4th Special Focus Symposium on ICSKS: Information and Communication Sciences in the Knowledge Society
Motivation and Activation of Fellow Workers
Jakša Franulić Katić1, Ljubica Bakić-Tomić2, Majda Rijavec3
1High school for business and administration, Zaprešić
2Faculty of Teacher Education of the University of Zagreb, Croatia
e-mail:
3 Faculty of Teacher Education of the University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
A large part of scientific and professional literature regarding organizational structure and productivity of the work deals with aspects of motivation and activation of workers as a function of improving job satisfaction and, consequently, greater operational efficiency.Studies show that motivation and communication are two closely related concepts. The key to successful motivation in any organization is communication climate.
A manager has very important role in creating a positive communication climate within the organizational structure at workplace. The role of manager is not to manipulate his associates, but to inspire his colleagues and to develop positive working environment suitable for the achievements. Research conducted in the paper, "Motivating and activating employees," aimed to examine the relationship between communication climate and job satisfaction among employees was conducted on 61 subjects (28 males and 33 females) age range of 19-55 years and all were employees of small private companies.
The results of the study are in line with expectations as defined under the hypothesis of the research, except for some differences between older and younger subjects. Older subjects evaluated managers significantly higher on the dimension “dogmatism” than younger subjects. Also, older subjects perceived that their executives were showing higher control in relation to them when comparing with the evaluation made by younger subjects.There were no differences between men and women regarding the assessment of any dimension of communication climate, either defensive or supportive. Also, no statistically significant differences were found between men and women in their assessment of job satisfaction.
The rate of evaluation of supportive communication climate is higher than the evaluated rate of defensive climate. Among the dimensions of the defensive communication climate, the lowest rates are associated with the dimension “control” and the highest with the dimension “superiority”. Among the dimensions of the supportive climate, the highest are estimated the dimensions “flexibility” and “sincerity”, and the lowest the dimension “clarity of communication”.
The negative correlation has been confirmed between the different dimensions of defensive communication climate and job satisfaction while the largest negative correlation is registered between the dimensions “manipulation” and “dogmatism” and job satisfaction.
Also, the higher the positive assessment of supportive communication climate, the employees are more satisfied with their jobs. The highest positive correlation has been found between dimension “sincerity” and job satisfaction and between dimension “clarity of communication” and job satisfaction.
If communication is not clear, if the employee is not entirely clear what to do, then he/she will be not motivated to do the job. For effective communication within the organization there must be ensured that informational-cognitive component and emotional-social component are appropriately represented in the contents and methods. Messages should be modulated according to the information needs and cognitive capacities of employees. It is also necessary to take into account that the social aspect of work (hanging out on the break, team work), and self-perception of employees (self-esteem, sense of personal values) are the essential elements of their motivation.
Key words
motivation, activation, supportive communication climate, defensive communication climate,intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, managers, management
Introduction
Communication climate is the general atmosphere in which communication takes place during the business process and can be seen through different aspects with regard to general feeling and manifested freedom of expression, openness and sincerity, warmth and sense of acceptance of others, interrelations, and the level of cooperation within the organization.
For effective communication within the organization there must be ensured that informational-cognitive component and emotional-social component are appropriately represented in the contents and methods. Messages should be modulated according to the information needs and cognitive capacities of employees, and it is also necessary to have in mind that the social aspect of work (hanging out on the break, team work), and self-perception of employees (self-esteem, sense of personal values) are the essential elements of their motivation.
Regarding the communication channels used in creating the communication climate, the messages that are exchanged between the participants in communication can be verbal (spoken and written words) and nonverbal (timbre, facial expressions, gestures, posture and motions, the distance between interlocutors, etc.. ).
During each communication process, the sender reveals something about himself, about his attitude towards the person he is speaking with, and tries to influence on the interlocutor in many different ways.
Communication can be one way or two way process. Publishing the book or some content on the web as well as broadcasting on radio or television, without contact with the recipients, are examples of one-way communication. On the other hand, conversation, communication within the groups, brainstorming are the examples of two-way communication meaning the participants on both sides send and receive verbal and nonverbal messages.
