Study on Theory Framework of Enterprise Strategic Motivation
Tong-ai Du
School of Business, Shandong Polytechnic University, Jinan, China
(dutongai@126.com)
Abstract - Due to the inherent characteristics of human
resources, motivation becomes key factor for carrying out
human resource potential. Employee motivation decision
must be carried out on enterprise strategy, which is
implementation of the strategic motivation management.
This article combined the strategic motivation background,
characteristics of strategic motivation, consolidating existing
research, expounding in depth strategic motivation,
proposing a more normative framework of enterprise
motivation strategic theories. Based on this theoretical
framework, we can clearly understand the strategic
motivation content, objectives and implementation steps,
which is conducive to promoting the implementation of
strategic motivation.
Keywords - Knowledge economy, business strategy,
strategic
orientation,
motivation,
people-oriented
management
I. INTRODUCTION
After entering the 21st century, knowledge economy
is getting faster and faster development, human capital is
increasingly playing a prominent role in the development
of organizations, becoming an irreplaceable resource.[1]
Moreover, with the development of economic
globalization, enterprises face increasing uncertainty;
change and innovation became the key to the survival and
development of enterprises. At the same time, with the
development of social productive forces, rich material
resources, people have access to more comprehensive
development, their needs are increasingly diversified. In
this context, human resources become the key to
competitive advantage of enterprise activity. [2]
Human resources are different from material
resources. [3] In general, it is dependent on the employee
body, has the potential and activity. Therefore, the
incentive is critical for human resources management. As
for how to motivate employees, scholars in the West
conducted a lot of research from the perspective of
psychology, sociology and economics, had produced rich
results. But it must be noted that traditional methods of
employee motivation is for short-term goals, for a specific
task or job, this incentive can blur overall objectives,
weaken the of comprehensive and sustainable
organization development, strengthen individual goals,
weaken the overall incentive effect.[4] Researchers
referred this traditional incentive as task-incentive, and
proposed to establish a strategic incentive to ensure the
enterprises to be adapted to changes in external
environment, and gain a competitive advantage.
For now, simple task motivation can no longer adapt
to socio-economic development, a consensus for the need
to strategically motivate employees has been reached.
Strategic motivation as a new model, having shorter
development time, has not yet formed a more normal
theoretical framework, lack of systematical analysis,
impeding the effects of the application of strategic
motivation. Based on this, this article, on the basis of
existing research, combined with the development
background of strategic motivation and analysis of
drawbacks of simple task motivation, thereby combined
characteristics of human resources, constructed strategic
motivation theory framework, with a hope to advance the
strategic depth of research.
II. METHODOLOGY BACKGROUND OF
STRATEGIC MOTIVATION
Any new points of view can not be made without of
socio-economic development, strategic motivation is as
well. Taken together, it was put forward under such
background.
First of all, knowledge and ability is playing an
increasingly important role in the socio-economic
development. Distinguished from such production growth
relied on materials and capital, modern economic growth
is increasingly dependent on the growth of knowledge
content. Value created by knowledge in modern society is
much higher than such traditional factors as capital and
material; knowledge became the most basic elements of
creating value. Knowledge and abilities are there in the
human body, being inseparable with people. [5] Therefore,
as dynamic changes of resource with the social productive
forces, knowledge as first essential elements for economic
growth in the knowledge economy era, human resources
will inevitably gain emphasis.
Secondly, economic globalization is increasingly
high; businesses are facing growing incentive
competition.
Economic
globalization
and
internationalization significantly alter the structure of
markets, business competition is increasingly fierce.
Intensifying of corporate competition put forward higher
requirements for corporate change and innovation. And
innovation is inseparable from support of human
resources. [6] Therefore, human resources as a strategic
resource of modern enterprises, naturally become the
object of the competition, competition for human
resources has reached unprecedented levels.
Once again, human resources increasingly become
the core resource. 1990 Hamel and Prahalad published
article of the competitive capacity of the company in
Harvard Business Review, sparking a wave on study of
core competence, and soon it was accepted and used by
the business community in Europe and America. [7] On the
base of the concept of enterprise core competence,
attitude of competitive advantage based on competence is
achieving a dominant position. With the advent of the
knowledge economy, the concept of competitive
advantage based on knowledge came. This view takes that
competitive advantage comes from knowledge hidden
behind the ability of enterprise, and being closely related
with cognition and learning, especially knowledge has
played a key role. [8] Either the knowledge economics or
the learning organization, all put full importance on the
role of human resources, have stressed that the core
position of human resources. [9] Human resources
increasingly become the core resources for development.
[10]
From then on, all the competitive advantages can not
be obtained without the knowledge, even without the
carrier of knowledge --human capital, because of
characteristics of property rights of human capital requires
companies to motivate it to achieve strategic objectives.
Therefore, research course on theory of competitive
advantage naturally became the base for research of
motivation theory based on strategic theory.
