Analysis of Article on Employee Motivational Techniques

This essay provides a critical analysis of an article focusing on motivational techniques and their impact on workplace efficiency. The article explores the importance of managers using appropriate motivational strategies for different employee categories to maximize productivity. The essay highlights the article's strengths, such as a detailed literature review and a clear presentation of motivational theories, while also pointing out weaknesses like the complicated statistical analysis and lack of a dedicated discussion section. The analysis includes the student's personal viewpoints, emphasizing the need for tailored motivational tools based on employee demographics. The essay supports its arguments with references to other research articles, discussing different motivational approaches like accountability, incentives, and extrinsic factors. The essay concludes by reiterating the importance of effective motivational techniques for enhancing worker efficiency and organizational productivity. The essay also discusses the effectivity of each motivational tool for each group of employees.

Running head: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ARTICLE
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ARTICLE
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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The discussion of the importance of motivational techniques in developing the efficiency of the
work is one of the most talked about topics among business researchers. Present researches over
the decade are of the opinion that better the manager’s ways of motivating their employees, the
higher is the productivity of the workplace. The thesis statement that has been identified form the
article paper is the conception of the managers in using the correct motivational techniques for
the correct category of the employees so that it brings out the best efficiency in their workplace.
The essay will mainly help in analyzing the article provided, followed by personal viewpoints
and discussion with the help of three journal articles which will help to shed more light on the
issue.
A large number of strengths are identified in the article. The most positive point of the article is
that the author had provided a very well described literature review of the concept of efficiency
and benefits of motivation on efficient in details. The author had first started with the different
types of definition that efficiency has among different authors. Not only definitions, they have
also provided the benefits of motivation on efficiency. After discussion in details, they are
provided the importance on bullet points as well which help the readers to develop a clear
understanding of the important points without getting clouded in the though process. Followed
by this they have provided a separate section of the different theories on motivational techniques
that have been provided by different researcher over the years. Some of the motivational
techniques that they have sorted in the article paper is the procedures of the intimidation,
identifying with the occupation as well as institution, punishment as well as rewards, competition
and reward. The author of these papers has also described about the different important theories
like Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs, Alderfer’s theory, Mcclelland need theory and many
others. They have been particular about stating the principles of the theories within the brackets

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helping the readers to easily understand their theory if they do not have knowledge about it and
thereby linking them to the benefits of motivation. All these initiatives not only help the readers
to develop a deeper knowledge about the needs of the employers and the usefulness of
motivation on the employees but also help to create a ground for the further discussion which
shows a sequential procedure of unfolding into the main discussion segments (Noe et al. 2014).
Another important strength is that the author had correctly given a description about how
behaviors if the mangers help to develop efficiency which in turn help the readers’ to get the
main rationale of reading the papers. This helps them to understand that due to the mentioned
benefit like helping to express their concerns, listening to them with attentive ear, behaving with
them with warmth and others in turn makes the employers happy and therefore manager’s
behaviors also help to motivate the employees. All the discussions are a strengthen of the power
as this helps the readers to develop the connection of motivation and efficiency and gradually
help the readers of develop a scenario in mind making it helpful to understand the further
situation. This step by step proceeding in main discussion is helpful and makes it easier for the
readers. They have also described the methodologies which enhance efficiency and also those
which reduce the efficiency in enterprises.
The weakness of the paper is that they have taken the statistical analysis method which is indeed
very complicated and makes the data section very difficult for the readers to understand.
Although they have separately conducted the statistical analysis in different categories like
effects of motivational tools depending upon gender of employees, age group, educational status,
and monthly income, assignments, term of office but the representation has been done in a
complicated manner. The entire calculation section is not followed by proper discussion part.
The author had skipped the heading of discussion section and had directly jumped into the

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conclusion part. A negative aspect of the conclusion part is that without concluding the entire
study in simple sentences so that the reader can take back important information of the study
back in mind, they have just provided the result of the study without providing proper discussion
about each of the results obtained from the statistical tests. They have stated information like
those employees who have higher levels of education have better perceptions of the motivational
tools and acknowledge them better than those with lower levels of education. However, they
have not provided any information about how education is contributing to such a perception in
the study. A separate discussion section should have followed. Moreover the others results were
also stated in a manner which was very confusing for the readers. They conducted the Kruskal-
Wallis Test to find out whether any differentiation existed among the three types of tools for
each of the category and also conducted the Mann-Whitney Test between each pair of the three
categories of tools to find their individual result for ach of gender, age, income and others. The
results are written in a confusing complicated manner without representing them in simple table
for easy understanding of the readers which is important for readers (Pinder et al. 2014) . They
have mentioned the affectivity of each tool in each of the segments effectively however but the
level of clear representation makes this section a weakness of the study. The above claim can be
made with the help of an example. It is sated that Kruskal Wallis test had found out variation
among the different tools on terms of income. Then it has stated that “Similarly, it has been
observed that, the psycho-social tools motivation level of the low income segment is validly high
in terms of statistics than the high income segment and the organizational & managerial tools
motivation level of the middle income segment is validly high in terms of statistics than the high
income segment. It is easier for the low income segment to accept and be motivated by the
present motivation tools and opportunities, than of the high income segment”. The way of

