The motivation of temporary sales people in selected IT / telecom companies in Hong Kong

This thesis narrates a story in the study of a phenomenon in the search of an explanation of the motivation of temporary sales people [promoter] in information technology and telecommunication companies in Hong Kong. The use of these non-permanent sales force in Hong Kong is becoming popular but there is a lack of guidelines for motivating them. Given the exploratory nature of the study and limited prior empirical research on the topic and organizational settings, a qualitative approach was adopted. Grounded research and modified grounded theory were used as a discovery tools to guide the overall study. Triangulation of data collection methods was used; and data were collected from both employers and employees from focus group and in-depth interviews. Constant comparative method was adopted in data analysis. Data were first compared to data and the resulting categories were compared to each other and to the extant motivational theories, rendering into a tentative conceptual framework. It was found that the promoters’ resources comprised internal resourcefulness and connectedness, along with the preemptive situational factors of organization, were fueling the promoters’ meaning-ascription and job-crafting motivation-process

A Comparison on Student Motivation of Students Who Enroll Voluntarily and Involuntarily a Vocational Training Program

The present study compared the motivation of female students who enrolled in a federally funded vocational training program voluntarily with those who enrolled involuntarily. The federal government has mandated that females receiving public aid must complete a trade and obtain full-time employment. The study was conducted from January 1, 1994 through March 31, 1994. Motivation was evaluated by vocational completion, average length of stay (ALOS) , and GED completion. The students have to complete all the required assignments and pass a competency test in the vocational area to be considered a vocational completer. In addition, they were required to complete six ( 6) weeks of work experience to obtain on the job training. Average length of stay (ALOS) measures the number of days that a student was in an active (pay) status at termination The students\u27 profiles were evaluated at termination to assess their individual success in the program. The present study indicated that students who enroll voluntarily were as successful in completing their goals as students who were coerced to enroll by outside influences, i.e., welfare reform (Futures), parental pressures, or probation

Physicians\u27 motivation in the Ministry of Health and Population - Egypt: challenges and opportunities.

Amidst the different problems encountered at the Egyptian Ministry of Health (MOHP) and Population, the issue of physicians\u27 retention is on the rise. The Egyptian public health system reportedly lost more than five percent of its workforce of physicians in less than three years (2016-2018), as documented by CAPMAS and the Egyptian Medical Syndicate in 2016. Clinicians are not only skipping the practice from the MOHP, but even a number of academic institutions report a decreasing number of candidates interested in pursuing such a previously known attractive career path as faculty in the different schools of medicine. Figures about the increased migration rates of Egyptian doctors are also striking, partly attributable to the various hurdles they face within the MOHP. Adopting a qualitative research approach, the motives of clinicians to practice in the public sector are investigated in this study. Theories and definitions of motivation are explored to explain how motivation starts and what is required to maintain it. The research showed that various factors push and pull Egyptian doctors from practice in the MOHP; their individual motivations highly change due to organizational and cultural conditions. Reported constraints included the challenging career development opportunities, the inadequate infrastructure, as well as inefficient management, and inadequate legislative environment. Doctors’ attrition, shifting to private practice and migration to the Arab and Gulf countries are some commonly encountered consequences of low motivation. Physicians\u27 shortage is an issue in both developing and developed countries. Securing the needed human resources for the health care services is vital. Several policies were developed to bridge this gap, including performance-based financing and training complementary personnel. In Egypt, some measures were adopted such as obliging fresh graduates to fill in the gaps and piloting the delegation of certain tasks to mid-level personnel. However, as the current study indicates, additional expenditure on health is the real step that the Egyptian health system should implement to ensure healthier living conditions for the most underprivileged citizens. Reforms in governance and administration should follow, with changes to medical education and training entities

