CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Objective of the Study
The paper seeks to review the numerous published theories related to Organisational Commitment, Motivation, and Job Satisfaction. The concept, significance, and measurement of commitment will be presented in the first section. Motivation definition and characteristics will be stated at the beginning of the second section followed by nine typical motivation theories covering needs (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, 1954; ERG theory, 1972; achievement, 1967; Herzberg’s dual-factor theory, 1966; theory, 1960), cognitive (goal-setting, expectancy theory, equity theory), and integration of motivation theories. Finally, conceptual and empirical work on Job Satisfaction is examined in terms of the association with Organisational Commitment. In addition, personal factors to be investigated in this study will be presented in order to find if there is any influence on organisational commitment. The purpose of reviewing all the theories is to define an analytical approach to the research question in the following chapter.
The findings of this project will help senior management to develop an understanding of the drivers of Organisational Commitment amongst employees in CIES, and provide the employer with new information regarding employees’ psychological behaviour and attitudes to work. Furthermore, these findings will be helpful for CIES in establishing a long-term Human Resource Strategy.
Background to the Study
People management is an important aspect of organisational processes. This emanated from the recognition that the human resources of an organisation and the organisation itself are synonymous. A well-managed business organisation normally considers the average employees as the primary source of productivity gains. These organisations consider employees rather than capital as the core foundation of the business and contributors to firm development. To ensure the achievement of firm goals, the organisation creates an atmosphere of commitment and cooperation for its employees through policies that facilitate employee satisfaction. Satisfaction of human resource finds close links to highly motivated employees. Motivated employees then develop loyalty or commitment to the firm resulting to greater productivity and lower turnover rates.
However, even with the widespread recognition of the importance of facilitating the relationship between job satisfaction and motivation in facilitating organisational commitment, there are varying perspectives on the means of doing this. The earliest strategy is to use wage increases to link job satisfaction and motivation to organisational commitment (Hill & Wiens-Tuers 2002). With the recognition that this is not enough to bring about motivation expressed in job satisfaction, other perspectives emerged giving particular importance to the training and skills development of employees (Woodruff 2000) applied through the underlying principle of continuous organisational learning. Since this covers only an aspect of human resource management, a holistic approach emerged that targets the development of a certain quality of employment life (Champion-Hughes 2001) that covers fair wages, benefits, other employment conditions, and career development to support the facilitation of motivation and job satisfaction directed towards organisational commitment.
This means that achieving motivation and job satisfaction to develop organisational commitment is not simple or easy and works according to the context of individual firms. Although, there are best practices within industries, it is up to the individual organisations to determine which human resource strategies meet its needs and objectives. To determine the manner that individual industries develop and achieve organisational commitment through job satisfaction and motivation, the study will investigate in-depth the human resource strategies of CIES in China.
Brief Outline of Key Ideas and Methods
Management of people at work constitutes a core aspect of the management of the organization. Understanding the critical significance of people, as comprising the business organisation, amounts to the recognition of the parallelism between the organisation and its human element. An organisation is deemed to be well managed when it considers average employees as root contributors of quality outputs or gains. Effective organisations focus on employees more than capital investments as the core source of improvement. The effectiveness of organisations depends on the extent that it accomplishes its objectives through collaborative processes fuelled by the satisfaction and commitment of employees. To achieve employee satisfaction that would in turn influence commitment, the organisation needs to implement and develop strong and effective motivational activities and systems influencing the organisation top-down and horizontally spanning the difference business units or departments.
Motivation
(1998) conceptualises motivation as the process starting with the existence of physiological deficiencies or needs that influence behaviours directed towards goal incentives. Understanding motivation involves the dynamics of the deficiencies or needs, drives and drivers, and incentives or rewards (1995). Motivation could also be understood as the human psychological state contributing to the level of individual commitment (1991; 1997) covering the causes, channels and factors sustaining human behaviour in a manner that is committed to a particular direction. Armstrong (1999) add that motivation is goal directed so that this cannot be applied outside of the organisational goals. A number of fundamental assumptions of motivation are important in people management. First is motivation as a positive or good thing because it develops positive feelings and perceptions of employees. Second is motivation as an influence on employee performance. Third is motivation that runs out and needs regular replenishment or updating. Fourth is motivation as a potent tool for managers in people management.
