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Chinese Management StudiesEmerald Article: Work, motivation and personal characteristics: an in-depth study of six organizations in NingboFang Yang

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To cite this document: Fang Yang, (2011),"Work, motivation and personal characteristics: an in-depth study of six organizations in Ningbo", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 5 Iss: 3 pp. 272 - 297

Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506141111163363

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Work, motivation and personalcharacteristics: an in-depth studyof six organizations in Ningbo

Fang YangNingbo Institute of Education, Ningbo, People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate employees’ work motivation in China. It aimsto give answers to two questions: what motivates employees in China? What are the effects of personalcharacteristics on work motivation for employees in China?

Design/methodology/approach – The study used convenience sampling to select the sample andthe respondents were randomly selected from employees of six organizations, from people in thepersonnel market and also from people walking around in shopping centres in a very representativecity of China – Ningbo. Then, descriptive statistics, t-test (one sample t-test, independent sample t-testand one-way ANOVA), regression analysis and scatter plots were used to analyze the data.

Findings – The findings of the study are: all the 15 motivation factors listed in the questionnaire,including good pay, promotion, desirable work environment, good welfare package, good bonus system,good company policy, good interpersonal relationships, good supervisors, job security, the opportunity touse my ability, a sense of challenge and achievement, positive recognition, autonomy, self-actualizationand interesting job, do motivate employees in China; good pay is the most important motivator foremployees in China; employees’ work motivation is affected by their personal characteristics.

Originality/value – It is believed that these findings can assist organizations in China, those locatedin Ningbo in particular, in effectively motivating their employees. It may also be applied toorganizations located in other parts of the world which have Chinese employees.

Keywords Work motivation, China, Employees, Personal characteristics, Motivation factors, Good pay,National cultures, Employees behaviour

Paper type Research paper

1. IntroductionWood et al. (1994) define organizations as collections of people who are workingtogether and cooperating based on a division of labour in order to achieve a commonpurpose. Generally, it is impossible for the owners of an organization to achieve theirorganizational objective on their own. This indicates that employees represent a kindof valuable asset for an organization. Moreover, it is generally agreed that employees’individual performance has a significant impact on the organizational performance.Therefore, managers of organizations always try to find ways to stimulate theiremployees’ work motivation, which refers to the forces within an individual whichare reflected by the level, direction and persistence of effort put into his work(Wood et al., 1994) to improve their work efficiency.

On the other hand, people are different and have different work values and needs.Employees are different in demographic characteristics, for example, gender, age,

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1750-614X.htm

This paper could not have been possible without the help from Dr Saileshsingh Gunessee,who is thanked for his valuable advice, and the author would also like to thank her husband,Zhang chuyang, for his unconditional support and encouragement.

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Chinese Management StudiesVol. 5 No. 3, 2011pp. 272-297q Emerald Group Publishing Limited1750-614XDOI 10.1108/17506141111163363

educational level, working experience and cultural background. This leads todifferences in employees’ work values and needs. Buelens et al. (2006) report thatresearchers have compared the work values and needs of young workers with thevalues of their parents and grandparents and found that those of previous generationswant just a high salary and good career prospects whereas young people are moremotivated by autonomy, creativity, challenges and growth in their jobs. Then,according to Hofstede (2001), people from different cultural backgrounds have diversework values. For instance, people in the USA pay high attention to work and giveemphasis to competition, success and performance; however, people in Taiwan do notemphasize work so much and focus on the quality of life and interpersonal relationships(Su, 2006). Thus, managers face challenges to motivate diverse employees.

In order to help managers to effectively motivate their employees, a large amount ofresearch has been conducted to identify the factors which can motivate employees;therefore, several versions of a motivation theory were generated in the nineteenthcentury, such as the Hierarchy of Needs Theory, McClelland’s Theory of Needs,Herzberg’s two-factor Theory, ERG Theory and Job Design Theory (Ross, 1998).However, all the motivation theories were developed in the west and may not apply toChinese employees (Geren, 2002; Humphreys, 2007). Influenced by Confucianism, Chinesepeople should have diverse work values compared with westerners. Even though someresearch about Chinese employees’ work motivation has been carried out, almost all thesestudies, for example, the researches conducted by Geren (2002), Jackson (1998), Taorminaand Lao (2007) and Wang (2001), were conducted in the greatest cities of China, includingTaiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. Of course, these big internationalcities are not representative of China as a whole. The present research concentrated onstudying employees’ work motivation in a very representative city of China – Ningbowhere to our knowledge no studies of work motivation have been conducted.

This research aims to give answers to the two questions:

RQ1. What motivates employees in China?

RQ2. What are the effects of personal characteristics on work motivation foremployees in China?

Except for the introduction and conclusion, the main body of the report consists of threeparts: the literature review, methodology, results and discussion. The literature reviewis mainly concerned with a theoretical background of work motivation and the relevantresearch. The methodology will explain the methods used for sampling, data collectionand data analysis in detail. The results and discussion will first show the researchresults and then evaluate the findings. It will also point out the practical implicationsand limitations of the current study and finally give suggestions for future research.

2. Literature review2.1 Motivation theoriesHierarchy of Needs Theory was proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943 (Mullins, 2006;Wilson, 2004). This theory states that every human being has a hierarchy of five kinds ofneeds which are physiological needs, safety, social needs, esteem and self-actualization;physiological needs refer to needs for survival, such as needs to get rid of hunger andthirst; safety means security and protection from physical and emotional harm; socialneeds mainly include affection, belonging, acceptance and friendship; esteem consists

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of human beings’ internal esteem factors, for example, self-respect, autonomy andachievement, and external esteem factors, such as status, recognition and attention;self-actualization refers to growth and self-fulfilment (Robbins and Judge, 2007). Maslowbelieves that a lower level need must be satisfied before a higher one is expected (Robbinsand Judge, 2007). That is the reason why it is called a hierarchy of needs. Maslow alsostates that the needs are all the same for all human beings (Robbins and Judge, 2007).

McClelland’s Theory of Needs was developed by David McClelland and publishedin The Achieving Society in 1961 (Ramlall, 2004, p. 54). It suggests that individuals aremotivated based on three needs which are achievement, power and affiliation (Robbinsand Judge, 2007). The need for achievement refers to the need to excel and succeed;the need for power means the need to control and coach other people and make thembehave in a way that they would not have behaved otherwise; the need for affiliationrefers to the desire to spend time in establishing and maintaining close interpersonalrelationships with others (Buelens et al., 2006; Wood et al., 1994).