NEAR MISS REPORTING: PERSPECTIVES ON WORKER CONVERSANCE OF INCIDENT EVENTS ACROSS TWO INDUSTRIES

The practice of reporting workplace incident events is adopted as best practice by organizations and complies with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandates. Reporting the near miss incident type in which no injury or damage to equipment or the environment occurs is buttressed by the assumption that both the worker and the organization ascribe to the same goal to identify workplace hazards and prevent incident recurrence. The goal of incident reporting is not apparent, and the path to achieving the goal is obstructed by internal and external hazards that act to oppose the reporting process, such that the goals are obscured by competing priorities. The general qualitative method was applied to a nonrandom snowball sampling technique to recruit eight participants. Over 176 years of combined experience across aircraft maintenance and petrochemical operations are represented. Participants were removed from either industry within the last five years. Each participant experienced multiple near miss incident events in the past. At the time an incident occurs, the compelling individual need that exists is explained in terms of Abraham Maslow’s (1943) theory of motivation. The Process- Practice-Purpose principle is developed and used to demonstrate the association between activities (the “what”) that occur within workspaces and customary practices (the “how”) that develop in the course of realizing the incident reporting goal. Three recurring themes support the findings: (a) The motivation to report, (b) Beliefs about reporting, and (c) The purpose of 7 reporting over time. Together, the themes form the three-legged stool of the incident reporting perception. Any leg missing renders the stool out of balance. Hazards are identified in terms of personal safety. The near miss definition is expressed in terms of individual perspective and is guided by experience, personality, knowledge, and personal agency to take action. The goal of reporting is explained in terms of benefit to people, the process, and practice. Alignment with the OHSA goal is evaluated by examining the motivation to report, beliefs about reporting, and the purpose of reporting over time. The Principle of Understanding partnership model is developed to engage the worker and the organization in active learning from near miss incidents through awareness and knowledge about the cumulative utility of near miss data, perceptions of incident severity, and optimizing communication

Wellbeing at work, workplace health promotion and employee productivity : A case study of sales representatives

In today’s service-based economy, organizations are dependent on their people. Healthy, competent, motivated and productive employees are valuable assets. Hence, wellbeing at work (WBW) is increasingly relevant and has many implications on the competitive advantage. Workplace health promotion (WHP) supports employees’ health and wellbeing at work and includes benefits for both employee and employer. Employee productivity is peoples’ ability to work efficiently and effectively and related to both company performance and WBW. It can be seen as a personal feature consisting of work ability, competence and motivation. This thesis was commissioned by a service company that has recognized the importance of WBW and invests in WHP. The aims of the study were to: (1) get insight into how sales representatives in the case company perceive well-being at work, workplace health promotion and employee productivity and (2) investigate if and how the employer can support employee productivity with WHP. The qualitative study is based on semi-structured, individual interviews with seven sales representatives. The discussed themes were WBW, WHP, work ability, competence, motivation and employee productivity. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The material was analysed with qualitative methods. The results indicate that respondents experience wellbeing at work, feel that the employer is concerned for their wellbeing and recognize efforts to support it, referring consistently to affiliation and leadership factors. They experience that WBW, WHP and employee productivity are related and have positive influence on each other. Based on the findings, suggestions on how to support employee productivity were presented: e.g. maintaining a thriving atmosphere, importance of recovery, offering training, considering rewards and recognitions and valuing esteem and affiliation factors

Cultivating compliance: governance of North Indian organic basmati smallholders in a global value chain

Focusing on a global value chain (GVC) for organic basmati rice, we study how farmers’ practices are governed through product and process standards, organic certification protocols, and contracts with buyer firms. We analyze how farmers’ entry into the GVC reconfigures their agencements (defined as heterogeneous arrangements of human and nonhuman agencies which are associated with each other). These reconfigurations entail the severance of some associations among procedural and material elements of the agencements and the formation of new associations, in order to produce cultivation practices that are accurately described by the GVC’s standards and protocols. Based on ethnography of two farmers in Uttarakhand, North India, we find that the same standards were enacted differently on the two farmers’ fields, producing variable degrees of (selective) compliance with the ‘official’ GVC standards. We argue that the disjuncture between the ‘official’ scripts of the standards and actual cultivation practices must be nurtured to allow farmers’ agencements to align their practices with local sociotechnical relations and farm ecology. Furthermore, we find that compliance and disjuncture were facilitated by many practices and associations that were officially ungoverned by the GVC