The quality of communication could be affected by so called "noise" in the communication channel. Noise can occur in shaping the message (eg, inaudible, incomprehensible or ambiguous message), during its transfer (loss of parts of the message, interfering signals and information) and/or during receiving the messages (attentiveness or information overload of the recipient, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of messages).
Two concepts have significant role in creating a favourable communication climate in an organization - the concepts of authoritarian and democratic communication.
Authoritarian communication means that the manager is using his superior position, power or influence while assigning what tasks employees should deal with together with the guidelines how the work should be done. The manager controls the performance and in case some problems in realization occur he/she undertakes everything to help the employee to overcome the problems more easily.
Democratic communication is characterized by respect for the personality, interests and autonomy of employees, by managers’ adaptation to the needs and wishes of employees, by equal treatment of all, by developing a democratic culture in the relation between employees, by encouraging employees to express opinions and make proposals, as well as listening to and respect opinions of other employees.
Communication is especially important for the function of leadership because it can be seen as a means of modifying behaviour, implementing changes and achieving goals. Bernard observed the communication as a means for connecting people in the organization to achieve common goals (according Weihrich and Koontz, 1993).. Leadership requires information about what is really happening in the organization and communication is therefore essential for defining (setting) and achieving goals, developing plans and their realization, for organizing the human and other resources in the most efficient and effective manner; for selection, development and evaluation of members of the organization, for leadership, guidance, motivating and creating a climate in which people want to make their contribution, and for the control of the achievement.
The role of managers is not manipulating his associates, but the ability to inspire his colleagues and the ability to develop positive working environment suitable for the achievement.
Employees will quickly recognize, and therefore realize a message from those managers who provide them with meeting their own needs or goals. Those executives who understand what motivates their people, will be more successful in managing and creating a positive communication climate.
To create a satisfactory communication climate it is essential to ensure a smooth flow of information in any direction. When creating a communication climate it is important to enable employees to participate in problems and tasks solving process as well as in considerations about the most effective solutions. This implies the inclusion of employees together with specialized professionals and managers in seeking the best solutions for shaping the work environment which will result in the best possible work productivity. Within the scope of this technique, the workers’ dignity, as well as of the attractiveness and quality of the working environment are taken into account.
All in all, in order to have better motivated employees and thereby improved communication climate, it is necessary to incorporate in a working process bigger sense of interest and challenge. This could be done by allowing and encouraging the employees to participate to greater extent in decision making process regarding working methods and techniques, thus creating the sense of their own responsibility to carry out the tasks.
Enabling the employees to have an insight in to the way how the realization of their part of the tasks contribute in achieving the common goal of the organization provides them with the feedback information about their own achievements which, at the same time, results in their inclusion in changing the environment where they spend their working time.
Every successful manager must have the ability to use his/her power in successful and responsible manner, capacity for understanding that his subordinates are also human beings who are in different times and different situations differently motivated for work. ( forum.hr, 2009).
In case of low level of communication climate in some working environment, the employees’ work motivation will be very low as well as their job satisfaction. Likewise, if the employees’ motivation is low, communication climate in the organization will be very unfavourable. For example, if the supervisor always has some groundless remarks to employees regarding their work performance, employees will be less motivated to achieve defined goal.
The role of the manager is not to manipulate his associates, but the ability to inspire his colleagues and the ability to develop positive working environment suitable for the achievement.
Those executives who understand what motivates their employees will be more successful in managing and creating a positive communication climate. When creating a communication climate it is important to encourage workers to participate in solving problems and to enable their constructive contribution in finding effective solutions, which will significantly raise the level of motivation among employees.
It could be therefore considered that the manager has very significant role in relation between the communication climate and motivation. He actually creates a communication climate and motivates the employees through various methods and techniques.
In early sixties Gibb's (Gibb, 1961) identified six characteristics of "supportive communication climate" and six characteristics of "defensive communication climate". He characterized the supportive climate as an environment in which the work is done within the frame of flexibility (provisional’s), empathy, equality, honesty (spontaneity), problem orientation and description (clarity of communication), and defensive climate as an environment which comes with criticism, too much control, manipulation, indifference, superiority and dogmatism.
Job satisfaction is defined as a measure to express how much the employee has a favourable and positive feelings about his/her job or work environment (De Nobile and McCormick, 2005). It refers to a positive perception or emotional determination that people get from work or through certain aspects of the job.