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representing the information makes it difficult for the reader to understand requiring extra effort
and disrupting the natural smooth flow which was followed in the previous sections.
According to my own view point, I believe that the information provided by the article when
understood properly will be helpful for the managers to use the right technique for their
employees to boost their enthusiasms and efficiency. A workplace comprises of different type of
employees of different age, gender, education level, different salary and many others. If
managers imply the same motivational tools to all irrespective of the mentioned variables, it will
not bring out the best outcomes as all might not be motivated in the same levels (Jacoben,
Hvitved and Anderson 2014). The author had rightly helped with the information about which
type of tools will be are beneficial for a particular age group, or gender or of education status and
therefore categorizing the tools according to the sub divisions of employees will ultimately help
to increase the productivity of how workplace besides increasing the efficiency levels of the
workers. Therefore, it would also help the managers to correctly guide each employee with the
right motivational tool (Schultz 2014).
Unlike the author of the study who have provided classification of tools for their
affectivity on different types of employees, other authors have not classified them as groups and
had discussed them individually as a singular tool. In a particular article by Wang, Noe and
Wang (2014), the author has stated that organizations may use accountability which is one of the
organizational and managerial motivational tool and incentives which is an economic tool to
motivate employees who have personality traits like those who have less desirable behaviors like
low in conscientiousness or high in neuroticism. When organizations assess the personality traits
of employees for identification which type of accountability inducing management tools will
help to facilitate knowledge sharing, it bring positive outcome. They have stated that evaluation

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tool along with proper reward system help in developing the employees traits like make them
high conscientiousness and low in neuroticism and will increases their openness and increase
their productivity. Authors like Chukuwuma Maduka and Okafar, 2014, questionnaire survey
were introduced to the managerial levels and also among the junior staffs to understand their
perceptions about the affectivity of motivation. Here the author had also supported the view of
the present study and had stated that goal of the motivation is mainly to help people to put
forward their best efforts as well as enthusiasm and also effectiveness so that they can achieve
and surpass organizational objective. The article has stated that junior staffs in comparisons to
senior staffs prefer financial incentives rather than non financial incentives which they state to
motivate them the most. Overtime allowance, holiday with pay and salary increase helps in
motivating the individual. Nabi et al. in the year 2017 had conducted a research where they have
stated that extrinsic factors, performance appraisal, job enrichment, relationships and job
security, authority in decision making and growth opportunity all help in increasing the
efficiency of the workers and act as effective motivational tools. It is stated by the researchers
that motivation provides employees with an extra drive and exertion and help them in
ameliorating typical standard of performance.
Motivational tools are therefore an important domain which the managers of an
organization will integrate in his strategic planning. Researches over the years have suggested
that different types of organizational and managerial tools, psycho-social motivations as well as
economic motivation tools have helped in motivating different individuals to comply with
organizational objectives, surpass their accountability, and provide more productivity to the
organizational. While planning out motivational techniques, the employers should also keep a
notice about the kind of motivational tool provided to each group of employees so that the best

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outcome is provided. Better the motivation, better will be the efficiency of the workers and
higher will be the productivity o he organization.

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References:
Jacobsen, C.B., Hvitved, J. and Andersen, L.B., 2014. Command and motivation: How the
perception of external interventions relates to intrinsic motivation and public service
motivation. Public Administration, 92(4), pp.790-806
Maduka, C.E. and Okafor, O., 2014. Effect of motivation on employee productivity: A study of
manufacturing companies in Nnewi. International Journal of Managerial Studies and Research
(IJMSR), 2(7), pp.137-147.
Nabi, M.N., Islam, M.M., Dip, T.M. and Al, M.A., THE IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON
EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCES: A CASE STUDY OF KARMASANGSTHAN BANK
LIMITED, BANGLADESH.
Noe, R.A., Wilk, S.L., Mullen, E.J. and Wanek, J.E., 2014. Employee Development: Issues in
Construct Definition and Investigation ofAntecedents. Improving Training Effectiveness in
WorkOrganizations, ed. JK Ford, SWJ Kozlowski, K. Kraiger, E. Salas, and MS Teachout
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), pp.153-189.
Pinder, C.C., 2014. Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.
Schultz, P.W., 2014. Strategies for promoting proenvironmental behavior. European
Psychologist.
Wang, S., Noe, R.A. and Wang, Z.M., 2014. Motivating knowledge sharing in knowledge
management systems: A quasi–field experiment. Journal of Management, 40(4), pp.978-1009.

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Wrzesniewski, A., Schwartz, B., Cong, X., Kane, M., Omar, A. and Kolditz, T., 2014. Multiple
types of motives don't multiply the motivation of West Point cadets. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 111(30), pp.10990-10995.