Motivation and Psychological Contact on Media Company in China - Research Paper Example

China Digital Media Corporation Introduction Motivation is the inner force that drives employees in an organization to attain personal and the organizational goals. In the current rapidly changing workplace motivated employees boosts an organization’s survival. The major issue among the managers and the human resources management is how to successfully motivate employees (Locke and Latham, 2004). Motivation can either be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation exists within an individual and the drive mainly is one’s interest in the task assigned. Extrinsic motivation is external and involves employee’s rewards such as money and grades. Psychological contract refers to the existing mutual beliefs, perceptions and informal obligations between the employee and an employer. It is different from the formal written employment contract which generally identifies mutual duties and responsibilities. This paper seeks an understanding on the motivation and psychological contract among employees in China Digital Media Corporation. China is in the process of transforming its broadcasting policy that includes; conversion of television services from analogue to digital broadcasting system nationwide, improvement of the broadcasting policy and administration, reorganizing different companies which belong to the state into corporations which are market driven, and allowing foreign investors to participate in some specific areas in the media industry. Considering the above changes, China Digital Media Corporation main focus is to capitalize on the opportunities resulting from the expansion of broadcasting media and cable TV industry in china. To successfully attain this, the media company will need to motivate its employees and have an appropriate psychological contract in place. The workforce plays a key role in the achievement of established goals of the company. According to Costigan, et. al. (1998), motivation is a cognitive decision making process which initiates, energizes, directs and maintains a behaviour which is goal oriented. Motivational process begins with physiological or psychological need through which behaviour or drive aimed at a goal is activated. Managers, expect increased qualitative productivity from their employees. Employee’s behaviour is greatly influenced by their working environment. Individuals are motivated to work by different motivational factors. These include monetary factors such as; salaries and wages, bonus and incentives. There are also other non-monetary factors which include; an employee status or job title, appreciation and recognition, delegation of authority, proper working conditions, job security, workers participation, cordial relations, good superiors, provision of training, proper job placements and promotions, good performance feedback, provision of welfare facilities and flexibility in the working hours. Motivation is of great importance to an organization in that; it increases efficiency, reduces absenteeism and employee turnover, improves the corporate image, improves employee’s morale, reduces accidents and facilitates initiative and innovation. China Digital Media Corporation will have to consolidate different motivational theories and models that influence employee’s motivation. Employees have varied needs depending on their demographics, circumstances, aspirations, affairs and personalities. Hygiene factors are important in that they eliminate job dissatisfaction. Employees in the media company expect to work in an environment that is conducive, pleasant, respectful, productive, and promotes teamwork. For the media company to boost employee’s motivation, there has to be motivators such as interesting work, recognition, sense of achievement and advancements. In addition, employees should be treated fairly and be rewarded accordingly for their efforts. Perception of inequity among employees in the company results in poor inputs, and even others leaving the organization. Supervisors should also be keen to provide performance feedback which is timely and constructive. Organizations boost their competitive advantage by improving the motivation of its employees. In the academic spheres, work motivation interest can be attributed to the earlier work of Taylor on scientific management and the studies of Hawthorne. According to scientific management, employees are mainly motivated through monetary rewards and they always seek to capitalize on their job’s financial returns. Hawthorne studies on the other hand introduced the human relations approach to motivation. This approach insisted that non monetary rewards such as a social environment are the main source of motivation to employees in an organization. Moreover, it adds that motivation to hard work results from employee’s favorable attitude (Hale, 1998). The major motivational theories are classified into; the process theories and the content theories. Content theories mainly focus on how individual’s behaviour is energized and initiated. They include; Maslow Hierarchy of Needs Theory, McClelland’s Need Theory and Herzberg Two-Factor Model. Process theories on the other hand, focus on employee’s behaviour when subjected to external motivation. They include; Expectancy Theory, and Equity Theory. Content theories involve mainly the internal factors which energize an individual’s behaviour. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs Theory is among the top famous content theory. Its focus mainly is five sets of basic needs which employees try to satisfy. They include; physiological, security, affiliation, esteem, and self-actualization. According to Maslow, these needs are in a hierarchy with physiological needs being in the lowest level and self-actualization needs being at the top. Employees are committed to fulfill their needs in the lower level before focusing on the needs on the top level. Therefore, organizations should motivate their employees through establishment of different strategies and programs which helps them to meet the hierarchical needs. The critics of Maslow theory insists that individuals needs are innate hence; social integration and culture are rated in a lower position. They also argue that the individuals needs do not exist in a hierarchical manner (Benkhoff, 1996). Regardless of the critic’s argument, the relevance of Maslow theory to employee motivation still remains effective when used together with other motivation theories (Ramlall, 2004). The second content theory is McClellands Need Theory. It mainly focuses on three major needs which include achievement, power, and affiliation. Achievement need involves employees drive to achieve, excel and to succeed. An individual who has strong achievement motive is mostly; motivated by challenges, gets satisfaction from success and his or her personal competence limits remains sensible. The need for power involves the desire to influence the behaviour of others in order to achieve one’s goals. Affiliation on the other hand, is an individual’s desire for activities and social relationships which are close, and through which the individual gains satisfaction from acceptance, respect and interaction with others. The third content theory is Herzbergs Two Factor Theory of motivation. It mainly focuses on two factors that result in job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. The two factors are best known as motivator factors and hygiene factors (Bassett-Jones and Lloyd, 2005). Motivators boost the levels of job satisfaction and employees motivation. These factors include; achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, growth and the work itself. Hygiene factors on the other hand just eliminate job dissatisfaction but do not boost the motivation and performance of an employee. Hygiene factors include; salary, proper working conditions, good supervision, good relationship with the supervisor and colleagues, high status and security. Employees are motivated by job enrichment because it maximizes on different motivators like responsibility, achievement, recognition and growth. The second group of theories is the Process theories. They mainly focus on how individuals make certain choices with consideration on the goals desired. In the process theories setting, an individual chooses the goals to achieve and how to attain the goals. These theories include; the Equity Theory. This theory suggests that perception of unfair social exchange relationship outcomes and rewards motivates individuals to act. Greater inequity makes and individual more distressed hence, becomes aggressive in order to restore equity. An individual gets to know what makes up fair outcomes through the process of socialization and through comparison of other individuals inputs and outputs. The main concern of individuals is not only on the total rewards they get for their effort, but also involves the relationship of what they get and that of others (Ramlall, 2004). The second kind of process theory is Expectancy theory. According to this theory, the motivation of individuals greatly rely on the outcomes valence, the expectancy for ones effort to result in superior performance and the performance instrumentality in giving rise to valued outcomes (Coyle-Shapiro and Shore, 2007). This theory holds that individual’s behaviour is driven by three factors which include; valence, instrumentality and expectancy. Vroom argues that psychological interaction exists on employee’s beliefs concerning expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. In this way they establish a motivational force such that an employee will put in effort to create pleasure and avoid pain. Motivation is a product and not the total of all the three factors. Hence, if expectancy theory factors are low there would be minimal or non-existent motivating force. Porter later improved expectancy theory into a work motivation model. His main focus was to identify the source of valence and expectancies and to introduce links among effort, performance and job satisfaction. Psychological contract involves beliefs that have their basis on the expressed promises concerning an agreement between an individual and the organization. It differs from a formal contract in that the perception and expectation of an employee form its basis and can either be shared or not. An employees psychological contract contains promises which can be communicated explicitly or implicitly through different organizational procedures and practices, oral discussions or in a written document (Robinson, 1996). Employees are motivated by psychological contracts to accomplish all the commitments made to the to the organization employers when they confidently believe that the employers will act and meet their end of the bargain (Grant, 1999). Psychological contracts consist of three major types which include relational, transactional and hybrid. In a relational psychological contract, employees are loyal, look for social support, and are involved in commitments that are open ended and long-term. In most cases, employees prefer employers who give a relational psychological contract than those who offer a transactional contract (Guest, 1998). Transactional psychological contract involves job functions and responsibilities which are particular and are mainly short term. It has its basis on monetary exchanges promises and is subject to constant renegotiations. There is a likelihood of a transactional relationship being terminated immediately by both the employees and the employer if it does not fulfill their needs. A transactional psychological contract can come up out of a relational psychological contract which is mismanaged or violated. The final psychological contract type is the hybrid which is also referred to as the balanced form. It mainly consists of commitments that are long-term, mutual concerns and involves high performance outputs and renegotiations. Psychological contract has six main features which include; first, it is a voluntary choice, an employee gets involved in the psychological contract voluntarily and will be motivated to accomplish his commitments in the organization. Secondly is belief in mutual agreement, psychological contract is based mainly on employee’s perceptions and proper understanding of the terms and conditions. The third feature is incompleteness. In most cases psychological contract is not complete at the beginning of an employment relationship. Changes are made over time on the contract depending on an employee’s experience. Fourth, it involves multiple contract makers; an employee’s perception on what the appropriate psychological