Topic 6 – Motivation

Yes those 3 are fine. If you want a higher grade you really need to bring in more contemporary aspects of motivation as I have mentioned previously. As for examples – I am sorry but a degree is about working somethings out for yourself – read the theories and do a bit of research!

On demotivators is it the same as hygiene factors

@phillips – apologies a system blip deleted my response made a week or so ago.

As a former student of psychology I remember Skinner more in the context of conditioning rather than motivation in the workplace (Skinner’s box ?). I am not sure how it applies to work in the 21st century but if you can provide valid explanations that are relevant then it may be appropriate (you are expected to apply rather than just state theories).

My personal favourite theories are Adam’s Equity theory as it also helps explain aggrieved workers and negative attitudes in the workplace in some cases. I also like McClelland and his achievement motivation theory as there are people who just like to succeed whatever the context (e.g. in school) and that often transfers to their attitude to work. It possibly has some commonalities with Edwin Locke’s Goal-setting theory.

Most of the classic theories go back to the 19060’s and 70’s and so to get an A grade I think you would need to supplement your theories with some discussion of the current issues in the work place. For example the long-hours culture (something that probably did not exist when most of the classic theorists were hypothesising and putting their theories together); workplace stress and work-life balance, increasing lack of job security (zero hour contracts) and changes in benefits (end of final salary pensions). On the plus side more employers offer greater flexibility – so how does this motivate? Some employees are also attracted by the opportunity to ‘buy’ more leave (or sacrifice days off and ‘sell them back’ to the company). I am considering the UK working environment here and obviously some of the issues mentioned would not necessarily be applicable in another country

It is always good to produce back-up primary data as it adds validity and reliability to your work. However check that the company is happy that you will be forwarding it to OBU (it will not go further than the ACCA OBU team marking the project and not forwarded to anyone outside of that team as it is confidential information). Normally as part of ethics compliance you would need to have a letter from the company permitting you to use their internal information and you are required to upload a copy of this.

It is fine to have the questionnaire, raw data and the detail in the Appendices but you should not put everything in there!

The marker’s objective is to mark your work quickly, fairly and objectively and the Assessment Criteria put the onus on you to present your work clearly. if the marker has to break off over few minutes and look something up in the Appendices they will start to get frustrated. If you frustrate them you will be punished -either for Presentation of the data (it was presented badly) or Communication (your work did not flow properly as all the breaks meant they had to keep re-reading to understand what was going on). Either way you will be dead in the water! 🙁

Instead edit your earlier sections -as I have said 100s of times -the marker is not interested in the report about why you chose the topic etc. Remember too the Golden Rule: Appendices are for extra / ancillary information -if it is essential in order to understand your text it’s rightful place is in the main body of the report

Generally you need to show a result and or do a graph, analyse it and be sure to link it to relevant theory then move on to the next point / result and so on.

Don’t stack too many graphs up and discuss them pages later without a very good reason – otherwise the marker has to keep scrolling up and down – they will then get hacked off as they want to be able to get on and mark- not waste time trying to piece things together or hunt for things. If work is badly set out or doesn’t flow properly it will result in fails (presentation of the data or communication)

You need to show your raw data (not just percentages but the actual results from the survey) include a copy of the questionnaire AND a letter of authority from the company. Regarding the graphs: normally these would have been produced from the raw data and are on one the worksheets do it is obvious you have produced them from this. No you wouldn’t have to have them all in the excel file – but how did you make pie charts and graphs without them being already in the spreadsheet?

Hello guys

I have chosen topic 6 for my RAP and I am happy with the models, company and primary data that will be involved. However coming from a country with a lack of employment and industry statistics etc:
.
1. To what extent is secondary data used in the project? Based on the research questions for this topic can I control how much importance is given to secondary data as against applying the models in the project?

2. Is a comparator organisation necessary for this topic?

3. Can research from similar studies in similar organisations outside my country be used as secondary data?

Grateful for your advice

Thanks @trephena

I have some additional thoughts.

I plan to use an online questionnaire and selected interviews for primary research and available journals, articles etc for secondary data.

I’ve seen in the exemplars referencing to secondary research throughout the project eg. for definitions etc. so would it be correct to assume that even mentioning generational, cultural contexts will have to be supported by research or is there room for my opinions.

I ask also because I think I’ve seen on these forums that a literature review was involved and this somewhat limits the analysis to what is mentioned there.

Hi Rajiv,

The Concept of triangulation involves using multiple data sources in an investigation to produce understanding.like i mentioned in the previous article,what is is involved is that you need to obtain findings from different data sources.The data sources may include but not limited to articles ,magazines,books ,journals and then you must support your findings from with these sources so that you can have a firm support for your conclusions on each and every research outcomes.

i want to help you but you need to provide more insights on your research topic and research question and findings.However,my understanding is that if you have age groups as a variable it could mean you are studying on population nevertheless age is always a factor on demographic.
if your research topic is based on aged groups,this should be supported by a theoretical framework and then the outcomes from the question should be evaluated in light with other data sources such as reports from statistical reports,newspapers,media reports,journal and articles regarding the same issue at hand and then draw conclusions based on the analysis of both the primary and secondary data and then draw a conclusion on that reasearch outcome and then you do it for the rest of the outcomes.
Whatever you are working on should be based on the theoretical framework and or conceptual frmawork otherwise your conclusion would be subjective and questionable.

Hello,

I have started writing my OBU project on topic 6 (employee motivation) but I lack materials that I can reference. Please I need help. I understand that wikipedia, investopedia carry low or weak reference points.

Thank you

Hi Trephena,

I was thinking to prepare my RAP on topic 6.
I was wondering if I could use the company that I work for as a case study
As a primary source I was thinking of preparing a questionnaire to be sent out to around 100 people within the company (this will be only the accounting department)
The company that I work for has currently 7100 employee worldwide.
My questions are:

Can I use the company that I work for as a case study
Can 100 employee (whole accounting department) being good enough to success in the RAP?

thanks

Gabriella