A number of theories exists providing models in understanding motivation. These theories fall under categorizations, including 1) needs theories of 2) affective-arousal theory of 3) cognitive theories, and 4) people management theory of McGregor.
Needs theories of motivation focus on the ability of business firms to support the quest of individuals for needs fulfilment, as effective motivation strategies. Maslow (1954) provide that individuals are motivated by the extent that needs are met according to the hierarchy of needs [See Figure 1 in Appendix]. The lowest level of need comprise physiological needs while the highest level of need is for self-actualisation. In people management, motivation involves the provision of these needs, with higher-level needs comprising effective motivation. (1966) further developed the hierarchy of needs by incorporating the two-factor theory providing that on one hand, business firms can introduce factors called motivators such as recognition and promotion that motivate employees to improve their performance or output while on the other hand, business firms could introduce other factors termed as hygiene factors such as safe working policies with the effect of de-motivating employees when these are not present in the organisation but do not necessarily motivate employees to improve their performance. (1972) also expanded the hierarchy of needs by introducing the ERG theory, which provides that the needs of individuals can be generally classified into needs for existence such as food or safety, relatedness such as self-esteem, and growth incorporating self-actualisation.
Affective-arousal theories focus on the means and ways of influencing employee attitude and behaviour of employees towards the goal of the firm to increase output and improve performance. (1967) introduced another perspective to motivation, one that focuses on the non-material needs of individuals that influence behaviour. Members of the business organisation have three major needs, which are the need for achievement, power and affiliation but the extent that the quest for the achievement of these needs influence behaviour differs. In people management, motivation comprises opportunities and activities that allow employees to achieve these needs through recognition, promotion, and assignment in working special groups.
Cognitive theories provide an understanding of motivation by linking individual, job and organisational characteristics. Equity theory (1965;1966; 1979) provides that individual motivation depend upon their relative views of fairness social relationships and exchanges. If an employment relations and exchanges are deemed fair, then this influences the motivation of employees to fulfil their work. Goal-setting theory (Locke 1968;1974; 1986) provides that the behaviours of individuals are understood through the two cognitions of values and intentions. Values reflect the desires of individuals that then translate into intentions expressed through actual behaviour. Performance is a reflection of the conscious intentions of employees. Motivation involves the provision of incentives targeting the desired of individuals such as material success that would be reflected in hard work to receive a salary increase or promotion. Expectancy theory (Georgopoulos et al. 1957; Vroom 1964; Campbell et al. 1970) [See Figure 2 in Appendix] explains that motivation is understood through expectancies, which is the conviction that acting in a certain way would lead to particular outcomes and valence, which is the direction and extent of belief. In the business setting, motivation is achieved when employee have strong expectations of arriving at the desired outcome such as promotion or personal satisfaction from doing a task or taking a responsibility.
People management theories focus on the dynamics of relationship between manager and employees and among employees in understanding motivation. McGregor (1960) introduced another perspective of motivation by focusing on the general characteristics of managers and employees together with the specific motivating strategies in these two scenarios. Theory X involves the first scenario of employees as lazy and constantly seeking work avoidance. Management need to supervise employees and introduce a system of control and assessment within a narrow hierarchical structure. An incentive program becomes necessary to draw employees to take responsibility and accomplish their tasks. In this same scenario, managers harbour distrust of employees so that the leadership is authoritarian based on punitive threats. This scenario offers motivational problems. Theory Y views employees as self-motivated and autonomous and managers believe that when given opportunities employees would accept the chance to express innovativeness and creativity in new or existing responsibilities or tasks. This scenario provides a better motivational situation. To achieve the second scenario in business organisations, managers need to understand the perspectives of employees to assess their work attitudes and behaviour and motivate change through appropriate incentives.