Herzberg’s two-factor Theory was put forward by Frederik Herzberg in 1966(Wang, 2001; Wilson, 2004; Wood et al., 1994). This theory divides the factors which arerelated to work motivation into two clusters; motivator factors and hygiene factors;Herzberg claims that motivator factors are the factors which are intrinsic to the jobincluding achievement, recognition for achievement, the work itself, responsibility andgrowth or advancement; these factors can contribute to job satisfaction but will notresult in job dissatisfaction; oppositely, hygiene factors, which are extrinsic to work,mainly cause job dissatisfaction and cannot lead to the feeling of job satisfaction; theseextrinsic factors consist of company policy, administration, supervision, interpersonalrelationships, working conditions, salary, status and security (Graham and Messner,1998; Tietjen and Myers, 1998; Wilson, 2004).

ERG Theory was proposed by Clayton Alderfer in 1969 and it is a revised versionof Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Robbins, 2005). It divides Maslow’s five needcategories into three groups and they are existence, relatedness and growth(Buelens et al., 2006). Existence needs refer to physiological and material needs whichinclude Maslow’s physiological and safety needs; relatedness needs are desires for closeinterpersonal relationships and they refer to Maslow’s social and external esteem needs;growth needs are concerned with personal growth and development which are similar toMaslow’s self-esteem and self-actualization needs (Buelens et al., 2006; Wood et al., 1994).

Job Design Theory was proposed by Hackman and Oldham in 1980 (Champoux,1991). This theory presumes that the task itself, which refers to internal factors, is keyto employee’s work motivation (Ramlall, 2004). It reports that employees can bemotivated through five core job dimensions; skill variety, task identity, tasksignificance, autonomy and feedback; skill variety refers to the extent to which a jobrequires a variety of different activities; task identity means the degree to which thecompletion of a whole and identifiable piece of work is required; task significancerefers to the extent to which a job has significant impact on other people lives or work;autonomy means the degree to which employees have freedom and independence;feedback is the degree to which employees can get clear information about theeffectiveness of their performance when a task is completed; this theory believes thatto what extent employees are motivated depends on the degree to which the first threedimensions are satisfied (Champoux, 1991; Robbins, 2005).

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Congruent Temperament Model of Work Motivation was proposed by Humphreysand Einstein in 2004; they state that the traditional motivation theories are incompleteand they propose that a comprehensive model of work motivation must includeelements of individual personality and aspects of effort, individual abilities,expectancy, instrumentality, valence, goal-directed behaviour, intrinsic and extrinsicrewards, satisfaction with work, leadership and perceived equity; they believe thatpeople with different personalities have different needs and desires and exhibit variedpreferences in the order of needs too (Humphreys, 2007).

Even though all six theories cover the individual needs which motivate employees,they propose varied motivation factors and have different indications about therelationship between work motivation and pay and the connection between workmotivation and personal characteristics, as shown in Table I. Wood et al. (1994) claimthat all content theories agree that individual needs have an impact on their workingbehaviours; however, they disagree somewhat with regard to the exact nature ofindividual needs. Therefore, these theories focus on different needs. For instance, theHierarchy of Needs Theory, ERG Theory and the Congruent Temperament Model ofWork Motivation suggest that good pay can motivate employees work hard;nevertheless, pay is not included as a motivator in McClelland’s Theory of Needs,Herzberg’s two-factor Theory and Job Design Theory. Furthermore, all these theoriesneglect that employees with varied personal characteristics might have varied needsand desires, except that the Congruent Temperament Model of Work Motivation pointsout that work motivation is affected by individual personality.

Scholars debate the merits of these motivation theories and a large amount ofresearch has been carried out to test these theories. Even though the Hierarchy of Needs

Name of theories Motivation factors proposedIndication about pay andpersonal characteristics

Hierarchy of NeedsTheory

Physiological needs, safety, social needs,esteem and self-actualization

Pay as a physiological need is alower level need

McClelland’s Theoryof Needs

Achievement, power and affiliation Pay is not included asmotivation factors

Herzberg’s two-factorTheory

Motivators: achievement, recognition forachievement, the work itself,responsibility and growth oradvancement

Pay is not a motivator

Hygiene factors: company policy,administration, supervision,interpersonal relationships, workingconditions, salary, status and security

ERG Theory Three groups of core needs: existence,relatedness and growth

Pay as an existence need is alower level motivator

Job Design Theory Skill variety, task identity, tasksignificance, autonomy and feedback

Pay is not included asmotivation factors

Congruent TemperamentModel of WorkMotivation

Individual personality, effort, individualabilities, expectancy, instrumentality,valence, goal-directed behaviour, intrinsicand extrinsic rewards, satisfaction withwork, leadership and perceived equity

People with differentpersonality have differentneeds and desires Table I.

Comparison of workmotivation theories


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Theory is an extremely famous motivation theory, little research supports this theoryand many scholars question whether these needs must be met in order and argue thatdifferent people have different needs (Geren, 2002). For example, Buchanan andHuczynski (1977) point out that for some people esteem is more important than socialneeds, such as love. However, Maslow’s theory does provide important implications fororganizations on how to satisfy these five types of needs which their employees mightexperience (Buelens et al., 2006). ERG Theory, as a modified version of Maslow’stheory, has more supporting evidence than Maslow’s theory, but additional findings onneed differences between employees with different personal characteristics have beenconstantly reported (Wood et al., 1994). As far as Herzberg’s two-factor Theory isconcerned, it mistakenly presumes hygiene factors, such as good pay and good welfarepackage, can only result in job dissatisfaction but will not motivate employees( Jones and Lloyd, 2005; Oshagbemi, 1997). Oshagbemi (1997) makes clear that anygiven factor can generate either job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Katsva and Condrey(2005) find out that salary and monetary rewards are important motivators in theRussian nuclear industry after conducting their research. With regard to McClelland’sTheory of Needs, given the fact that McClelland puts more focus on higher level needsbut ignores lower level needs, such as the need for existence. This theory is particularlyuseful for managerial applications (Wood et al., 1994). As for the Job Design Theory,many positive results which are supportive to this theory have been found(Buelens et al., 2006). Nonetheless, this theory can be criticized in that it focuses oninternal motivation only and neglects the motivation caused by external factors.In regard to the recently proposed Congruent Temperament Model of WorkMotivation, besides including varied aspects of work motivation, it reports thatdifferent people with different personalities have different needs and desires, which hasnot mentioned by any other previous motivation theories. Robbins and Judge (2007)also recognize this, pointing out that people with a negative personality usually feeldissatisfied with their jobs. This seems that this model is relatively comprehensiveand eclectic, but it neglects the influences of other personal characteristics,except personality, on work motivation (Humphreys, 2007).

