What factors affect employee motivation engineering departmentof a high technology company

- RESEARCH PROJECT (BMBR5103) WHAT FACTORS AFFECT EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION AT ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF A HIGH TECHNOLOGY COMPANY? STUDENT’S FULL NAME STUDENT ID INTAKE ADVISOR’S NAME & TITLE : PHAN VIET SANG : CGS00064981 : MARCH 2016 : Dr BUI PHI HUNG August 2017 - Advisor’s assessment Advisor’s signature - CERTIFICATION I certify that this research project has been written by myself The research of the project has not been submitted for any degree, and it is not being currently submitted for any other degrees To the best of my knowledge, I conceived that any help received in preparing the research project and all the reference sources have been acknowledged The study in this project does not necessarily reflect the views of Open University Malaysia school Author Phan Viet Sang i - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr Bui Phi Phung as the best lecturer who had taught me in the past time about the subject “Business Research Method” Your thoughtful and patient supervision have inspired me in completing this research project My love to my wife and family who are always with me last months for spiritual support My appreciation to colleagues in company and classmates in MBA course who supported me in the survey and topic discussion Thank you! Phan Viet Sang ii - ABSTRACT This thesis studies the factors that affect employee motivation in engineering department of a High Technology Company using descriptive approach by survey questionnaire The thesis applies the two factor theory of Frederick Herzberg to evaluate the extrinsic factors and intrinsic factors that affect the employee motivation The two factors are called hygiene factors and motivators The study also evaluate the employee motivation to their performance The first research questions looked at the extrinsic factors affecting the level of employee motivation The second research questions looked at the intrinsic factors influencing employee motivation Then, the third research questions addressed the impact of employee motivation on the level of employee performance With 107 respondents answering the survey and through correlation analysis, the findings indicated that leadership style, effectiveness of information, job enrichment, and quality of working environment were the most important extrinsic factors that affects employee motivation The study also identified work meaningfulness, trust, training and development, and job significant contribution were the most highly cited intrinsic factors influencing employee motivation The study found that most respondents felt the absenteeism has correlation with turnover rate Levels of stress are correlated to productivity level Turnover rate, absenteeism, employee productivity and employee turnover affects employee motivation The research concluded that motivating employees is an important factor on employee performance It’s important to know which factors motivate the employees in a given organization so that the management can put more emphasis on Recommendations indicated that the organization should effectively exploit the extrinsic factors influencing employee motivation as a strategy for establishing a positive employee motivation Leaders can use both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators in tandem to optimize performance in the workplace and to improve employee engagement iii - Key words: Herzberg’s two factor theory; extrinsic factors; intrinsic factors; hygiene factors; motivators; employee motivation; employee performance iv - TABLE OF CONTENT CHAPTER ONE – INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background 1.2 The research question 1.3 Research Aims and Objectives 1.4 Justification of the Study 1.5 Limitations of the Study 1.6 The Structure of the Paper 1.7 Conclusion CHAPTER TWO – LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Motivation definition 2.3 Engineering and Engineer definition 2.4 Motivation theory 2.4.1 Needs theories of motivation 2.4.2 Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs 2.4.3 Frederick Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory 10 2.4.3a Motivation factors and its subcomponents 17 2.4.3b Hygiene factors and its subcomponents 18 2.5 Four generations in the workplace 20 2.6 Factors affecting