Keeping a Foot in the Door: Neoliberal Ideology in Subjects Who Opt Out of a Corporate Career

It is well researched that ideals of freedom and self-fulfillment through work are perpetuated by the neoliberal ideology that permeates subjective reasoning, meaning-making, and everyday practices. While these ideals may seem attractive and enticing to the subject, their pursuit usually leads to less secure working contracts and conditions. Thus, organizations can continue to enforce economic principles and increase pressure on workers while, at the same time, the mechanisms of liberalization and individualization make subjects — not organizations — responsible for their own success and existential survival, and for creating meaningful and happy lives. Striving to design and optimize their own personal and professional trajectories, subjects perpetuate these ideals and thus adopt the socially-validated view that opting out of a salaried job in favor of self-employment is the zenith of self-actualization. Existing research on the phenomenon of opting out emphasizes gender differences around this issue, i.e., women opt out to stay home, whereas men — if their role is even considered — do so to enhance their careers. However, this research is sparse and lacks a contextualized understanding of the phenomenon, such that we still know very little about who opts out and why. Following an explorative approach, this study looks at 20 single-case stories of subjects who opted out from corporate career tracks. We find that the decision to opt out worked out well for diligent subjects with high self-esteem, who already had successful career trajectories and who — independently of gender — viewed it as an act to free oneself from, and a fundamental critique of, corporate working conditions and values. We analyze this finding through the theoretical lens of critical psychology in order to shed light on the phenomenon of opting out and the extent to which individuals can pursue meaningfulness in life and work within the scope of neoliberal conditions, i.e., in contexts where liberal principles remain applicable to the living and working conditions achieved by subjects after they have left the corporate world

The relationship between organizational climate and job satisfaction of selected urban middle school teachers in the Clark County School District

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between organizational climate and job satisfaction in the Clark County School District (Las Vegas, Nevada); The data were collected from teachers randomly selected from urban middle schools in this district. There were 19 schools involved in the study, with 15 teachers selected from each school to respond to two instruments. The Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire---Revised Secondary (OCDQ-RS) and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) were sent to 285 teachers, of which 197 were returned (70%). Demographic data were also collected from each of the respondents; There was a significant relationship found between organizational climate and teacher job satisfaction. This relationship was observed in high correlational coefficients between the three postulates of organizational climate (engaged, frustrated, and intimate behavior) and the three postulates of job satisfaction (intrinsic, extrinsic, and general satisfaction). There were significant correlations found between the characteristics of job satisfaction and the characteristics of organizational climate. Statistically significant correlation among the climate postulates and job satisfaction postulates indicated that job satisfaction and climate were related at the 0.01 or 0.05 alpha level. As expected, frustrated behavior had a statistical significant relationship with satisfaction and negatively correlated to intrinsic satisfaction, extrinsic satisfaction, and general satisfaction; Engaged behavior correlated in a statistically significant positive relationship with intrinsic satisfaction and extrinsic satisfaction at the 0.01 alpha level. Intimate behavior and extrinsic satisfaction correlated in a statistical significant positive relationship at 0.05 alpha level. The positive correlations indicated that the higher the engaged behavior the higher the intrinsic satisfaction and intimate behavior. The negative correlations indicated the higher the frustrated behavior score, the lower the satisfaction scores and vice versa. Statistical significance was found in the relationship as expected; No significant relationship was observed between the variables gender, years of teaching experience (in or out of the CCSD), educational level, ethnicity, and climate or job satisfaction; The study revealed that open climate and higher job satisfaction are related. This study revealed important information regarding the relationship between the process of school climate and the outcome of job satisfaction