contract is suppose to be is influenced by various sources of information in the organization. It includes those from the top management, direct supervisor, colleague, and the human resource management. The fifth feature involves the management of losses in the case of contracts failure. Violation and breaching of psychological contract results mainly in losses. Employee’s motivation is affected by how the losses are managed. The sixth feature is that the contract acts as an employment relationship model. A permanent mental model of an employment relationship is created by the psychological contract. In addition, it provides understanding of what the future holds and guidance to efficient action with less need for practice. Psychological contract violation is mainly experienced by employees when they feel betrayed. This happens especially when they perceive that the organization has not fulfilled the promised obligations. It is common mostly in the current environment which is dynamic and global, where organizations are greatly involved in corporate mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing, downsizing, and restructuring. These current trends cause difficulty for the organizations to accomplish their obligations. According to Robbins, (2003), difference exists between perceived breach and violation. Research reveals that psychological contract violations results in employees having strong feelings of betrayal, anger, and resentment. This eventually results in reduced trust of the employee on the employer, lower job satisfaction, employees withholding contribution, intentions of the employees to leave the organization (Dabos and Rousseau, 2004). Robinson (1996) adds that violations of psychological contract have permanent impact on employee’s contributions. Hence, for an organization to be able to motivate and retain their employees, it should have a proper understanding on ways of reducing violations incidences or how to manage the when it cannot be avoided. Psychological contract has been widely criticized that its study is mainly based on an employee perspective. Hence, its main focus is the employment relationship at the individual level that exists between the employer and the employee (Cullinane and Dundon, 2006). The four aspects of the contract have also been criticized. The use of contractual concept has been questioned. It is perceived that mixed messages and divergent expectations exist in the delivery. This implies that employee’s expectations may be unrealistic or false rather than that the employer did not fulfill their obligations. The contract is also inappropriate in that the employer may change the initial psychological contract according to their discretion and expect employees to accept the altered terms and conditions. In most cases violations of psychological contract are blamed mainly on the external market conditions. It could also result from structural factors and institutional inertia influences. Finally, powerful sources of influence with great potential which could be of help to construct the psychological contract of employees have not been utilised. The influential sources include; internal sources like the management, and the external sources which include the extensive socio-economic factors which influences the value and judgment system of the employees. The employer’s perspectives have remained unexplored. Different studies focuses on psychological contract from the perspective of the employee. There is inadequate information on psychological contract concerning the reaction of an employer’s perception that commitments have not been accomplished by the employees. (Cullinane and Dundon, 2006). Psychological contract has to be restructured in order to become a viable model with capabilities to understand both employer and employee complex and uneven social interactions. Conclusion China Digital Media Corporation top management should prioritize on Motivation and psychological contract. These are the key factors to be consider by the company as it focus is to capitalize on the opportunities resulting from the expansion of broadcasting media and cable TV industry in china. The media company will have to motivate its employees and have an appropriate psychological contract in place. The workforce plays a key role in the achievement of established goals of the company. The Management team in the company expects increased qualitative productivity from their employees. They should consider the fact that employee’s behaviour in the media company is greatly influenced by their working environment. Individuals are motivated to work by different motivational factors. These include monetary factors such as; salaries and wages, bonus and incentives. There are also other non-monetary factors which include; an high status or job title, appreciation and recognition, delegation of authority, proper working conditions, job security, workers participation, cordial relations, good superiors, provision of training, proper job placements and promotions, good performance feedback, provision of welfare facilities and flexibility in the working hours. Motivation is of great importance to the media company in that it increases efficiency, reduces absenteeism and employee turnover, improves the corporate image, improves employee’s morale, reduces accidents and facilitates initiative and innovation. China Digital Media Corporation will have to consolidate different motivational theories and models that influence employee’s motivation. This way an appropriate culture of motivation will be established in the company. Psychological contract is also significant to the media company. It involves beliefs that have their basis on the expressed promises concerning an agreement between an individual and the organization. Employees will be motivated by psychological contracts to accomplish all the commitments made to the to the organization’s employers when they confidently believe that the employers will act and meet their end of the bargain. Bibliography Baard, P, P 2002,Intrinsic Need Satisfaction in Organizations: A Motivational Basis of Success in For-Profit and Not-For-Profit Settings”,The University of Rochester Press, New York. Bandura, A1997, Self Efficacy:The Exercise of Control,Freeman,New York. 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