Does rewarding affect the creativity and output in engineering and manufacturing organizations?

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background of the study1

Problem Statement1

Purpose of the Study2

Rationale of the Study2

Aims and Objectives2

Research Question3

Scope and Significance of the Study3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW4

Employee Motivation and Productivity4

Reward Systems4

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY7

Research Design7

Sampling7

Instrument8

Data Analysis8

Projected Time Table9

REFERENCES10

APPENDIX - A: SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE11

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Businesses today encourage their workforce to work in teams as part of the management policy to ensure greater commitment, participation, recognition and motivation. The manufacturing business is the fastest growing industrial sector in America today. Experts anticipate that in the next five years, the manufacturing sector will experience a growth of around five percent (White, 2008, 29). Now, companies are moving towards implementing such rewards system that can cater to the needs of employees, who tend to perform beyond their capacities. That is why there exists a gap between levels of motivation among employees, working in different capacities (Shah, 2008, 36). It is a fact that employees showing good performance tend to get both compensatory benefits and non-cash incentives.

Problem Statement

Despite the fact that manufacturing business firms working in the United States spend more than $100 billion in incentive programmes, there are many employees who question the effectiveness of such programmes. This negative feeling prevails even today, when sales personnel enjoy more benefits and salaries as compared to an individual, working in any other field. The manufacturing sector firms are facing challenges in retaining their employees just because they were unable to motivate themselves to accept the changes that these firms experience very often.

Purpose of the Study

In this study, the researcher will focus on highlighting the importance and effectiveness of reward and incentive programmes within the manufacturing sector companies and their impact on overall employee productivity.

Rationale of the Study

We live in a world, which is full of expatiations. When an employee performs a task, he expects some kind of reward from his or her employee. Rewards and incentives, whether cash or non-cash, are a valid motivational source for perspective employees. All the researchers have a consensus on the positive impact of cash benefits on employee performance (Caruth, 2008, 10). The reason for selecting quantitative research methodology testifies the fact that it is the most appropriate approach that provides us with useful and concrete outcomes regarding motivational levels of employees working in manufacturing industry.

Aims and Objectives

The aims and objectives of the study are:

To discuss the factors influencing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation among employees

To discuss the importance of reward systems in motivating employees in a productive work environment, such as manufacturing sector

To highlight the effect of non-compensatory benefits on employee motivation

To elaborate the impact of cash incentives offered by companies to harness motivation among employees

Research Question

The main research question for this study is:

RQ1: Are Employee Rewards as efficient in fostering motivation as cash incentives in manufacturing industry?

Scope and Significance of the Study

Although there are many studies that support the notion of employee motivation and incentive programmes, they are based on qualitative ...