Case Study: The Relationship between Employee Motivation and Performance

Abstract: The primary purpose of this thesis was to explore the extent of the relationship between employee motivation and performance in a medium size organization, which produce parts for forestry machines. Empirical data was collected through the process of conducting qualitative interviews with production workers and an HR manager whom are currently employed by the studied organization. The qualitative approach was selected as a result of its ability to generate descriptive in-depth information of the studied phenomenon. Thus, the aim of the conducted interviews was to generate in-depth data regarding the interviewee’ perception and personal experience of work related motivation. The interviewees’ were asked to rank ten different factors according to their perceived importance and influence of the motivational level. The interpretation and analysis of the empirical data revealed that the interviewed production workers are primarily motivated by factors that are related to work conditions, such as the relationships with coworkers. In addition, the results indicate that the managers’ perception of employee motivation is highly inaccurate, which is congruent with previous surveys conducted by Kovach (1987). Furthermore, as the research process progressed it became evident that the production workers within the studied are predominantly motivated by extrinsic factors, which means that their motivational orientations are dominated by extrinsic factors. Thus, the findings indicate that the motivational strategy that is currently applied within the studied medium size organization is insufficient in terms of its ability to improve the production workers level of motivation and therefore the quality of the performance. Hence, the following research has generated descriptive data although further studies are required in order to fully comprehend the phenomenon of motivation.