Job satisfaction is the general attitude based on experience with specific aspects of the job, such as work assignments or job content, salary, methods of management, promotion opportunities, working conditions, co-workers and organizational context. Estimations of satisfaction with different aspects of work are usually in positive correlation with each other, as well as the satisfaction with different aspects of job correlate with overall job satisfaction (Maslić-Seršić, 2000).
Vroom (1964) sorted out the factors that had been described in all earlier studies of job satisfaction. These are: the policy of the organization, management, promotion opportunities, work content, supervising, cash rewards, working conditions and co-workers. (Vroom, 1964, according to the Petz, 1987).
There are many questionnaires for assessing job satisfaction and for determination the attitudes toward work. One of the best known is Job Descriptive Index by Smith, Kendall and Hulina (1969) that defines satisfaction related to five areas: work, salary, promotion opportunities, supervision and colleagues at work.
The simplest and most commonly used instrument is the one which poses one question and requires from subject direct answer whether they are satisfied with their work by choosing one of the offered choices (from “I am very satisfied” to “I am very dissatisfied”) on a Likert response format (Benmansour, 1998).
The Goal of the Research
The aim of this research is to answer the question to what extent are the dimensions of communication climate associated with job satisfaction. If the correlation between the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction is confirmed, that could mean that the managers by changing their style of communication can influence the employee satisfaction and their work motivation.
Problem
Based on the research objectives, following problems were set:
a. To examine the correlation between supportive and defensive communication climate and job satisfaction
b. To examine the differences between male and female subjects according the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
c. To examine differences between younger and older subjects according the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
The sample
The study included 61 subjects - 28 male and 33 female. Age range was from 19-55 years, and all were employed in small private companies.
Research variables
1. Communication climate
a. Supportive communication climate
b. Defensive communication climate
2. Job satisfaction
Research Instruments
The Communication Climate Inventory (authors James Costigan and Martha Schmeidler) had been administered during the survey. The questionnaire uses 6 supportive and 6 defensive factors as a means of assessing the communication climate within work groups in an organization. It consists of 36 questions in a Likert response format.
Job satisfaction was assessed by a single question.
Hypothesis
a. Positive correlation is expected between the different dimensions of supportive communication climate and job satisfaction
b. Negative correlation is expected between the different dimensions of defensive communication climate and job satisfaction
c. No differences are expected between men and women in their perception of communication climate and job satisfaction.
d. No differences between younger and older employees are expected in their perception of communication climate and job satisfaction.
Results
Descriptive data for the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
Table 1 General descriptive data for the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
Defensive Climate / 60 / 1,44 / 4,28 / 2,84 / ,71
Evaluation / 60 / 1,00 / 4,67 / 2,66 / ,81
Control / 61 / 1,33 / 5,00 / 3,14 / ,85
Strategy / 61 / 1,00 / 5,00 / 2,77 / ,96
Neutrality / 61 / 1,33 / 4,67 / 2,87 / ,76
Superiority / 61 / 1,00 / 4,33 / 2,63 / ,99
Certainty / 61 / 1,00 / 5,00 / 2,94 / 1,17
Supportive Climate / 61 / 1,33 / 4,61 / 3,33 / ,69
Provisional’s / 61 / 1,00 / 5,00 / 3,39 / 1,04
Empathy / 61 / 1,33 / 5,00 / 3,27 / ,93
Equality / 61 / 1,33 / 5,00 / 3,32 / ,84
Spontaneity / 61 / 1,00 / 5,00 / 3,39 / ,92
Problem Orientation / 61 / 1,00 / 5,00 / 3,37 / ,90
Description / 61 / 1,00 / 4,33 / 3,14 / ,83
Job Satisfaction / 61 / 1 / 5 / 3,36 / 1,08
.
Table 1 shows that the subjects evaluate supportive climate with higher rates
(M = 3.33) than defensive climate (M = 2.84). This means that within the sample group the communications climate in their companies is more positive than negative. Among the dimensions that indicate defensive communication climate, the worst rates are associated with dimension “Control” (M = 3.14) and the best with the dimension “Superiority” (M = 2.63). Among the dimensions of supportive climate the best is estimated the dimension “Provisional’s” (M = 3.39), and the worst dimension “Description” (M = 3.14).
