Motivation Theories in Promoting the Employees - Research Proposal Example

HR ment The objective of this research study is to examine motivation theories and how they could be helpful in promoting the retention ofemployees at an IT firm in Doha. Buchen (2006) has defined HR professionals as individuals who are placed in a leadership position in the process of carrying out their duties for recruitment and retention of employees. Leadership is vital within an organization and has been defined as “a dynamic process at work in a group whereby one individual over a particular period of time, and in a particular organisational context, influences the other group members to commit themselves freely to the achievement of group tasks or goals.” (Cole, 1997:49). In this way, the nature of leadership within an organization may contribute significantly to the manner in which the organization functions because the leader influences other members of the group to work towards the achievement of group goals. In the context of examining motivation of employees at an IT firm in Doha, it must be noted that cultural and religious factors play a significant role in influencing motivation of employees and organizational performance. Budhwar and Mellahi (2006:6) have pointed out that Arabic countries are primarily masculine and conform to a hierarchical structure. Hence leadership would need to adopt a contingency approach, such that a productive balance is achieved between the requirements of each task, the team needs, the organisational climate and the situational, contextual pressures. According to this approach, a leader would need to modify his or her approach to adapt to the contextual situation. For example, in a primarily masculine context such as that which exists in the Middle East, leadership by women would not be acceptable. Additionally, male leaders would also need to be sensitive to the cultural and religious needs of their primarily Muslim workforce and must adapt to those needs. According to Peddler et al (1994, cited in Cole, 1997:318), effective managers must possess “social skills and abilities, “emotional resilience”, “continuing sensitivity to events” and “proactivity, i.e, the inclination to respond purposefully to events”. This corroborates the application of a contingency approach to management wherein a leader in a management position in the Middle East. Since HRM theories have primarily been developed and tested primarily within a Western environment, their applicability in the Middle East may be limited within the Arab environment. The problem that arises when western values as embodied in motivational theories are introduced in Middle Eastern culture is the conflict between Western values and the cultural values of the Middle Eastern countries. For instance, when Saudi Arabia joined the World Trade Organization in October 2005, it resulted in a conflict between Western cultural elements imported into the country versus the national Saudi Arabian culture revolving around Islamic culture and teachings (Idris, 2007). The situation in Doha is similar to Saudi Arabia, where employees cannot be provided direct feedback on their work performance, especially if it is negative because this could potentially damage the self esteem of the Arabic employees. On this basis, the customary practice in Saudi Arabia is to provide feedback to employees by using an intermediary in order to avoid conflict and the possibility of sending the wrong message (Gopalakrishnan, 2002 cited in Idris, 2007). A similar contextual situation also exists in Doha, where the Islamic culture conflicts with the traditional Western practice of providing direct feedback to employees on their performance, whether positive or negative. HRM leadership therefore needs to be oriented towards refining traditional Western feedback practices to make it less direct. Another aspect that must be borne in mind is that many of the employees in IT companies are expatriates, because Islamic employees appear to prefer managerial positions as opposed to technical positions. (Idris, 2007). When the performance of these Islamic employees are compared with the expatriates, it would immediately be perceived as favouring foreigners and not necessarily promoting the interests of the local population, Culture plays a specific role in the functioning of Islamic organizations and influences the extent to which an enterprise is likely to be successful or fail (Khalifa and Aspinwall, 2001). Since most of the employees in these IT firms are comprised of expatriates, a conflict arises between rule based expectations which are a part of Western culture and relations based expectations of the Islamic culture. A differential therefore arises between Western and Islamic employees in terms of the expectations from relationships, for example, as cited earlier, in the use of intermediaries to resolve conflict in the Islamic culture. Relationships play an important role in the Islamic environment; hence HRM strategies must be devised in such a manner that they take into account the cultural mores and practices in the Islamic environment. For example, the relations based expectations that are prevalent in the Islamic culture would predispose Islamic employees to expect certain benefits from the employer owing to mutual relationships existing between them on the grounds of religion, origin, and social position or otherwise. But from a profitability point of view and because expatriates are more prevalent as employees, this creates a differential among Arabic and expatriate employees, because the former are more likely to enjoy higher pay and benefits as compared to Islamic employees. These are factors that affect the levels of motivation and require the HR leadership to recognize the underlying needs of employees in order to enhance levels of motivation. McClelland has proposed that employees are motivated if three kinds of needs are satisfied. i.e., (a) the need for achievement, (b) the need for affiliation and (c) the need for power. (Cole, 1997:77). According to McClelland, the need for achievement is the most important among the three and needs to be adequately satisfied if the employee is to remain motivated. Herzberg has set out a list of factors that lead to job satisfaction and includes achievement as one of those factors. Other factors include company policy and administration, supervision, work conditions, relationship with peers, salary, status and security (Cole, 1997:78). When viewed in the context of the relationship based expectations of Arab employees, it appears likely that Arab employees would feel that their