Singly, these theories offer valuable insight to the study of motivation. However, since these theories focus on different aspects of motivation, it is important to merge these theories to derive a model that provides an encompassing perspective of motivation. One way of integrating motivation theories is by considering that individual needs cover material and non-material demands so that effective motivation strategies incorporates the achievement of these two needs classification. Another way of integrating motivation is by considering multiple perspectives in the determination of motivational activities including employers and employees or managers and employees to provide means and venues of drawing mutual satisfaction.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction could be defined as the positive or pleasurable emotional state of an employee emanating from the performance appraisal of completed tasks ( 1976). This could also be understood as the perception of employees on the extent that their work provides things considered as important (1987). Job satisfaction could also be the understood through its three dimensions. First dimension is job satisfaction as emotional reaction to a work situation (1998) making this observable through inferences. Second dimension is job satisfaction as the extent that outcomes meet or go beyond expectations (1998) so that employees who received lesser incentives even with perceived equal contribution as other employees then the employee would harbour negative perceptions of the work, mangers, other employees and the business firm. If employees perceive the incentives received by other employees as equitable based on comparative efforts and performance, then the employee would feel positively about work, co-employees and business firm. Third dimension is job satisfaction as expressed through attitudes constituting effective responses to motivation (1998). Small salary or limited opportunities for promotion would draw employees to spend time thinking about how to gain more money more than effectively fulfilling their tasks.
Organisational Commitment
Organisational commitment can be defined as the attachment or loyalty of employees to the company encompassing three components, which are 1) alignment with the goals, values and beliefs of the organisation; 2) desire to be aligned or to form part of the organisation; and 3) voluntary display of effort and contribution to the organisation (1982). Another definition of organisational commitment is the attitude expressing employee loyalty as well the process through which loyal employees express their concern and responsibility over the accomplishment of tasks and the fulfilment of the goals of the organisation through their contributions. A number of factors then determine organisational commitment including: 1) personal factors such as age, gender, tenure and disposition; 2) organisational factors such as leadership style, work policies, and job design; and 3) non-organisational factors such as the existence of alternative position or jobs. (1996) Organisational commitment has three dimensions. First dimension is the strong desire to continue membership in the business organisation. Second dimension is the willingness to exercise great effort for the achievement of task and organisational goals. Third dimension is the belief in the acceptability and validity of organisational values goals and values. (1995) From these, common conceptualisation of organisational commitment is loyalty and voluntary commitment and action for the benefit of the organisation. The conceptualisation of organisational commitment is also multi-dimensional so that there arises three components of organisational commitment such as affective commitment, which is the psychological connection to the organisation; continuance commitment, which covers the costs of leaving the business organisation; and normative commitment, which involves the perceived duty to continue working for the organisation.
Based on the conceptualisations of motivation, job satisfaction and organisational commitment, the motivation existing in the organisation constitutes the impetus for job satisfaction. Motivated employees are likely to experience satisfactory and even high levels of satisfaction in their work. Job satisfaction then influences organisational commitment expressed through loyalty and voluntary maintenance of concern over the fulfilment of the goals of the organisation. Employees with high levels of satisfaction tend to develop loyalty to the business organisation. The study seeks to investigate these relationships in the case of CIES in China with these conceptualisations as foundation of the study.
Brief Outline of the Order of Presentations
The dissertation is organised into five chapters starting with the chapter 1 or introduction covering the objectives and background of the study together with a brief outline of the concepts investigated in the study. Chapter 2 or review of current state of knowledge looked into the existing literature closely related to the topic of study and methodologies used in related studies as guide in deciding on the case study method. Chapter 3 or methodology discussed the methods and approaches used in the paper. Chapter 4 or analysis and detail of actual work covered data presentation and analysis. Chapter 5 or conclusion discussed the generalisations derived from the data analysis, limitations of the study, and the recommended areas for future research.
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF CURRENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE (20 pages)
Review of Relevant Literature
Critical selection of key methods and insights
Review of previous applications of key methods
CHAPTER 3: OUTLINE OF METHODS AND TASKS (10 pages)
Research Approach
Integration of Quantitative and Qualitative Methods
Data Requirement
Primary Data
Secondary Data
Data Collection Methods
Interview using a Questionnaire
Research Issues and Limitations
Validity and Reliability
Ethical Issues
CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND DETAIL OF ACTUAL WORK (20 pages)
Data Presentation
Data Analysis
Interpretation of Statistical Test
Implications to the Research Problem
Implications to the Research Objectives
Synthesis
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION (10 pages)
Conclusion
Limitations of the Study
Areas for Future Research.
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