Differences between men and women regarding dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
Table 2.Differences between men and women regarding the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
men / womenM / SD / M / SD / t-test / P
Defensive Climate / 2,92 / ,72 / 2,77 / ,70 / ,806 / ,42
Evaluation / 2,80 / ,72 / 2,54 / ,87 / 1,282 / ,20
Control / 3,29 / ,82 / 3,01 / ,86 / 1,320 / ,19
Strategy / 2,85 / ,88 / 2,70 / 1,03 / ,602 / ,55
Neutrality / 2,97 / ,77 / 2,78 / ,74 / ,963 / ,33
Superiority / 2,59 / 1,03 / 2,66 / ,96 / -,279 / ,78
Certainty / 3,03 / 1,26 / 2,86 / 1,10 / ,550 / ,58
Supportive Climate / 3,29 / ,62 / 3,36 / ,75 / -,375 / ,70
Provisional’s / 3,20 / 1,06 / 3,55 / 1,01 / -1,322 / ,19
Empathy / 3,08 / ,85 / 3,44 / ,97 / -1,522 / ,13
Equality / 3,28 / ,82 / 3,35 / ,87 / -,310 / ,75
Spontaneity / 3,39 / ,87 / 3,40 / ,97 / -,047 / ,96
Problem Orientation / 3,40 / ,86 / 3,34 / ,95 / ,262 / ,79
Description / 3,19 / ,81 / 3,10 / ,86 / ,413 / ,68
Job Satisfaction / 3,46 / 1,03 / 3,27 / 1,12 / ,687 / ,49
Testing the differences between men and women (t-test) showed that there were no differences between them in any dimension of communication climate, neither defensive nor supportive. Thus, both men and women evaluate the communication climate in their companies equally. Also, no statistically significant differences were found between men and women in their assessment of job satisfaction.
Both men and women in this sample are equally satisfied with their jobs.
Differences between older and younger subjects regarding the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
Table 3.Differences between older and younger subjects regarding the dimensions of communication climate and job satisfaction
older / youngerM / SD / M / SD / t-test / P
Defensive Climate / 2,99 / ,71 / 2,69 / ,68 / 1,659 / ,10
Evaluation / 2,83 / ,83 / 2,48 / ,75 / 1,725 / ,09
Control / 3,34 / ,73 / 2,93 / ,92 / 1,922 / ,05
Strategy / 2,88 / 1,01 / 2,88 / 1,0 / ,868 / ,38
Neutrality / 2,88 / 1,01 / 2,88 / 1,01 / ,975 / ,33
Superiority / 2,70 / ,97 / 2,55 / 1,01 / ,605 / ,54
Certainty / 3,22 / 1,26 / 2,65 / 1,01 / 1,937 / ,05
Supportive Climate / 3,26 / ,71 / 3,40 / ,68 / -,786 / ,43
Provisional’s / 3,11 / 1,07 / 3,67 / ,94 / -2,150 / ,03
Empathy / 3,15 / ,97 / 3,41 / ,88 / -1,092 / ,27
Equality / 3,30 / ,82 / 3,34 / ,87 / -,199 / ,84
Spontaneity / 3,30 / ,91 / 3,50 / ,93 / -,838 / ,40
Problem Orientation / 3,50 / ,73 / 3,23 / 1,04 / 1,178 / ,24
Description / 3,22 / ,84 / 3,05 / ,84 / ,791 / ,43
Job Satisfaction / 3,32 / ,97 / 3,40 / 1,19 / -,278 / ,78
Older subjects statistically significant perceive that their executives were showing higher control in relation to them when comparing with the evaluation made by younger subjects. (M for older subjects is 3.34; for younger M = 2.93,
t = 1.9222, P <.05).
One could expect quite opposite - that the managers need to control less the older subjects because they are more experienced, better know their job and they do not need any special control. In line with that, younger employees, who has just started to work most probably need to be more controlled due to their lack of experience and thus need supervision and assistance.
However, these results still could be explained - it is possible that the older subjects are more sensitive to control because, believing they should not be controlled, even the smallest control perceive as excessive one.