Organizational Behavior Essay: Motivation and Employee Performance

This essay critically analyzes a research article by Guclu and Guney (2017) on the effect of motivation techniques used by managers to increase employee productivity, focusing on the textile industry. The essay identifies the research question, thesis statement, and significance of the study, highligh...Read More

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational behavior
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Motivating employees in workplace has become a major priority for work managers or
leaders today if they want to retain competitive advantage in market today. Identifying
techniques to motivate human resources has been associated with enhanced performance of
employees. This promotes fulfilling organizational goals as well as challenging competing global
economy. Leaders play the most important role in leading their employees to fulfill
organizational goals and their process of enhancing the self-esteem of employees further
facilitates the action of achieving action goals (Fiaz et al 2017). In the context of the importance
of motivation for increasing employee performance, the essay critiques a research article based
on the effect of motivation techniques used by managers to increase productivity of employees.
It also gives a discussion regarding the key strength and weakness of the article with support
from other research literature.
The article by Guclu and Guney (2017) clearly mentions the research question, which is
to analyse the perception of employees about the effect of using motivation tools by manager in
increasing their performance in workplace. The main thesis statement related to this research
question is the impact of motivation techniques used by managers to increase productivity of
workers. The significance of this research was reported by the researcher by the discussion
regarding the need to evoke hidden talents and power of employees. From the review of
literatures, it was pointed out that use of motivation techniques by the manager influenced
disclosing skills and potential of employees. The importance of the research question is also
realized from the discussion regarding the importance of motivation in maximizing the efficiency
on the manpower in organizations and different motivation techniques to promote efficiency.
The quality of literature review in this work is also high because the researcher started from a
wider perspective and slowly narrowed down to the behavior needed by managers to motivate

2ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
the employees. However, the main limitation of this research is that while framing the research
questions, the researcher did not identified any gap in previous research, which made this study
important and necessary. Despite this limitation, this research work will give insight about
manager’s and employee’s relationship. According to Cherian and Jacob (2013), managers and
employee’s relationship is also important for promoting role of managers in motivating
employees. Successful performance is mediated through career motivation and the application of
self-efficacy theory can also play a role in improving work related performance.
Based on the thesis statement of Guclu and Guney (2017), it is critical that the research
identifies the specific motivation techniques used by the managers and the impact of those on
employee performance. To get answer to this question, survey questionnaire were prepared for
employees working in textile industry. The first part of the questionnaire aimed to get
demographic detail of respondents and the second section evaluated the opinion of employees
about the motivation tools. The validity of the data collected was enhanced by the calculation of
frequency variance and validity and safety analysis. This reflects the strength of the study
because consideration of confounding variable is important to get clear results and eliminate any
biasness in studies. To get appropriate data related to the research question, it is also necessary to
chose appropriate sampling method. No such specification was given by Guclu and Guney
(2017), the only consideration was that they did not take large sample size as it was not possible
to survey large group of population. However, this consideration is seen in the research by Fiaz
et al. (2017) who used stratified sampling technique to collect data and find out the impact of
leadership style on motivation of employees. The advantage of using stratified sampling
technique was that it ensured proportionate representation of all group of participants. Another
advantage of using this sampling technique is that it help to select the best sample population that

3ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
reperesents the entire population. It also reduces the likelihood of sample selection bias
(Robinson, 2014).
The success of any research result is understood from the relevance of the outcome with
the research statement. The main strength of the research by Guclu and Guney (2017) was that it
gave clear statistical data regarding the use of economic, psychosocial and organizational and
management tools used among all participants. This gives clear indication regarding the
motivation techniques that has been used by managers to increase the efficacy of employees.
Secondly, the study results also gave detail regarding the impact of motivation techniques on
education, monthly salary, assignment status and term of office. Considering all these variables
is important because all these factors has an impact on motivation of employees. For instance,
these variables can give indication about the source of motivation. The results outcome of
assignment status and term of office is the most critical data as it gives an insight into the impact
of different motivation tools on employee retention, intention to leave and completing work
assignment effectively. All these are critical factors related to employee performance and
workplace productivity (Park and Shaw, 2013). This is consistent with the study by Bastons et al.
(2017) which explains that motivation of employee is dependent on extrinsic factors of salary,
intrinsic factor of job satisfaction and retention of employees and prosocial factors related to the
needs of key stakeholders of the organization.
After reviewing the research article, I can say that I agree with the research in many
points and there are very few contradictory points. For instance, Guclu and Guney (2017) work
emphasizes that efficiency is critical to productivity and the viewpoint of manager and
employees on the impact of using motivational tools can give important insight regarding actions
that can be adapted in organizational to promote productivity. The research gave valid

4ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
explanation regarding the factors that affect employees perception of motivation. The researcher
was in favor of thinking that education status can affect employee’s perception of motivation
tools and the survey results also proved that employee with high educational status perceive the
motivation process in a more conscious manner. Hence, I agree that reviewing educational status
of participant was important in relation to the purpose of studies. The research study by Malik,
Butt, and Choi, (2015) also considered education and work experience of participant as such
variable also affect the performance of employees. This mean education and work experience is
reflective of self-efficacy of employees and presence of such attributes in employees also have
an impact on responding to extrinsic and intrinsic rewards in workplace.
Secondly, in terms of impact of tools on different income group, the study gave
significant results. It showed in case of psychosocial motivation tool, its influence was high in
low income group that high and middle income group. This suggests that low income groups are
motivated by getting psychosocial support in workplace. It raised their morale (Guclu and Guney
(2017). One point that any reviewer can add in this point is that the personality traits of managers
also plays a key role in motivating employees. However, the main limitation of this research is
that no arguments were raised in this study regarding the personality traits of managers that
would have an impact on employee’s perception of motivation process. This is a major gap in the
study and just like the variable of age, income status, retention rate and assignment status, the
survey questionnaire needed to have personality traits of managers too. This would have given
idea regarding different personality trait presents in managers at the textile facility and the
response of the employee would also have given the idea regarding the specific personality traits
that they prefers in their leaders to motivate and guide them in workplace. This would also
highlight the purposeful work behavior of managers (Barrick, Mount, and Li 2013).

5ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
The importance of including manager’s personality traits in survey questionnaire is also
understood from the research by Lounsbury et al. (2016) investigating about distinctive
personality profile needed for managers. In this study, the personality traits were evaluated by
means of Big Five personality traits. The purpose was to identify personality predictors of
managerial performance and the managers score higher on the traits of agreeableness,
conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness, optimism and customer service orientation.
While analyzing the study results in terms of influence of employee motivation, it was found that
extraverts had the capability to develop social network and motivate and satisfy employees
intrinsically. Hence, interaction between personality traits and manager’s role in motivating
employee were observed. On this ground, it can be said that Guclu and Guney (2017) missed this
important variable in his research and including this element in the survey questionnaire would
have enhance the validity of the study results.
The essay critically analyzed the study of Guclu and Guney (2017) regarding impact of
motivation tools on workplace productivity and employee performance. The research approach
used by the researcher was useful in generating many important outcomes such as providing idea
regarding the association between employee education and income status on perception of
motivation process. However, considering the gap of not including manager’s personality trait in
survey, it is recommended to conduct further research on how personality traits can motivate
employees in workplace.

6ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Reference
Barrick, M.R., Mount, M.K. and Li, N., 2013. The theory of purposeful work behavior: The role
of personality, higher-order goals, and job characteristics. Academy of management
review, 38(1), pp.132-153.
Bastons, M., Mas, M. & Rey, C. 2017, "Pro-stakeholders motivation: Uncovering a new source
of motivation for business companies", Journal of Management and Organization, vol. 23, no. 5,
pp. 621-632.
Cherian, J. and Jacob, J., 2013. Impact of self efficacy on motivation and performance of
employees. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(14), p.80.
Fiaz, M., Su, Q., Ikram, A. & Saqib, A. 2017, "LEADERSHIP STYLES AND EMPLOYEES’
MOTIVATION: PERSPECTIVE FROM AN EMERGING ECONOMY", The Journal of
Developing Areas, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 143-156.
Guclu, H. and Guney, S., 2017, The Effect of the Motivation Techniques Used by Managers to
Increase the Productivity of their Workers and an Application.
Lounsbury, J.W., Sundstrom, E.D., Gibson, L.W., Loveland, J.M. & Drost, A.W. 2016, "Core
personality traits of managers", Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 434-450.
Malik, M.A.R., Butt, A.N. and Choi, J.N., 2015. Rewards and employee creative performance:
Moderating effects of creative self‐efficacy, reward importance, and locus of control. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 36(1), pp.59-74.
Park, T.Y. and Shaw, J.D., 2013. Turnover rates and organizational performance: a meta-
analysis.

7ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Robinson, O.C., 2014. Sampling in interview-based qualitative research: A theoretical and
practical guide. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 11(1), pp.25-41.