Employee motivation: Addressing a crucial factor in your organization's performance

Kovach, Kenneth A.

doi:10.1002/ert.3910220209

Cited by 98 publications

(89 citation statements)

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“…He starts his book by stating that a number of surveys "confirm what almost every employee already knows: that recognition for a job well done is the top motivator of employee performance." 1 Other questionnaire studies reveal similar views among employees (Kovach, 1995;Wiley, 1997) and managers (Holton et al, 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Employee Recognition and Performance: A Field Experiment

et al. 2016

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Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW. Non-technical SummaryRecognition is an important source of employee motivation. But how should managers allocate recognition: should they praise all? Or should they recognize only extraordinary performances? This issue has not yet been addressed sufficiently. On the one hand, exclusive recognition might raise the performance of high-performers even further as they feel acknowledged and motivated by the public praise. However, this might come at the cost of discouraging and frustrating the non-recipients. On the other hand, non-recipients might respond positively as they are encouraged to catch up with the high-performers while the latter might rest on their laurels. We tackle this research question by conducting a field experiment which investigates the causal effect of recognition on work performance. We hired more than 300 workers for a three-hour data-entry job. After two hours of work, we randomized the provision of unannounced recognition by handing out a thank-you card, which was personally signed by the head of the research institute. By varying the number of recipients of the thank-you card we were able to study the effect of exclusive recognition. Depending on the treatment, we assigned a thank-you card either to the best one, the best three, or all workers of a work group. We find that recognition significantly increases subsequent performance, and in particular so if recognition is exclusively provided to the best performers. Recognition to the best three performers in a group yields the largest effect on workers' productivity in comparison with either recognition to all employees or recognition to the best performer. Interestingly, performance increases in response to exclusive recognition are mainly driven by strong positive effects of non-recipients. Conformity preferences are the most likely reason for these responses. Upon learning that one does not belong to the best three performers in a group of eight, non-recipients feel inclined to improve performance so as to adhere to the apparent group norm. In line with this interpretation, we find weaker (but still positive) responses of non-recipients when only the best performer in a group receives recognition as this provides a weaker signal of low relative performance than belonging to the bottom five out of eight workers. However, conformity preferences cannot explain all of our results. In particular, recipients of recognition do not decrease performance, as conformity would suggest, but rather (a...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Employee Recognition and Performance: A Field Experiment

et al. 2016

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“…These variables range from socio-demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, marital status, educational level) to more domain-specific variables such as dispositional influences (e.g., personality traits) (Judge & Bono, 2001) and work situational influences (e.g., job challenge, acknowledgment, job security) (Kovach, 1995).…”

Section: Job Satisfaction As a Multi-disciplinary Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alternatively, this effect could perhaps be explained by findings which have shown that the self-employed work longer hours and earn relatively less than the employed (Hamilton, 2000). With both of these factors ranking as important job values (Kovach, 1995), the application of the valuepercept discrepancy model of job satisfaction (Locke, 1969) suggests that the discrepancy between job values and the perception about what is being achieved may be larger for the self-employed when compared to full-time employees; a larger discrepancy will result in lower job satisfaction.…”

Section: The Job Satisfaction Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With job satisfaction being such a subjective concept, empirical research in the social sciences has continually worked towards identifying explanatory variables of job satisfaction. These variables range from socio-demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, marital status, educational qualifications) to more domain-specific variables such as dispositional influences (e.g., personality traits) (Judge & Bono, 2001) and work situational influences (e.g., job challenge, acknowledgment, job security) (Kovach, 1995). Such empirical research has provided insight from which organisations have strategically developed programmes to foster employees" job satisfaction.…”

Section: Chapter 1: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Culture, participative decision making and job satisfaction

Westhuizen

Pacheco

Webber

2012

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

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“…Yazında yapılan bir çalışmada, motivasyon faktörlerinin yöneticiler ve çalışanlarca algılanış öncelikleri belirlemeye çalışılmış ve çalışanlar ile yöneticilerin motivasyon faktörlerini algılamalarında önemli farklılıklar olduğunu ortaya çıkarmıştır (Kovach, 1995). Buna göre Tablo 1'de gösterildiği gibi çalışanlar için ilk beş motivasyon önceliği işin ilgi çekici olması, yapılan işin takdir edilmesi, kararlara katılma, iş güvencesi ve iyi bir ücret iken yöneticiler için ilk beş öncelik iyi bir ücret, iş güvencesi, terfi ve yükselme imkanları, iyi çalışma koşulları ve ilgi çekici bir iş şeklindedir.…”

Section: I) Kuramsal çErçeve A) Motive Edici Faktörlerunclassified