employee motivation in the workplace 21 2.6.1 Extrinsic factors that affect employee motivation 22 2.6.2 Intrinsic factors that affect employee motivation 23 v - CHAPTER THREE - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction 25 3.2 Research Paradigm and Philosophies 25 3.3 Research Design 25 3.4 Population and Sampling Design 25 3.4.1 Population 25 3.4.2 Sampling Design 25 3.5 Reliability of Study 26 3.6 Data Collection Methods 29 3.7 Research Procedures 29 3.8 Data Analysis Methods 29 3.9 Chapter Summary 30 CHAPTER FOUR – DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 4.1 Introduction 31 4.2 Response Rate 31 4.3 Extrinsic factors that affect employee motivation 31 4.4 Extrinsic Factors that affect employee motivation 38 4.5 Impact of Employee Motivation on Performance 43 4.6 Correlation Analysis Results 47 4.7 Chapter summary 49 CHAPTER FIVE – DISCUSSIONS OF KEY RESULTS 5.1 Introduction 51 5.2 Summary 51 5.2 Discussion of Key Results 51 vi - CHAPTER SIX – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 Conclusions 53 6.2 Recommendations 53 REFERENCES 55 Appendix – Questionnaire 57 vii - LIST OF TABLES Page Table 2.1: Motivational factors and their sub-division 22 Table 2.2: Intrinsic factors that affect employee motivation 24 Table 3.1: The alpha coefficients for the variables 26 Table 3.2: Cronbach's Alpha of Extrinsic factors 27 Table 3.3: Cronbach's Alpha of Intrinsic factors 28 Table 3.4: Cronbach's Alpha of Employee motivation 28 Table 4.1: Descriptive statistics of extrinsic factors 31 Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of intrinsic factors 38 Table 4.3: Descriptive statistics of Employee Motivation on Performance 44 Table 4.4 Correlation among Extrinsic Factors 48 Table 4.5 Correlation among Intrinsic Factors 49 Table 4.6: Correlation among employee motivation factors 49 viii - Question D - Motivation affects Employee safety practice 28 30 25 23 20 20 24.3% 21.5% 18.7% 15 30.0% 26 26.2% 25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10 10 10.0% 9.3% 5.0% 0.0% STRONGLY DISAGREE DISAGREE NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE Frequency Q.D AGREE STRONGLY AGREE Percent Q.D Figure 4.23 Employee Motivation Impacts on the Employee Safety Practice 4.5.5 Employee Stress is Associated with Job or Workplace Motivation 52 respondents (48.6%) and 28 respondents (26.2%) indicated that they agreed and strongly agreed respectively that employee stress level is associated with job or workplace motivation Question E - Motivation affects levels of stress 60 60.0% 52 50 50.0% 48.6% 40 40.0% 28 30 20 10 26.2% 30.0% 20.0% 12 11.2% 10 10.0% 9.3% 4.7% STRONGLY DISAGREE DISAGREE 0.0% NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE Frequency Q.E AGREE STRONGLY AGREE Percent Q.E Figure 4.24 Employee Stress is Associated with Job or Workplace Motivation 4.5.6 Unionization Need in Organizations is Attributable to Motivation Twenty-six respondents (24.3%) indicated that they agreed, and thirty-four respondents (31.8%) indicated that they strongly agreed that the need for unionization in the organization was attributable to motivation 46 - Question F - Need of unionization 40 34 31.8% 35 30 26 22 25 12 10 30.0% 25.0% 24.3% 20.6% 20.0% 20 15 35.0% 13 11.2% 15.0% 12.1% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% STRONGLY DISAGREE DISAGREE NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE Frequency Q.F AGREE STRONGLY AGREE Percent Q.F Figure 4.25 Unionization Need in Organizations is Attributable to Motivation 4.5.7 Employee new Skill Acquisition rates is Attributable to Motivation 26 respondents (24.3%) and 20 respondents (18.7%) indicated they agreed and strongly agreed respectively that new skills acquisition by an employee was attributable to motivation levels Question G - New Job Learning Rate 30 25 20 15 30.0% 26 22 20.6% 18 24.3% 21 19.6% 25.0% 20 18.7% 16.8% 20.0% 15.0% 10 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% STRONGLY DISAGREE DISAGREE NEITHER AGREE NOR DISAGREE Frequency Q.G AGREE STRONGLY AGREE Percent Q.G Figure 4.26 Employee new Skill Acquisition rates is Attributable to Motivation 4.6 Correlation Analysis Results 4.6.1 Correlation among Extrinsic Factors The table below shows that there exist a correlation among the extrinsic factors Correlation between (5) Quality of working environment job enrichment and (9) 47 - nature of job itself was the highest (r=0.995; p