achievements are inferior as compared to the expatriate employees who are paid higher salaries and offered better incentives due to the knowledge and skills they possess. Moreover, since the organizational environment is hierarchical and masculine, this poses a further problem in adapting Western HRM practices per se into the IT environment in Doha and existing theories and practices may need to be adapted to conform to the existing patterns in the Islamic environment. The level of motivation is significant in the extent to which it influences the retention of employees. Highly motivated employees are likely to remain with their organization. In the Arab context however, directly applying western theories of motivation may not be as effective as desired. HR managers may need to refine and adapt their leadership techniques in such a manner that they are able to achieve the goal of successfully motivating and retaining employees. The problem that is posed by this study and will be solved is therefore: How can employees in Doha be successfully retained by an IT firm? Since not many studies have been conducted on HRM practices in the Middle East, this study will examine the problem from a fresh perspective. Theoretical assumptions and results from studies in the Western environment are likely to have limited applicability in the Middle East, although they will be somewhat useful to provide a general overall outlook. Therefore this study would need to actively examine the perceptions of Arab respondents in order to arrive at insights into what factors could motivate them. The choice of a survey questionnaire and interview has thus been made in this study specifically to elicit the views of respondents. The use of mixed methods would also allow incorporation of a qualitative approach to be combined with the primarily quantitative approach that will be used in this study. Since views of participants are subjective opinions and thoughts, they would need to be assessed qualitatively in order to determine what the overall average responses are. In order to make it easier to analyse the responses, it is however proposed to use the Likert style questionnaire, because of the facility of assigning a quantitative value to a qualitative opinion. The pragmatic approach has been selected as the methodology for this study specifically because (a) it allows the research problem to be the centre of focus and (b) both qualitative and quantitative methods can be used in analyzing data. While a quantitative approach would perceive reality as objective and singular, reality is subjective and multiple under a qualitative paradigm (Hussey and Hussey, 1997:48). It is based upon constructivism and multiple truths are assumed under this approach (Sale et al, 2002). Reality could assume various shapes and forms, because reality is viewed as being socially constructed rather than one objective reality. In this method of data analysis, the researcher and the object of study are linked with each other, and reality is derived from both researcher and participants. But one of the criticisms of the qualitative paradigm is the lower level of reliability and validity of the research results as compared to the quantitative paradigm, due to the element of subjectivity involved (Hussey and Hussey, 1997:57). Combining both approaches however would allow for amore comprehensive and valid assessment of the data. The Likert style questionnaire will contain statements to which participants will need to express their level of agreement. These responses will be graded on a level from 1 to 5 where 1 is the highest level of disagreement and 5 is the highest level of agreement. The Likert style questionnaire thus helps participants to not only express their subjective opinions but allows these responses to be assigned a numerical value that is simpler to quantify and thereby analyze. Since it is also proposed to supplement these responses with interviews with some of the respondents, this would allow for the collection of a large amount of data that would reflect the views of the respondents. Since there is a paucity of research into HRM practices in the Middle East, data can best be collected through an examination into the views of the respondents. These responses would help to elucidate whether or not employees are being adequately motivated. It would help elicit their levels of satisfaction with the kind of benefits and rewards that they are being offered. It would also help to elicit the views of participants about the extent to which their other needs are being satisfied, especially their needs for achievement and relationships with others. The extent to which the cultural ethos of employees is being met is yet another aspect that would be explored in the questionnaire. The method of analysis selected is also geared towards answering the research question of how specifically employees in Doha can be motivated. Assessing the correlations between variables would help to determine which factors are conducive to increased or decreased satisfaction on the job, while the use of chi square analysis is best suited to determining the significance of a particular variable in terms of how it contributes to motivation of the employees and thereby retention. This study is also likely to contribute some significant insights into what factors are likely to enhance of employees in the Middle East. There are also other places in a similar position as Doha, for example Dubai in the Middle East where expatriate populations present a competitive edge that could be perceived as detrimental to the local workforce. The limitation in the study is that only one IT company is being examined; however it is very likely that the insights derived from this study will have applicability in the Middle east context overall. References: * Cole, G.A., 1997. “Personnel Management”, (4th edn), Ashford Colour Press. * Budhwar, P. S and Mellahi, K., 2006. Managing Human resources in the Middle East, Routledge * Gopalakrishnan, R. (2002, April 8). Leading diverse teams. Business World, cited in Idris, 2007. * Hussey, J.I. and Hussey, Roger, 1997. “Paradigms: analyzing qualitative data”, London: Macmillan Press * Idris, Abdallah, 2007. “Cultural barriers to improved organizational performance in Saudi Arabia”, SAM Advanced Management Journal, March 22, 2007, Retrieved September 30, 2009 from: http://www.allbusiness.com/management/4508149-1.html * Sale, Joanna E.M., Lohfeld, Lynne H and Brazil, Kevin, 2002. “Revising the Quantitative-qualitative debate: implications for mixed methods research”, Quality and Quantity, 36: 43-53 Read More