2.2 Work motivation and personal characteristicsEven though nearly all motivation theories do not mention personal factors, such asgender, age, educational level, working experience, occupation and marital status, it isbelieved that work motivation is affected by personal factors. Eskildsen et al. (2004)report that men tend to be less satisfied with their work than women. AlthoughEbrahimi’s (1999) research shows that both male and female business students areequally motivated to manage, Kamdron (2005) finds out that female higher officials aremore likely to be motivated by recognition and good relationships with supervisorswhereas male higher officials are more motivated by responsibility. These findingsprovide evidence that gender difference leads to variables in work motivation. As for aneducational level, Eskildsen et al. (2004) maintain that highly educated employees will becomparatively less satisfied towards their jobs than those who do not have a higheducation. Concerning working experience, Graham and Messner (1998) announcethat principals with more working experience are likely to be dissatisfied with theirpromotion opportunities and those with less experience are less satisfied with theirsalaries. In respect of occupation, marital status and age, Hong et al. (1995) write that

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there is an obvious difference in the attitude towards benefit between management andworker; single employees emphasize more of a benefit effect on job performance thanmarried ones; different employees with varied ages perceive diverse benefit impacts.All these clearly show that individual differences have an influence on work motivation.Moody and Pesut (2006) further support this, coming to the conclusion that nurses’ workmotivation is impacted by their personal differences.

2.3 Work motivation in ChinaNotwithstanding the fact that all the motivation theories proposed play an extremelyimportant role in work motivation literature, all of them were developed in the west;thus, they may not necessarily apply to the rest to the world, especially China whichhas vast differences with the west in terms of economic systems and culture (Geren,2002; Humphreys, 2007). China is not as well developed as Western industrializedcountries as far as economy is concerned. Jaw et al. (2007) claim that there is anassociation between differences in levels of economic development and valuedifferences including work values. That is, work values between highly industrializedand less developed societies will not be the same. With regard to culture differences,according to Hofstede (2001), China can be described as a high power distance, highuncertainty avoidance and collectivist culture whereas the culture shared by Westerncountries belongs to a low power distance, low uncertainty avoidance and individualistculture. Of course in certain cases, culture is changing and many researchers argue thatChinese culture is increasingly impacted by Western cultures, but Chinese culture isstill very different from Western culture. Given the fact that cultural values have aprofound effect on people’s work values and work values are also a part of culturalvalues, it is unlikely that the work motivation theories which were developed in theWestern countries can apply to China. Jackson (1998) agrees, pointing out that Westernconcepts of work motivation are not relevant in China, which is characterized as acollectivist culture and Chinese people may be more likely motivated by things whichare best for their country rather than their individual benefits. Therefore, someresearch has been conducted to investigate work motivation in China.

Because of the differences in work values, Chinese employees show dissimilarpreferences towards varied motivation factors compared with Western people ( Jaw et al.,2007). Geren (2002) indicates that Chinese employees are more motivated by group goalsbecause of a collective nature of their work values, but Western people tend to bemotivated by individual goals. As has been mentioned previously, Jackson (1998) claimsevidence shows that money represents an important motivation factor in China.Tjosvold and Moy (1998) find out that cooperative goals can motivate Chineseemployees to a large extent. In addition, survey from corporate employees in Hong Kongand Beijing shows that positive leadership motivates Chinese employees(Lingnan University, 2007).

2.4 Research gap and this researchHowever, nearly all studies about work motivation in China, for instance, the researchescarried out by Geren (2002), Jackson (1998), Taormina and Lao (2007) and Wang (2001),were conducted in the big international cities of China, including Taiwan,Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou and it is believed that these areasare not representative of China as a whole. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Shanghai,


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Beijing and Guangzhou are much more developed than other places in China in terms ofeconomy. Ebrahimi (1999) writes that Hong Kong is very different from mainland Chinain important factors, such as culture and economic development. Furthermore, people’ssocial values, including work values, in these areas are influenced by Western culture toa large extent, especially Taiwan and Hong Kong. Having been exposed to Westernthought since a long time ago, Taiwan shows obvious differences in work motivationfrom mainland China; the opportunity to use one’s ability and a sense of challenge areperceived as most important motivators by Taiwan managers whereas good pay is themost important one for mainland Chinese managers (Wang, 2001). Also, because ofdifferences in economic and cultural conditions, employees in Hong Kong and mainlandChina show different preferences with regard to compensation; it has been found thatbase salary, merit pay, year-end bonus, annual leave, mortgage loan and profit sharingare the most important motivators in Hong Kong; however, employees in mainlandChina consider housing provision, cash allowance, overtime allowance and individualbonus more important besides base salary, merit pay and year-end bonus (Chiu et al.,2002). Geren (2002) further reports that invasion of Western culture is quite obvious inShanghai. Therefore, most researches about work motivation in China are limited sincenon-representative samples were used in those studies.

This research also aims to study employees’ work motivation in China and it iscarried out in a very representative city of China, Ningbo, where to our knowledgeno studies of work motivation have been conducted. Based on the discussion above,the research questions and hypotheses of this research are:

RQ1. What motivates employees in China?

RQ2. What are the effects of personal characteristics on work motivation foremployees in China?

H1. Good pay is the most important motivation factor for employees in China.

H2. Work motivation is affected by personal characteristics, including gender,age, educational level, working experience, marital status, personality andmonthly income, in China.

It is believed that the research findings will assist organizations in China, those locatedin Ningbo in particular, in effectively motivating their staff.

3. Methodology3.1 Sample selection3.1.1 Why choose Ningbo? There are three reasons why this study was conducted inNingbo. First, in terms of both economy and culture, which are the two main importantelements which affect work values in a society, Ningbo can be representative of China.Ningbo is a moderately developed city in China, and similar to the national economicdevelopment it is performing increasingly economic growth (Ningbo Municipal People’sGovernment Office, 2006). With regard to culture, people in Ningbo have opportunitiesto learn Western culture but no invasion of Western culture can be felt in Ningbo.Second, samples with varied demographic characteristics can be found in Ningbo.Ningbo has about 1.7 million working people who come from other parts of China(Ningbo Municipal People’s Government Office, 2005). Ningbo also has working people

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who have varied education background, among whom over 860 people have a PhDdegree, more than 7,400 people have a master degree, about 187,000 people have abachelor degree and approximate 390,000 people have a three-year diploma(Ningbo Municipal People’s Government Development Research Centre, 2007). Third,different forms of organizations, including foreign invested enterprises, domesticprivate enterprises and non-business organizations, are available in Ningbo. Accordingto Ningbo Municipal Economic Commission (2007), there are more than 11,000foreign-invested enterprises, where over 0.8 million people are working, in Ningbo.Economic & Trade Commission of Zhejiang Province (2007) reports that the number ofdomestic private enterprises has reached to 91,000 in Ningbo by 2006. A number of themare nationally prominent private enterprises (Firth, 2005). All these suggest that Ningbois a city which is appropriate to studying work motivation of Chinese employees.

3.1.2 Sampling strategy. Convenience sampling, which refers to obtaining samplesbased on the researcher’s convenience, was adopted in this research. It is believed thatworking places, the personnel market and shopping centres are places employeesnormally go, so samples in this research were obtained through three ways. The first onewas getting samples from employees of some organizations, including foreign investedenterprises, domestic private enterprises and non-business organizations, in Ningbo.The second method was asking some people who were looking for new jobs in theNingbo personnel market to fill in the questionnaire. The third way was selectingsamples from people walking around in shopping centres in downtown Ningbo.

