The Dynamics of motivation : A qualitative study on employees' in small companies examining how motivation factors shift in salience

Abstract: How do you motivate your employees to ensure they put in their best effort at work? This can be a difficult task for managers, especially in a company with scarce financial assets. How do you motivate employees without offering them monetary compensation in return, which arguably would be the cheaper option? Theory clearly show how motivation is found internally as well as externally but how do we shift the source of motivation from external to internal? How to highlight the personal gain from working? This degree paper aim to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of motivation and how the salience of motivation factors shift in employees. To do so two research questions were formed; How is the salience of a motivation factor connected to motivation? and What activities shift the salience of motivation factors? To answer these questions a theoretical framework consisting of theories on motivation, leadership and social identity theory was built to set the premise. Data was collected through seven semi-structured interviews. The sample consisted of employees between 25-30 years old, working in small companies in Västerbotten, Sweden. The empirical data was categorized according to the issues discussed in this study and later a thematic analysis was conducted. The themes deriving from the analysis was; Motivation factors is dynamic and change in salience, “Recognition” change the salience of motivation factors and Leaders play a vital role in making motivation factors salient. These themes were compared and discussed in relation to the theoretical framework to draw conclusions. In the conclusions it was found how motivation from internal sources was hard to acknowledge and how personal progress was recognized was different among the participants. The lack of recognition shifted the salience of motivation factors from internal to external sources of motivation. Further, recognition of internal motivation factors was done retroactive, acknowledging personal progress after it was achieved. It was also shown that leaders have great influence on what motivation factor is salient. Transformational leadership styles, leading by example and inspiration make personal progress more salient as a motivation factor. Building on this, it is suggested that future research consider the complexity of motivation from internal sources as an issue and work toward a framework increasing the practical use of motivation theory