Finally, the traditional task motivation increasingly
can not adapt to the changes in the socio-economic
development. Traditional task motivation stimulates some
very specific short-term targets, being unable to meet the
needs of enterprise's long-term, comprehensive
development, task motivation may not be achieved in the
long term development strategies and objectives. [11] Not
only that, task motivation may also deviate from the
strategy, destroying strategic foundations of the
organization. How to effectively motivate staff, provides
staff enthusiasm, initiative, and meet the requirements of
enterprise
development,
and
realize
enterprise
development goals is hot areas for nearly 20 years. [12] In
this regard, management patterns such as the strategic
human
resource
management,
strategic
salary
management, strategic performance management with
strategic guidance had emerged, which provide a fresh
perspective for people to inspect motivation.
III. RESULTS CONCEPT AND FEATURES OF
STRATEGIC MOTIVATION
As for concept of strategic motivation, most of the
researchers defined it from the organizational strategy and
some researchers defined it by means of a comparison of
task motivation with the strategic motivation, the
following definition of strategic motivation is more
typical among scholar at home.
Yin-hao Wang: strategic motivation is based on the
Organization's long-term development strategies, using
comprehensive incentive programmer designed to achieve
harmonization of responsibilities and rights, more
motivation of the team or group. [13]
Ming-hai Wei: a strategic motivation is aimed at the
long-term development strategy and the implementation
of comprehensive incentive. Motivation is not just a
strategic incentive scheme; it is a business or organization
culture, covering a series of important content of the
formation of common values, system design and
construction,
job
promotion,
a
combination
responsibilities and rights,. [14]
Bao-yuan Li: strategic employee motivation should
not be confined to resolve the immediate problem; it
should be based on the long-term development of
enterprises, focusing on organizations, teams and
individuals of long-term and long-term incentive. [15]
From the existing research on concepts of strategic
motivation, strategic motivation exhibits the following
characteristics:
1) Strategic motivation is the starting point of the
enterprise strategy, with an emphasis on enterprise
strategic support. Based on human resources and the
important role of motivation, strategic motivation is as a
whole from the enterprise, and around the enterprise
strategy to develop appropriate incentive measures, to
solve the problem which is the long-term development of
the enterprise.
2) Strategic motivation is a comprehensive
motivation. Existing research of strategic motivation has
made that a strategic motivation is a comprehensive
motivation. Judging from existing research, most of the
so-called comprehensive motivation refers to a
comprehensive incentive measures, such as property right
motivation, emotions, encouragement, incentive pay, such
as combining a systematic set of motivation.
3) Strategic motivation is a long-term motivation. On
the base of increasing uncertainty and fierce competition,
existing study of strategic motivation stated that it be a
long-term incentive. Enterprises must make sound use of
long-term motivation the mechanism stimulating staff
continue to win in the competition to maintain the
Organization's sustainable development.
4) Strategic motivation is team-oriented. It is
different task strategic motivation focused on personal
motivation, which focuses on team motivation. It is
inseparable for putting more emphasis on team
collaboration in today's enterprises.
In General, at present, strategic motivation should
proceed from a strategic point of view, dealing with
organizational strategy, playing a supporting role, and a
consensus has formed. At the same time, for
comprehensive strategic motivation, there are also such
strategic motivation management methods and approaches
as property right motivation, encouragement, material
incentives. But there are some system issues such as what
the goals of the strategic motivation are, how it guides the
comprehensive and sustainable development of
organizations to form core competitiveness, how it put up
a bridge between corporate strategy and staff, currently,
most of the recent research is not involved. In other
words, most of the existing strategic motivation study is
stay in the "point", has not yet formed a complete
theoretical framework. Deficiency of strategic motivation
will definitely affect the standardization of theoretical
framework practical application.
IV. DISCUSSION STRATEGIC MOTIVATEGIC
THEORY FRAMEWORK
A. Human Resource Features and Motivation
Fundamental features of Human resources, which
make it different from the other non-human resources, are
that it exists in the body of the staff, and it cannot be
separated from the staff, when other people or
organizations want to use human resources, which can
only be achieved by the cooperation of individuals
through its natural owner. Therefore, whether human
resources management is "people-oriented", whether it
can effectively arouse the enthusiasm of the staff, whether
it can maximize staff's subjective initiative and creativity,
will determine the organization's performance and became
key factors of success of human resources management.
Therefore, compared to other aspects of management,
human resource management is through "motivation" to
be achieved.
Motivation as a psychology term refers to
stimulating mental process of human behavior. The
concept of motivation for management refers to stimulate
staff motivation, meaning that various effective means
should be used to mobilize the enthusiasm and creativity
of employees, make the employees try to complete the
tasks of the organization, achieving the organization's
goals. Therefore, the fundamental purpose of motivation
mechanism of enterprises is to properly induce motivation
of employees, enabling them to achieve organizational
goals while achieving their needs, increase their
satisfaction, initiative and creativity so as to enable them
to continue to maintain and develop it. So we can say that
application of motivation mechanism in a certain extent is
an important factor which determines the rise and fall of
business. How to use motivation mechanism has become
a very important issue facing businesses.