3.1.3 Participants. The number of respondents in the sample was 207. Table IIshows that 100 of the respondents (48.3 percent) were male and 107 (51.7 percent)were female. Their ages ranged from 18 to 58 years (mean ¼ 27.69, standarddeviation ¼ 7.61). With regard to educational level, 124 (59.9 percent) respondents had

Personal factors Number of respondents % Minimum Maximum SD Mean

GenderMale 100 48.30Female 107 51.70

Age (years) 18 58 7.61 27.69Educational level

High school or below 124 59.90University education 83 40.10

Working experience (years) 0.1 35 6.35 7Marital status

Single 86 41.50Married 121 58.50

PersonalityIntrovert 74 35.70Extrovert 133 64.30

Income per month (RMB), 1,500 61 29.50

1,500-1,999 52 25.102,000-2,999 30 14.503,000-4,999 38 18.405,000-10,000 17 8.20. 10,000 9 4.30

Table II.Demographic information

about the participants


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a high school education or below, and 83 (40.1 percent) had a university education. Therespondent’s working experience ranged from 0.1 to 35 years (mean ¼ 7.0, standarddeviation ¼ 6.35). For marital status, 86 participants (41.5 percent) were single, and121 (58.5 percent) were married. As far as personality is concerned, 74 respondents(35.7 percent) described themselves as introverts and the remaining 133 (64.3 percent)described themselves as extroverts. Concerning the respondents’ income per month,29.5 percent (61 respondents) were below 1,500RMB, 25.1 percent (52 respondents)were between 1,500RMB and 1,999RMB, 14.5 percent (30 respondents) were between2,000RMB and 2,999RMB, 18.4 percent (38 respondents) were between 3,000RMBand 4,999RMB, 8.2 percent (17 respondents) were between 5,000RMB and 10,000RMB,and 4.3 percent (9 respondents) were above 10,000RMB. Therefore, participants withvaried personal characteristics were obtained in the study.

3.2 Questionnaire designA four-page questionnaire was used. This study involved three types of variables,which were personal characteristics, motivation factors and work motivation. All ofthem were explained by numerical values.

3.2.1 Personal characteristics. In the first part of the questionnaire, respondentswere asked for their gender, age, educational level, working experience, marital status,personality and income. Except that the variables of age and working experience weremeasured by continuous data, the other variables of personal characteristics weremeasured on ordinal scales. Gender was coded 0 for female and 1 for male; educationallevel was scored 0 for high school or below and 1 for university education; with regardto marital status, 0 for married and 1 for single; personality was scored 0 for extrovertand 1 for introvert; income per month was ranked using a score from 1 to 6, where1 meant less than 1,500RMB, 2 was 1,500 to 1,999RMB, 3 was 2,000 to 2,999RMB, 4 was3,000 to 4,999RMB, 5 was 5,000 to 10,000RMB and 6 referred to above 10,000RMB.

3.2.2 Motivation factors. The variables of motivation factors were measured bya question: how often the motivation factors motivate employees work hard anda seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always) was used to assess thefrequency. There were 15 factors listed in the questionnaire and they were good pay,promotion, desirable work environment, good welfare package, good bonus system,good company policy, good interpersonal relationships, good supervisors, job security,the opportunity to use my ability, a sense of challenge and achievement, positiverecognition, autonomy, self-actualization and interesting job. These motivation factorsare based on the content motivation theories and other literature about workmotivators. In summary, there are three kinds of motivation factors and they areextrinsic factors, intrinsic factors and a higher set of motivation needs.

3.2.3 Work motivation. A total of 15 items, which were adopted from the JobDiagnostic Survey developed by Hackman and Oldham, were used to measure of thevariable of work motivation. Each respondent was asked to score “to what extent do youagree with the below statements with regard to your current job” with a Likert-typeseven-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The15 statements, concerning five dimensions of skill variety, task identity, tasksignificance, autonomy and feedback, were used to assess the motivating potentialof the respondents’ present jobs (Cyberchefs Electronic Union, 2007). Three items foreach dimension were used.

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3.3 ProcedureAltogether, 250 questionnaires were handed out. Of these, 150 were given to employeesin the six organizations, among which two are foreign invested enterprises, two aredomestic private enterprises and two are non-business organizations. In total, 100 wentto the subjects found in shopping centres in downtown and the Ningbo PersonnelMarket. In total, 217 completed questionnaires were collected finally. Thus, the responserate was 86.8 percent. Whereas ten questionnaires had to be discarded because therewere excessive missing data, the total number of usable responses was 207.

3.4 Data analysisIn order to answer the RQ1 and test the H1, both descriptive statistics and one samplet-test were used in the study. First of all, the descriptive statistics, mean in particular,of the 15 motivation factors were carried out with SPSS 16.0. Then, one sample t-testfor each motivation factor was carried out to find out whether the average value of eachmotivation factor is higher than four, which refers to “the factor sometimes motivatesthe respondents work hard”. The factors with p-values (sig. in SPSS) less than0.05 would be classified as motivators; otherwise they would not be included as factorswhich motivate employees in China. Finally, all motivators were ranked based on theirmeans. The one with the highest mean was ranked as the most important motivator;the factor with the second highest mean was ranked as the second importantmotivator, and so on. In this way, the H1 would not be rejected when good pay wasranked as the most important motivation factor otherwise it would be rejected.

The effects of personal characteristics on work motivation (the RQ2 and the H2)were analyzed through regression analysis, descriptive statistics, independent samplest-test, one-way ANOVA and scatter plots. Regression is often used to measure therelationships between one variable and several other variables (Malhotra, 2007;Oakshott, 2006). Therefore, a regression analysis was conducted to analyze therelationship between personal characteristics and work motivation. In order to studythe effects of personal factors on work motivation in more detail, first, the means foreach motivation factor under each subgroup of the respondents’ demographicinformation, including gender, educational level, marital status, personality and incomeper month, were carried out. Then, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVAwere used to test if the average values for each motivation factor under differentsubgroups are different. In this way, it would be clear if employees with varied gender,educational level, marital status, personality and income per month have diverse workmotivation preferences. Finally, the relationships between motivation factors and ageand working experience were examined, respectively, by scatter plots.

4. Results and discussion4.1 ResultsDescriptive statistics of all variables, which are shown in Table III, were carried out. Themean of the respondents’ age is 27.69-year old, and the mean of their working experienceis seven years. The mean income per month is between 2,000RMB and 2,999RMB.The minimum value and maximum value of all the 15 motivation factors are 1 and 7,respectively, except that the minimum value of good supervisors is 2. That is, norespondent replied that good supervisors never motivate them to work hard. Table IIIclearly shows that the means of all the 15 motivation factors are larger than 4.


