What Motivates Employees

Topic

What Motivates Employees (A Quantitative Study of Chinese and UK Cultures)

Instructions

Write a Dissertation Research Proposal on this title:

What motivates employees? A quantitative study of Chinese and UK cultures in the workplace of SMEs.

Structure:

  1. Title page – with Dissertation Title
  2. Table of contents
  3. Introduction: Brief introduction of the research topic and your research question. Show that your research question is relevant. Indicate which literature you are going to review and the research method you are using. Provide a content outline/ structure of the coursework. This should be an introduction to the topic and the document that you are producing.
  4. Literature Review: Examine the extant knowledge on the subject of your research question. What did previous researchers find out? What questions weren’t answered/are still open and why? What are other researchers suggesting as areas to investigate in the future and why? Make clear which literature your research is contributing to. You need to connect with your topic, don’t write a ‘standalone’ textbook-style literature review. If your research is quantitative, clearly extract and argue your hypotheses.
  5. Research Methods & Research Design: Which research method will allow you to answer your research question – why and how? What is your research design? How are you going to collect data and from where? Which tools are you going to use? If interviews, explain your interview methods and the type of questions you will ask. How will you access interviewees? If quantitative, how will you measure the aspects studied?
  6. Conclusion: Summarize, what you have done/shown and key points. Draw conclusions. Think about possible problems.
  7. References

Use a Quantitative and Questionnaire approach.

Answer preview

Motivating employees has become an important element of creating competitive advantage of a business. Human resource departments are tasked with a responsibility of attracting and retaining talents, enhancing the long-term productivity of a firm (Horwitz, Heng and Quazi, 2003). As with large firms, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) expect to grow and increase production at low cost, meaning there is a need to focus on employees as they represent the most important factor of production (Frank, Finnegan and Taylor, 2004). Irrefutably, every employee expects some rewards for the efforts expended on a firm, and, therefore, motivation becomes a central factor to ensure that employees improve in terms of productivity and effectiveness. However, motivation factors may differ among employees depending on the cultural context, work environment and intrinsic factors, among others. Although studies have shown that firms in the contemporary competitive corporate environment focus on enhancing performance, managing employees still remain unpredictable (Horwiz et al, 2003). Evidence shows that SMEs in particular involves employees working in supervisory-based environment, making it a challenge to maintain a significant motivation level.

Word count: 3548