Motivation in Organizations

Manzoor (2012) concluded that factors of empowerment and recognition have positive effect on
employee motivation that motivation will lead to increase in organizations performance. As Khan,
K. U., Farooq, S. U., & Ullah, M. I., (2010) suggests employees whom have aligned personal goal
with organizations on are called motivated employees and their efforts used for organizations
productivity. Lindner (1998) has designed a survey to describe the importance of certain factors in
motivating employees at the Piketon Research and Extension Center and Enterprise Center, the
result was ranking of motivating factors were interesting work, good wages, full appreciation of
work done, was the highest three factors of motivation and personal loyalty to employees, tactful
discipline, and sympathetic help with personal problems was the lowest. Lord (2002) contends that
retention and productivity of workers is a function of their motivation, his study examined the
productivity factors of 29 senior engineers’ accomplishment, job responsibility, recognition, has
the most relevant factors. That is why motivation specially as managerial task in the organizations
was studied heavily and rich literatures was found exploring the factors associated with motivation.
In Malaysia, Islam & Zaki Hj (2008) found an ordered set of motivating factors for employees
working in Malaysian organizations. Demographic factors like gender, race, education, etc. were
found to have impact on the ranking of the factors. Whitley (2002) has found that financial rewards
dose not last long as a motivation and it is not significate when measuring performance of the
employees. In a similar study conducted in Oman by Al Araimi (2002) concluded that there are
clear evidences that organizations are focusing on retaining motivated employees and there is a
clear impact of employees’ monthly salaries, and the positive employees’ relationship with their
colleagues have on motivation.

Many literatures discussed the differences and similarities between the public and private sectors
employees’ motivations factors, Posner and Schmidt (1996) found that achievement and self-
actualization common motivation factors in both sectors. Gabris and Simo (1995) confirmed the
same about job security. On the other side, Rainey (1982) found that private sector managers cared
more about monetary rewards compared to public sector.

According to Board (2007), tangible incentives are effective in increasing performance and quality
of tasks done in an organization. Employees are certainly closer to their organizations and perform
tasks with required specification if they receive a healthier reward. Yang (2011) also found out
that high salary plans have tremendous impact of on motivation of employees in an organization
in China. Chovwen and Ivensor (2009) conducted a research in Nigeria to find out the perceived
job insecurities and job motivation of female employees in banks. The most important finding of
the study was that job characteristics and organizational justice has a significant influence in
women’s perceived risk of losing job and motivation. Kubo and Saka (2002) conducted a research
on motivation of employees in Japanese financial sector. The aim of the paper was to find the
predictors of motivation in in Japanese financial sector. The researchers found out that there are
three positive and significant predictors of motivation that are monetary incentives, job autonomy
and human resource development. Al Araimi (2002) recommended managers to encourage
employees to have good relationships with their colleagues especially by teamwork.