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This means that, on average, the participants are motivated by all 15 factors.The maximum value of work motivation is 6.53. This implies that no respondent saidthat they strongly agreed with all 15 job-related items in part III of the questionnaire. Themean value of work motivation is 3.64 and it means that, on average, the respondents didnot agree with the job-related items. This seems to suggest that, in general,organizations in Ningbo were not doing so well in motivating their employees.

4.1.1 Motivation factors. The one sample t-test confirmed that all 15 motivationfactors can motivate employees in China. According to Table III, the means of all15 motivation factors are larger than four which refers to “the factor sometimesmotivates the respondents work hard”. This means that all 15 factors do motivate therespondents to work hard in order to test whether the average value of each motivationfactor is larger than four, one sample t-test was carried out and a 99 percent confidenceinterval was chosen. The null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis were: H0: mMF ¼ 4,H1:mMF .4 (mMF refers to the means of motivation factors for the population). The t-testshowed that the p-values for all the 15 factors are 0.000. Given the fact that the p-value inthe table named one sample test is the value for the two-tailed test, the p-value (0.000)was divided by two to get the value for the one-tailed test which is still 0.000.Because p-value (0.000) is smaller than 0.02, there is very strong evidence to rejectthe null hypothesis. Thus, there is very strong evidence at the 1 percent significance levelthat all the 15 factors can motivate employees. The RQ1 has been answered.

Then, these factors were ranked based on their means. It is not surprising that goodpay motivates employees in China to the largest extent, since the mean of good pay is thehighest which is 6.18. About 64.3 percent respondents replied that good pay alwaysmotivate them work hard and 14 percent said that good pay almost always motivate

Variables Minimum Maximum Mean SD

Gender 0 1 0.48 0.501Age (years) 18 58 27.69 7.610Educational level 0 1 0.40 0.491Working experience 0.1 35 7.00 6.350Marital status 0 1 0.42 0.494Personality 0 1 0.36 0.480Income per month 1 6 2.64 1.488Good pay 1 7 6.18 1.349Promotion 1 7 5.12 1.700Desirable work environment 1 7 5.31 1.362Good welfare package 1 7 5.87 1.339Good bonus system 1 7 5.77 1.422Good company policy 1 7 5.25 1.367Good interpersonal relationships 1 7 4.84 1.465Good supervisors 2 7 5.87 1.249Job security 1 7 5.68 1.423The opportunity to use my ability 1 7 5.34 1.546A sense of challenge and achievement 1 7 4.58 1.833Positive recognition 1 7 5.22 1.474Autonomy 1 7 4.64 1.689Self-actualization 1 7 4.98 1.684Interesting job 1 7 5.51 1.551Work motivation 1 6.53 3.64 1.371

Table III.Descriptive statisticsof the variables

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them work hard. This implies that, for most employees in China, good pay is anextremely important motivation factor. The second important motivation factors aregood welfare package and good supervisors with the same mean of 5.87. The order of theother motivation factors, in terms the frequency of motivating employees, is a goodbonus system (mean ¼ 5.77), job security (mean ¼ 5.68), interesting job (mean ¼ 5.51),the opportunity to use my ability (mean ¼ 5.34), desirable work environment(mean ¼ 5.31), good company policy (mean ¼ 5.25), positive recognition(mean ¼ 5.22), promotion (mean ¼ 5.12), self-actualization (mean ¼ 4.98), goodinterpersonal relationships (mean ¼ 4.84), a sense of challenge and achievement(mean ¼ 4.58), and autonomy (mean ¼ 4.46). Therefore, the assumption that pay is themost important motivation factor for employees in China was supported.

4.1.2 Personal characteristics. The effects of personal characteristics on workmotivation were studied by regression analyses. In order to make sure there is noserious problem of multicollinearity, which refers to a situation where there is stronglinear relationship between the independent variables of a regression model, thecorrelation matrix of the personal characteristics was carried out. The values ofcorrelations between the personal factors are shown in Table IV. The table clearlyshows that all the absolute values of the correlations are less than 0.75, except that thevalue of correlation between age and working experience is 20.888. This means thatthe correlation between age and working experience is high, and the correlationsbetween the other personal factors are not high. Thus, working experience was notincluded in the regression analyses between personal characteristics and workmotivation, so as to get rid of the problem of multicollinearity.

The regression analysis between work motivation and the personal characteristicsvariables (Table V) confirmed that the factors of gender, educational level and incomeper month have effects on employees’ work motivation. The results in Table V showthat gender is fairly significant for work motivation and it is negatively connected withwork motivation (coefficient ¼ 20.24, p-value ¼ 0.051). The table also shows thateducational level and income per month are very significant for work motivation, andboth of them are positively related to work motivation (coefficient ¼ 1.489,p-value ¼ 0.000; coefficient ¼ 0.356, p-value ¼ 0.000). These results are easy tointerpret: women, employees with a university education or employees with a highermonthly income are more motivated in their works than men, employees with a highschool education or below or employees with a lower monthly income.

In order to study the effects of personal characteristics on work motivation in amore specific way, the means of each motivation factor under different subgroups of

Incomeper month Personality Gender

Maritalstatus

Educationallevel

Workingexperience

Age(years)

Income per month 1.000 0.153 20.285 0.051 20.449 0.106 20.319Personality 0.153 1.000 20.084 20.154 20.047 0.067 20.089Gender 20.285 20.084 1.000 20.042 0.125 20.119 0.073Marital status 0.051 20.154 20.042 1.000 20.081 0.127 0.098Educational level 20.449 20.047 0.125 20.081 1.000 0.475 20.430Working experience 0.106 0.067 20.119 0.127 0.475 1.000 20.888Age (years) 20.319 20.089 0.073 0.098 20.430 20.888 1.000

Table IV.Correlations between

personal factors


283

employees’ personal characteristics were compared. First, the means for eachmotivation factor under each subgroup of gender, educational level, marital status,personality and income per month were carried out with SPSS 16.0, and the data weresummarized in Table VI. Then, independent sample t-tests between the motivationfactors and each of the personal factors, including gender, educational level,marital status and personality, were carried out, and 95 percent confidence intervalwas chosen. The null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis were:

H 0 : mM ¼ mF; H 1 : mM – mF;

H 0 : mH ¼ mU; H 1 : mH – mU;

H 0 : mMR ¼ mSG; H 1 : mMR – mSG;

H 0 : mE ¼ mI; H 1 : mE – mI

(mM refers to the average value of each motivation factor for male; mF refers to theaverage value of each motivation factor for female; mH refers to the average value ofeach motivation factor for employees with a high school education or below; mU refersto the average value of each motivation factor for employees with a universityeducation; mMR refers to the average value of each motivation factor for marriedemployees; mSG refers to the average value of each motivation factor for singleemployees; mE refers to the average value of each motivation factor for extroverts;mI refers to the average value of each motivation factor for introverts). The p-values ofthese independent sample t-tests can be found in Table VII.

