detachment. Primarily, regarding the topic of detachment, â€Å"The Monk’s Story† presents an internal conflict between family values with duty and wealth. By being the son of a rich merchant, the monk has always been granted the opportunity of luxury and privilege. Nevertheless, he has never found himself fulfilled or completely pleased by it. It was when the character finally got to see the hunger and poverty in the world that he realizes the impact that money has in his life and how it causes impartiality between his family and relationships. Everyone around him expect for him to follow his father’s business and be another wealthy man who will continue spending instead of investing in a better world. This unfortunate event clarifies the monk’s mind and makes him realize that wealth has completely taken and replaced the role and the values of a family. Furthermore, the personal detachment of the monk can be seen all along the chapter, but an excellent explanation of the character’s honest thoughts can be seen in this citation: â€Å"For the first time†¦ hates most, violence.†(Mehta, 1993, p.25-26). Here, the excellent description and diction emphasize the opinion and point of view of the monk towards the life he lives in, revealing a sense of disappointment and discontent. Likewise, Gita Mehta chooses this protagonist to make the narration reliable, seeing that he is the only one who can thoroughly communicate the idea and its significance. Moreover, the topic of detachment in â€Å"The Teacher’s Story† can be similarly contrasted with the previous tale. The character of Master Mohan finds himself unmotivated and despondent towards his family, due to the fact that his wife and kids only care about wealth, eradicating any chance of living in a loving and caring environment. This situation is the product of a past economic occurrence, where Master Mohan’s wife didn’t receive the inheritance of her father’s death, bringing major anger and disagreement into the marriage. As much as the protagonist wanted to, he could no longer provide money by using his true talent and passion, music, because of his severe tuberculosis, forcing him to become a teacher and give music lessons. This business couldn’t provide the lifestyle her wife and children wished for, making him a daily victim of verbal abuse from the people who were meant to love him unconditionally. As a result of his family†™s materialism, Master Mohan does not longer have the patience or caring for them, provoking him to enter a desperate state which would lead into an entire emotional detachment. Unfortunately, he no longer had the love or support of a family; no glimmer of hope that would prevent him from committing suicide and ending his life. In order to illustrate his obnoxious lifestyle, in chapter four: â€Å"Prevented by pride†¦ to be quiet.† (Mehta, 1993, p. 56-57) the author decides to use the omniscient narrator of Tariq Mia to tell the story, seeing that he is attracted and understanding of the verisimilitudes of the human life. Also, Mehta decides to use long sentences and rich vocabulary in order to infiltrate the reader’s psyche and make them analyze, debate and compare the circumstances between the monk and Master Mohan. On the other hand, after both characters had accepted their detachment from their families, they now had this emptiness inside them that could only be fulfilled by the true passions their respective relatives and desire for money had kept locked away for years. In the case of â€Å"The Monk’s Story†, the monk didn’t feel quite satisfied with his family beliefs and values, until he finally accomplished to unveil his true self through the power of belief and religion. He found the attachment he was looking for in Jainism, a religion that gave him the chance of being who he truly wanted to be by conserving and taking care of everything surrounding him. Furthermore, he sees that life is not a smooth path but one full of hardships and sorrows, and instead of rejecting it, he embraces its flaws and accepts it exactly how it is, giving him the opportunity of choosing his path in life. A universal phrase that thoroughly summarizes this entire occurrence is the one the au thor gives us at the beginning of the chapter: â€Å"I have loved just one thing in my life.† (Mehta, 1993, p. 14). Here, we can implicitly deduce that everything the monk had ever been given in his life hadn’t had much importance like the fact that he could finally be with himself throughout Jainism, the only side of himself that he has truly ever loved. By using simple and concise sentences like this, Mehta allows the reader to have a more personal interpretation towards the text, creating a greater link and impact between the story and its audience. In opposition to the kind of alternative attachment â€Å"The Monk’s Story† has with religion, â€Å"The Teacher’s Story† offers a new affectionate connection with the most symbolic feature in the tale: music. As it was discussed previously, Master Mohan had a deep love for music, but due to his illness, he had to leave great part of it behind. Remarkably, the teacher reconnects and finds his new family in the young character of Imrat, a blind boy with a tough life but with an astonishing and angelic voice. Likewise, the teacher and the boy quickly develop a legendary bond and rapidly gain fame and money together, bringing to Master Mohan the greatest and most rewarding feeling of happiness in his entire life. Just like the monk, Master Mohan gets to be the person he always wanted to be and finds his own self within the child, attaching all his buried emotions into his desire and longing dream. To elaborate the profound relationship between both characters , Gita Mehta uses powerful and descriptive adjectives in order for the reader to visualize the scene, for example: â€Å"Somehow Master Mohan†¦ for the world.† (Mehta, 1993, p. 67-68). Also, the author uses a happy and relaxed tone to describe how Master Mohan starts to take care and treat Imrat as family, as well as the joy he receives by being finally completed by the power of music. After thoroughly analyzing and contrasting two of Gita Mehta’s frame stories, we can conclude that the author accomplished to create a strong relationship between them with the help of literary terms and a thematic so valuable such as family. Even though the poor music loving character of Master Mohan had a sad resolution, while the rich and religious character of the monk accomplished all his aspirations; they both had the unique opportunity of interchanging family ethics for fulfilling and aspiring passions that would build them into being the people they sincerely wanted to be. Truly, â€Å"A River Sutra† manages to highlight how the human psychology can’t deny the external influences of aspects such as religion, faiths and relationships; and at the same time how it detaches from others such as family and the materialistic world. With this, the author of this culturally acclaimed novel extends a hand to the reader, uncovering the strong ethics and character of the Indian society and its beliefs.