Employee Motivation in the Context of Engineering (R&D)

The hierarchy of needs is about human needs which has been developed by Abraham Maslow. According to Onah,  (2015) , this theory explains that human is motivated through the achievement of five different levels of needs called physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, self-esteem needs and self-actualization needs. Source: Hierarchy of needs (Onah, 2015) 01.   Physiological needs – these are basic human needs which are essential for the survival of the humans in society  (Aruma & Hanachor, 2017) . According to Anyanwu, et al.,  (1985) , this includes the basic needs such as clothes, foods, water, and shelter. When we apply this to the research engineers as an employee the basic human needs will be the salary, accommodation, foods that they are receiving from the company to ensure their survival. 02.   Safety needs – the protection and the survival from different dangers, social disturbances and chaotic situations which are happening in human e...

Many scholars have introduced different theories of motivation and most of these theories are related with employee job satisfaction outcomes. When it comes to motivational theories it includes three categories called process theories, content theories and contemporary theories (Saif, et al., 2012) . Some of the mostly discussed theories are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, Alderfer’s ERG (existence, relatedness, and growth) theory, Herzberg’s two factor theory and McClelland’s needs theory which are coming under content theories. Apart from that Vroom’s expectancy theory is coming under process theories category and this category focuses on how motivation occurs and how it creates employee satisfaction. Equity theory, agency theory, reinforcement theory, goal setting theory and job design theory belong to the contemporary theories of motivation. All these mentioned theories are linked with each other even though they are categorized into different categories based on their purposes...