The null hypotheses were rejected when p-values were less than 0.05, which arehighlighted in italics in Table VII. Therefore, the average values of good pay, promotion,good welfare package and good bonus system are different for male employees andfemale employees; the average values of promotion, the opportunity to use my ability,a sense of challenge and achievement, positive recognition, autonomy, self-actualizationand interesting job are different for employees with varied educational levels;

Personal factors Work motivation

GenderCoefficient 20.240p-value 0.051AgeCoefficient 20.005p-value 0.664Educational levelCoefficient 1.489p-value 0.000Marital statusCoefficient 20.096p-value 0.500PersonalityCoefficient 0.025p-value 0.837Income per monthCoefficient 0.356p-value 0.000

Table V.Regression analysesbetween personalcharacteristics andwork motivation

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Gen

der

Ed

uca

tion

alle

vel

Mar

ital

stat

us

Per

son

alit

yIn

com

ep

erm

onth

(RM

B)

Fac

tors

Fem

ale

Mal

eH

igh

sch

ool

orb

elow

Un

iver

sity

edu

cati

onM

arri

edS

ing

leE

xtr

over

tIn

trov

ert

,1,

500

1,50

0-1,

999

2,00

0-2,

999

3,00

0-4,

999

5,00

0-10

,000

. 10,0

00

PA

6.00

6.38

6.22

6.13

6.32

5.99

6.29

6.00

6.13

6.27

5.80

6.24

6.65

6.22

PM

4.76

5.50

4.64

5.83

5.33

4.81

5.20

4.97

4.39

5.00

5.50

5.29

6.35

6.33

WE

5.33

5.29

5.39

5.19

5.21

5.44

5.31

5.31

5.23

5.46

5.47

5.71

4.53

4.22

WP

5.69

6.06

5.80

5.98

5.95

5.76

5.98

5.66

6.62

5.67

6.07

6.18

6.12

6.22

BS

5.55

6.01

5.67

5.93

5.84

5.67

5.85

5.64

5.80

5.38

5.93

5.66

6.35

6.67

CP

5.33

5.17

5.36

5.08

5.23

5.28

5.28

5.20

5.44

5.10

5.53

5.21

4.76

5.00

IR5.

004.

664.

705.

044.

884.

785.

014.

534.

744.

445.

305.

474.

653.

89S

P6.

015.

725.

855.

905.

885.

855.

955.

726.

105.

426.

105.

876.

005.

89JS

5.72

5.64

5.71

5.64

5.82

5.49

5.74

5.58

5.57

5.73

5.90

5.79

5.41

5.44

OA

5.39

5.29

4.80

6.16

5.35

5.34

5.39

5.26

4.93

4.67

5.70

6.00

6.29

6.22

CA

4.62

4.54

3.92

5.57

4.64

4.49

4.47

4.30

4.03

4.04

5.10

5.26

5.53

5.00

PR

5.16

5.29

4.75

5.93

5.37

5.01

5.30

5.08

4.77

4.77

5.67

5.55

6.18

6.22

AT

4.45

4.84

3.84

5.83

4.76

4.47

4.60

4.70

4.03

3.77

5.07

5.50

5.94

6.22

SA

4.84

5.13

4.27

6.05

5.03

4.91

4.95

5.04

4.61

4.13

5.37

5.42

6.41

6.56

IJ5.

715.

295.

265.

885.

335.

765.

575.

395.

665.

005.

635.

615.

766.

11

Notes:

PA

–g

ood

pay

,PM

–p

rom

otio

n,W

E–

des

irab

lew

ork

env

iron

men

t,W

P–

goo

dw

elfa

rep

ack

age,

BS

–g

ood

bon

us

syst

em,C

P–

goo

dco

mp

any

pol

icy

,IR

–g

ood

inte

rper

son

alre

lati

onsh

ips,

SP

–g

ood

sup

erv

isor

s,JS

–jo

bse

curi

ty,O

A–

the

opp

ortu

nit

yto

use

my

abil

ity

,CA

–a

sen

seof

chal

len

ge

and

ach

iev

emen

t,P

R–

pos

itiv

ere

cog

nit

ion

,A

T–

auto

nom

y,

SA

–se

lf-a

ctu

aliz

atio

nan

dIJ

–in

tere

stin

gjo

b

Table VI.Means of motivation

factors undereach subgroup


285

the average value of an interesting job is different for married employees and singleemployees; the value of good interpersonal relationships is different for employees withdifferent personalities. According to Table VI, the means of good pay, promotion, goodwelfare package and a good bonus system are higher for male respondents. This meansthat male employees are more likely to be motivated by good pay, promotion, goodwelfare package and a good bonus system than female employees. Table VI also showsthat the means of promotion, the opportunity to use my ability, a sense of challenge andachievement, positive recognition, autonomy, self-actualization and interesting job arehigher for the participants with a university education than those for the respondentswith a high school education or below. That is, employees with a university educationtend to be more motivated by promotion, the opportunity to use my ability, a sense ofchallenge and achievement, positive recognition, autonomy, self-actualization andinteresting job than those with a high school education or below. Furthermore, the meanof interesting job is 5.76 for single participants, and it is 5.33 for married ones. Thisindicates that single employees are motivated by interesting job than marriedemployees. In addition, the mean of good interpersonal relationships is 5.01 forextroverts, and it is 4.53 for introverts. Hence, employees who are introverts are lessmotivated by good interpersonal relationships than those who are extroverts.

Given the fact that the variable of income per month has more than two categories,one-way ANOVA was used. The null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis were: H0:m1 ¼ m2 ¼ m3 ¼ m4 ¼ m5 ¼ m6, H1: not all the m are the same (m1 refers to the averagevalue of each motivation factor for employees whose monthly income is lower than1,500RMB;m2 refers to the average value of each motivation factor for employees whosemonthly income is between 1,500RMB and 1,999RMB; m3 refers to the average value ofeach motivation factor for employees whose monthly income is between 2,000RMBand 2,999RMB; m4 refers to the average value of each motivation factor for employeeswhose monthly income is between 3,000RMB and 4,999RMB; m5 refers to the averagevalue of each motivation factor for employees whose monthly income is between5,000RMB and 10,000RMB; m6 refers to the average value of each motivation factor for