B .Principles of Strategic Motivation Theory Framework
Based on the above analysis, strategic motivation is
about making decision of staff motivation at the height of
strategy, and the specific incentives and methods must be
developed from the staff needs, its ultimate goal is to
enhance the competitive advantage of enterprises, realize
strategic goals. Based on analysis, strategic motivation
theory framework should follow the following principles:
1) Strategic guiding principle. The mutual agreement
of strategic motivation and corporate strategy is to
improve business performance, improve the enterprise
advantage within organization, and help companies
achieve their strategic objectives. Therefore, the strategic
motivation theory framework of enterprise should be
designed in the light of development strategy and should
fully reflect the requirements of your enterprise strategy.
Therefore, the framework of the strategic motivation
theory should further refine the strategy to form expected
strategic capability or behavior, and thus form a strategic
incentive objectives. Through strategic behavior and
ability, we can join the corporate strategy and the strategic
measures to realize coherence of employee behavior and
capacity and strategic choice and combination.
2) People-oriented principle. Human resource is
different from the general material resources, particularly
for its special features. At the same time, modern contract
theory proves that any business is essentially a "special
contracts" made up of human and non-human capital.
Human capital property in enterprise system arrangements
has a special decisive status and role, power and interest
of non-human capital property can only play a role by
direct participation of human capital; enterprise system
arrangements changes with contract conditions realizing
revolution in interactive game enterprise members, its
basic trend is: human capital and ownership in enterprise
contract has increasingly large of competition advantage,
And a variety of enterprise system arrangement and
corporate governance evolve in cooperation and
competition of the non-human capital. Therefore, the
strategic motivation theory framework need to adhere to
the people-oriented principle giving full consideration to
employees ' needs and expectations inside.
3) Systematic principle. Strategic motivation is not
against only one person or one issue, but a comprehensive
incentive for enterprise development strategy. Therefore,
the strategic motivation itself is an organic system; it is
made up of strategic motivation, strategic objectives,
strategic motivation means and other factors. And
corresponding strategic motivation target was a network
of strategic target, management goals and other
objectives; strategic motivation measures are determined
by a comprehensive incentives system made of property
right motivation and remuneration motivation, emotions
motivation and culture motivation. Thus, strategic
motivation theory framework must follow the systematic
principle, taking into account the incentive problems and
making integrated design.
C. Content and Theory Framework of Strategic
Motivation
Strategic motivation is the connection point of
organizational development and employee needs, being
tools and methods for the achievement of "win-win" of
enterprises and employees. It is based on the
organizational strategy, fully paying attention to the
demands and expectations of the stakeholders, mobilizing
the enthusiasm of the staff, improving organizational
performance, achieving the organization's strategic goals.
The bridge between corporate strategy and strategic
motivation is staff strategic behaviors and abilities.
Strategic behavior and capacity have value of the longterm development expected by enterprises, including two
kinds of behavior, one is the company's general required
behavior, and two is those which have special value being
the key link in the value chain. Of course, behavior of
employees will not naturally evolve into strategic
behaviors and abilities; it must be inspired and shaped to
strengthen strategic behaviors and abilities of the staff. In
addition, the strategic motivation must fully take into
account the organization's development strategy and
corporate culture, must also fully understand staff's
characteristics and needs, it can only be effective by
combining the two factors t. Psychological contract theory
provide a good ways and means for comprehensive and
in-depth understanding of employee needs.
Based on the above analysis, we propose content and
framework of strategic motivation theory respectively, as
shown in Figure 1, 2.
Content system of strategic motivation
Why: Why do we need motivation? What is the goal of the
motivation scheme?
What: what do we encourage? What are factors of motivation?
How: How do we motivate? What kind of incentives we will
use?
Who: Who are for the motivation scheme? What are qualified
standards?
Fig.1. Strategic motivation content system
Enterprise developing strategy
Enterprise culture
Strategic behavior and ability
Content system of strategic motivation
Why: Why do we need motivation? What is the goal of the
motivation scheme?
What: what do we encourage? What are factors of motivation?
How: How do we motivate? What kind of incentives we will use?
Who: Who are for the motivation scheme? What are qualified
standards?
Employee's psychological contract content and structure
Developing status of human recourse
Analysis of work features
Fig. 2.Framework of strategic motivation
The theoretical framework proceeds from the
strategy, centering on corporate strategy and corporate
culture, refining requirements of strategy and culture into
behaviors and capacities expected by the organization.
Strategic motivation goals are, through comprehensive
incentive measures, to encourage their employees to
achieve expectations of enterprise strategic behavior and
ability, so as to realize the enterprise's development
strategy. At the time of design of strategic motivation
objectives and methods, we must fully take into account
the employee's inner expectations, appropriate incentives
and objectives can only be truly effective we it meet
requirements of employees and business requirements.
V. CONCLUSION
Strategic employee motivation, even in Western
countries, is a relatively new field, for Chinese enterprises
in a transition period, regardless of the theory study or the
actual applications there are a number of issues. This
article try to make comprehensive research on existing
strategic motivation outcomes through the analysis of
strategic motivation background, propose principles of
framework design strategic motivation theory, from the
perspective of corporate strategy and employee's
psychological contract, strategic motivation theory
framework should be designed, contribute to strategic
motivation of research and application.
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