Factors GenderEducational

levelMaritalstatus Personality

Incomeper month

Good pay 0.043 0.657 0.089 0.168 0.444Promotion 0.002 0.000 0.310 0.368 0.000Desirable work environment 0.845 0.337 0.238 0.990 0.006Good welfare package 0.046 0.351 0.304 0.115 0.210Good bonus system 0.019 0.201 0.402 0.299 0.051Good company policy 0.410 0.151 0.805 0.704 0.345Good interpersonal relationships 0.095 0.092 0.640 0.023 0.002Good supervisors 0.990 0.730 0.841 0.188 0.076Job security 0.688 0.725 0.100 0.452 0.825The opportunity to use my ability 0.637 0.000 0.963 0.551 0.000A sense of challenge and achievement 0.764 0.000 0.547 0.098 0.000Positive recognition 0.526 0.000 0.083 0.305 0.000Autonomy 0.096 0.000 0.216 0.681 0.000Self-actualization 0.218 0.000 0.597 0.704 0.000Interesting job 0.054 0.003 0.045 0.426 0.139

Table VII.P-values of independentsample t-test andone-way ANOVA

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employees whose monthly income is higher than 10,000RMB). The p-values of the testare also shown in Table VII, and the ones lower than 0,05 are highlighted in italics. Theresults showed that the average values of promotion, desirable work environment, goodinterpersonal relationships, the opportunity to use my ability, a sense of challenge andachievement, positive recognition, autonomy and self-actualization are different foremployees with varied monthly income. Since the means of these motivation factors(Table VI) neither keep increasing nor keep decreasing as the value of income per monthincreases, it can only be concluded that employees with different monthly income showdiverse motivation preferences towards promotion, desirable work environment, goodinterpersonal relationships, the opportunity to use my ability, a sense of challenge andachievement, positive recognition, autonomy and self-actualization.

With regard to the effects of age and working experience on work motivationfactors, scatter plots were carried out. The graphs, which are shown in the Appendix,suggest some form of positive relationships between good pay and age, between goodwelfare package and age, between good bonus system and age, between job securityand age, between good pay and working experience, between good welfare packageand working experience, between good bonus system and working experience,between job security and working experience. Thus, older employees are more likelymotivated by good pay, good welfare package, good bonus system and job securitythan younger employees. Also, employees with more working experience tend to bemore motivated by the four factors than those with less working experience.

4.2 Discussion4.2.1 Motivation factors. One of the main purposes of the study is finding out whatmotivates employees in China. The results showed that all the 15 factors listed in thequestionnaire, which include good pay, promotion, desirable work environment, goodwelfare package, good bonus system, good company policy, good interpersonalrelationships, good supervisors, job security, the opportunity to use my ability, a senseof challenge and achievement, positive recognition, autonomy, self-actualization andinteresting job, do motivate employees in China. This finding was supportive to thearguments on McClelland’s Theory of Needs, Herzberg’s two-factor Theory and Job DesignTheory, and confirmed that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors can motivate employees.On the other hand, these factors were summarized based on motivation theories and otherliterature on motivation factors. According to Geren (2002) and Humphreys (2007), all themotivation theories were developed in the west and may not apply to Chinese employees.Also, the motivation factor literature is not especially in connection with employees inChina. It could therefore be argued that there might be some other factors which motivateemployees in China but were not mentioned in the questionnaire. Thus, the finding of thepresent study confirmed that all the 15 factors in part II of the questionnaire motivateemployees in China to work hard, but it could not lead us to believe that all the factorswhich motivate employees in China have been found in this research.

Moreover, the motivation factors were ranked, in terms of importance, based ontheir means. The research conducted by Wang (2001) shows that good pay is rankedas the most important motivational factor by managers working in China. The presentstudy was supportive to this result suggesting that good pay represents the mostimportant motivator for employees in China, including managers, and 64.3 percent ofthe participants said that good pay always motivates them to work hard. This finding


287

provides a strong negative evidence for the theories which do not include pay as amotivator. It is written by Lingnan University (2007) that positive leadership motivatesChinese employees to a large extent. This study also confirmed this, because goodsupervisors were ranked as the second important motivator for employees in China.Besides, good welfare package also represents the second important motivation factorwith the same mean with good supervisors. The order of the other factors, in terms ofthe frequencies of motivating employees, is good bonus system, job security,interesting job, the opportunity to use my ability, desirable work environment, goodcompany policy, positive recognition, promotion, self-actualization, good interpersonalrelationships, a sense of challenge and achievement, and autonomy. This correspondedwith the point made by Jackson (1998) that monetary rewards, including pay, welfarepackage and bonus system, are very important element to motivate employees inChina. In addition, the findings indicate that extrinsic factors, as a whole, can motivateemployees in China to a larger extent than intrinsic factors.

4.2.2 Personal characteristics. As expected, the study has confirmed that workmotivation is affected by employees’ personal characteristics. First of all, the findingcorresponded with the point made by Eskildsen et al. (2004) that women tend to bemore satisfied with their work than men. Then, notwithstanding the fact thatEskildsen et al. (2004) report that less educated employees tend to be more satisfiedwith their work than those who have a high education, the results of the present studyshowed that employees with a university education are more motivated in their jobsthan those with a high school education or below. Finally, work motivation is furtherimpacted by employees’ income per month. The ones with a higher income per monthare more satisfied with their jobs than those with a lower income. It is quite obviousthat, except for gender, the other two factors are somewhat related. Generally, having ahigh education is likely to result in getting a higher position and getting a higherposition is often accompanied by a higher income. Also, the employees with a higheducation are generally provided with good pay, good working environment andinteresting jobs, so it is likely for them to be satisfied with their jobs. This is probablywhy there is a positive relationship between work motivation and these two factors.

The effects of personal characteristics on work motivation were also reflected by thevariation in motivation factors. With regard to gender, differing from the finding ofKamdron’s (2005) research, which is that female employees are less satisfied with theirpay than male employees, the present study found that female employees are not asfrequently motivated by good pay as male employees. The results also showed that maleemployees are more motivated by a good welfare package and good bonus system thanfemale employees. The reason for this could be, as has been mentioned previously, menneed more money since they are the ones who need to feed their families. Furthermore,it has been found that men are more likely to be motivated by promotion than women.The reason for this might be the glass ceiling which refers to the situation that it is muchmore difficult for a woman to get a high position in the organization than it is for a man.

As far as an educational level is concerned, first, the results showed that employeeswith a university education are more motivated by promotion than those with a highschool education or below. One significant reason for this is that, generally, employeeswith a university education have more opportunities to get a high position in organizationscompared with those with a high school education or below. Then, the results clearlyshowed that the intrinsic motivation factors and higher set of motivation needs, including

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the opportunity to use my ability, a sense of challenge and achievement, positiverecognition, autonomy, self-actualization and interesting job, are much more valued byemployees with a university education than by those who are less educated. This findingcorresponded with Wood et al.’s (1994) central argument on McClelland’s Theory of Needs,which is the theory focuses on higher level of needs and these needs are particularly valuedby managers, because managers are normally those with a higher education.

Concerning marital status, personality and income per month, first of all, it has beenfound that married employees are less frequently motivated by interesting job thansingle employees. Next, the study found that extroverts are more likely motivated bygood interpersonal relationships than introverts. This is quite easy to understand,since extroverts are fond of communicating with other people. Finally, employees withvaried monthly income show diverse preferences towards promotion, desirable workenvironment, good interpersonal relationships, the opportunity to use my ability, a senseof challenge and achievement, positive recognition, autonomy and self-actualization.However, the results did not show if employees with a higher monthly income are moremotivated or less motivated by these factors than those with a lower income. So, it seemsthat further investigation on this is needed.

With respect to age and working experience, first, the scatter plots showed some formof positive relationship between age and good pay, between age and good welfarepackage, and between age and good bonus system. This finding was supportive to theview that employees with varied ages have different attitudes towards benefit(Hong et al., 1995). The study also found that older employees tend to be more motivatedby job security than younger employees. The main reason for this could be that peoplewould like to keep stable when they are getting older. Then, similar results were foundconcerning the relationships between working experience and the motivation factors.There is some form of positive relationship between working experience and good pay,between working experience and good welfare package, between working experienceand good bonus system, and between working experience and job security. Thecorrelation matrix (Table IV) showed that the correlation between age and workingexperience is high. Even though the value of the correlation is negative, it is believedthat, generally, employees’ working experience increases as their ages increase. Thus, itis reasonable that similar results have been found for these two personal factors.

4.2.3 Conclusions. To sum up, all the research questions and hypotheses havebeen studied. With regard to the RQ1, the one sample t-test confirmed that all the15 motivation factors listed in the questionnaire can motivate employees in China.Meanwhile, the H1 was supported since the mean of good pay is higher than the meansof the other motivation factors. For the RQ2 and the H2, it has been found that workmotivation are affected by employees’ gender, educational level and income per month.Moreover, employees with different personal characteristics show diverse preferencestowards motivation factors.

4.2.4 Practical implications. The findings of the research have some practicalimplications. First of all, the findings of the present study suggest that organizations inChina can motivate their employees by providing them with the 15 motivation factors.Of course, managers should choose factors based on their ranks of importance tomotivate their employees, since it is impractical to satisfy their employees with allthe 15 factors. The first motivator that managers should consider is a pay raise,because the finding shows that good pay is the most important motivator. Then, this


289

study implies that managers should motivate their employees based on the employees’personal factors, including gender, age, educational level, working experience, maritalstatus, personality and income. For example, a salary raise can be given to employeeswho are less educated, and intrinsic rewards should be provided for those with a higheducation. Finally, the findings of the present study may be applied to organizationslocated in other parts of the world which have Chinese employees.

4.2.5 Limitations and future research. There are two limitations in the datacollection and the questionnaire for the present study. The first limitation is that thedimensions used to measure work motivation are not comprehensive. The instrumentsof measuring work motivation in the current research were adopted from the JobDiagnostic Survey which was developed by Hackman and Oldham. Work motivationwas measured by 15 items assessing the job’s variety, identity, significance, autonomyand feedback. Even though the Job Diagnostic Survey is one of the most establishedand internationally famous instruments for measuring work motivation, it has onecritical drawback: it only focuses on the task itself; it can be argued that themeasurement of work motivation should include all the influencing factors, such assupervision, present pay, promotion opportunities and interpersonal relationships(Ehrlich, 2006). The second limitation of the study is using questionnaire resulted innot finding out all the factors which motivate employees in China. This is also thereason why it cannot be concluded that the RQ1 was fully answered in this study. It isbelieved that interviews with open-ended questions, for example, what are otherfactors which motivate you work hard but are not mentioned by the researcher, wouldenable future research to obtain all the factors which motivate Chinese employees.However, it should be noted that, generally, interviews with open-ended questions aretime consuming. This is why they were not used in the present research.

5. ConclusionThis study set up to investigate employees’ work motivation in China. First of all, thisstudy has confirmed that all 15 factors in part II of the questionnaire, including goodpay, promotion, desirable work environment, good welfare package, good bonussystem, good company policy, good interpersonal relationships, good supervisors, jobsecurity, the opportunity to use my ability, a sense of challenge and achievement,positive recognition, autonomy, self-actualization and interesting job, can motivateemployees in China. Among these factors, good pay was ranked as the most importantmotivator for employees in Ningbo. Then, both good supervisors and good welfarepackage were ranked as the second important motivators. The order of the othermotivators, in terms of importance, is a good bonus system, job security, interestingjob, the opportunity to use my ability, desirable work environment, good companypolicy, positive recognition, promotion, self-actualization, good interpersonalrelationships, a sense of challenge and achievement, and autonomy. Thus, the RQ1has been answered in the study, and also the H1, which is good pay is the mostimportant motivation factor for employees in China, has been supported.

Next, the present research confirmed that work motivation is affected by employee’spersonal characteristics. The findings included the following: male employees are lesssatisfied with their work than female employees; employees with a high school educationor below are less motivated in their jobs than those with a university education;

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employees with a lower monthly income are less satisfied with their work than thosewith a higher monthly income.

Finally, with the purpose of exploring the impact of personal factors on workmotivation in more detail, the relationships between work motivation factors andpersonal characteristics were analyzed. The findings can be summarized as below: maleemployees are more likely to be motivated by good pay, promotion, good welfarepackage and good bonus system than female employees; employees with a universityeducation tend to be more motivated by promotion, the opportunity to use my ability,a sense of challenge and achievement, positive recognition, autonomy, self-actualizationand interesting job than those with a high school education or below; single employeesare motivated by interesting job than married employees; employees who are extrovertsare more motivated by good interpersonal relationships than those who are introverts;employees with different monthly income show diverse preferences towards promotion,desirable work environment, good interpersonal relationships, the opportunity to usemy ability, a sense of challenge and achievement, positive recognition, autonomy andself-actualization; older employees or employees with more working experience are morelikely motivated by good pay, good welfare package, good bonus system and jobsecurity than younger employees or employees with less working experience.

In general, the findings have fulfilled all the purposes of this research. It is believedthat these findings have practical implications for organizations in China in terms ofmotivating their employees. The findings may also benefit organizations in other partsof the world which have Chinese employees to a certain extent.

On the other hand, this research has two limitations. First, it can be argued that themeasurement of work motivation used in this research can be improved by addingdimensions of other influencing factors. Second, it is possible that more comprehensiveresults about motivation factors would have been found if interviews with open-endedquestions had been used. Thus, future research should be carried out with theimprovement and reconsideration of these two limitations.

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Further reading

Koustelios, A.D. (2001), “Personal characteristics and job satisfaction of Greek teachers”,International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 15 No. 7, pp. 354-8.

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About the authorFang Yang graduated from the University of Nottingham with an MSc degree in InternationalBusiness in 2008. She worked as a marketing assistant from April 2004 to September 2006, as amarketing executive from October 2008 to January 2009 and as a college teacher since February2009. Fang Yang can be contacted at: [email protected]

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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upper saddle river

domestic private enterprises

good welfare package

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congruent temperament model

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