Luận Văn Low Intrinsic Motivation Problem Of Esnetworks Vietnam.doc

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UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------
Nguyen Huu Quynh Phuong
LOW INTRINSIC MOTIVATION–
PROBLEM OF
ESNETWORKS VIETNAM CO., LTD.
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
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UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------
Nguyen Huu Quynh Phuong
LOW INTRINSIC MOTIVATION–
PROBLEM OF
ESNETWORKS VIETNAM CO., LTD.
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
SUPERVISOR: TRAN HA MINH QUAN .PhD
2

Executive summary
Vietnam has recently been regarded as a prospective destination of foreign
investment presented with its high-speed development. In which Japan is the leading
economic partner of Vietnam, the leader in ODA, the second largest foreign investor, the
third largest tourism destination and the forth major trading partner of Vietnam. As one of
the leading. However, there are potentially existing problems in the company which may
reduce the competition edge of organization and harm to its culture. This research was
commissioned to examine what problem in Esnetworks Vietnam Co., Ltd., the causes
leading to problem are and to suggest the validated solutions to deal with problem, which
are in line with company’s policy and resources.
Method of the analysis is combination between theory-informed and validated data,
collected through interview and survey to identify and confirm existence of the problem as
well as causes and alternative solutions.
From the general diagnosis of potential problem at Esnetworks Vietnam Co., Ltd.,
findings suggest the existence of low intrinsic motivation as the main problem. The study
examines 03 main Departments within the Company especially Business Avisory
Department. Low intrinsic motivation is analyzed in terms of its existence, antecedents,
consequences, and solutions are proposed to tackle such a problem. Finally, this report
indicates organization of actions to deal with problem in the lead time of one year and
limited budget approved by the company.
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Recommendations discussed focus on two main causes of low intrinsic motivation
within the Company, which are job characteristic and Compensation and Benefits. The
report also investigated three accordant solutions:
- Conduct clear job description
- Provide ideal working environment
- Complete the system of compensation and benefits
Total estimated cost to implement these 3 solutions is approximately 253 mil VND,
which is in line with company’s approved budget of 255 mil VND while benefit brought is
453 mil VND.
Since there is limitation of time and resources constrain as well as research exist such as
the current company conditions data did not provide enough information and only sample
of interviews are performed. However, the report provides diversified and validated data in
conjunction with theory to propose meaningful suggestion for Esnetworks Vietnam Co.,
Ltd. to strengthen its personnel resources and organization behaviors.
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I. INTRODUCTION
1. The Company background
Firstly established in Vietnam in 2008 with initial name is Flagship, Es Networks
Vietnam Co., Ltd. (herein after referred as “Es Networks VN” or “The Company”) is 100%
directly invested by Es Networks Japan Co., Ltd. As described in the Figure 1, the
Company focuses on three segments: market entry, accounting/tax/labor, M&A and other
services. With an aim of establishment, Es Networks Vietnam’s main vision is to provide
professional consulting services such as accounting, investment and Human Resource
services for Japanese clients who have investment activities in Vietnam. The Company
provides consulting service for all procedures and problems from establishment to
termination the operation of the clients.
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Figure 1. Business lines of Es Network Vietnam
Currently, Es Networks VN has two offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Ha Noi City
with around 56 employees. Given the short history of operation from establishment, Es
Networks VN owns the qualified employees who committed to provide the completed
services, the Company gains clients’ belief, therefore, its clients portfolio is expanded by
days. Even that the market of consulting companies is became more competitive nowadays,
the board of management and all of employees are building Es Networks VN’s position
more and more stable especially in Japanese segment.
Today, due to the investment stipulating policy of Vietnamese government, Vietnam
becomes more and more attractive investment destination for foreign investors, in which
Japanese investors are not exception. In advance of thinking about operation and generating
profit, those investors have to carry out procedures in compliance with the Vietnamese law, tax
regulations and other administrative procedures. For which, many consulting firms are
launched. Particularly, in segment of consulting firms that serving for Japanese investors,
except the leading position of companies from Big 4 group (PWC, Ernst and Young, Deloitte
and KPMG), there are a big competition from second tier companies, in which the big rivals of
Es Networks VN are KT accounting Vietnam, AGS Vietnam and I-Glocal Co., Ltd. In which,
I-Glocal Co., Ltd. is considered as the biggest rival.
2. The Company structure
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Figure 2. Organization chart of Es Network Vietnam
As mentioned above, Es Networks VN currently provides consulting services, the
company consists of three departments: Business Advisory Department (hereinafter referred to
as “BA Dept.”), Accounting Department (hereinafter referred to as “AC Dept.”) and
Administration Department (hereinafter referred to as “AD Dept.”) accordingly. Each
Department has its own function. The AC Dept. specializes in providing the accounting
services such as: tax compliance, tax advisory, booking accounting books and financing
advisory. BA Dept.’s main duties are seeking and directly accessing the clients, the department
with Japanese experts and other Vietnamese experts that can use Japanese language excellently
always play the role of listening, explaining and providing alternatives directly for Japanese
clients. Furthermore, BA Dept. also providing Human Resource services including applying
for visa, work permit, calculating payroll and declaration of
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personal income tax for Japanese clients. Finally, AD Dept. comprises director, manager,
human resource team and internal accounting team that is in charge of maintaining the
relationship with clients, authorities, internal human resources, financing, and further
general management.
Table 1. The Profit and Loss Summary of Es Network Vietnam
In 2015, Es Networks VN generated profit of 4,714 billion VND which is counted
about 57.28% of Sales. From 2015 to 2016 the operating profit increased 1.202 times while the
increase of that from 2016 to 2017 is up to 2.654 times. In general, the Company is steady
growth but it is still not reach its target over the years. However, the different amount of profit
between actual and target is insignificant. Moreover, the target amount of sale and profit
increases rapidly over the years. This means the Company is trying to expand its market,
hence, the number of clients are raised by years. However, the staffs of the Company just raise
a little bit and the current staffs are now facing with the problem of overload.
II. PROBLEM SYMPTOMS
In order to have an overview about the backlog issues within the company, we
conducted the initial interviews with 02 staffs of BA Dept. and AC Dept. and 03 managers
of 03 departments. The detail of these initial interview is displayed in Appendix 1. Due to
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the nature of work, AC Dept. undertakes the accounting job for clients which is considered
as the specialized job. Therefore, they may have precise idea and judgment. AD Dept. is
the non- profit department which is responsible for the internal operations and support
other departments hence, they can stand on the management point of view to provide
unbiased judgments in the general way. In addition, the BA Dept. is the department that
generates the highest profit for the Company. The jobs in BA Dept. are also much more
distinctive with the others while its job content changes depend on the request of the
clients. As the most important Departments of the Company which has to communicate
with other teams while working, the manager and staff here can provide multidimensional
outlook about the Company. The study applies qualitative questions to investigate the
interviewee’s point of view about the problems existing in the Company.
1. The turnover rate status
From the interview with HR managers of the Company, the most prominent
symptoms that mentioned by many interviewers that currently the Company has high
turnover rate. In general, the turnover rates fluctuated over time. In 2017, the turnover rate
was 27% while in year 2016, such amount reached 20%. The table is collected base on
criteria by gender, age and departments of the Company. According to the table, there is no
significant upward or downward trend of gender in turnover rate is apparent. This means
turnover rates in the Company does not depend on the gender, the one rate for women was
essentially the same as that for men. The table below shows the turnover rate from 2015 to
2017:
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2015 2016 2017
Gender (%)
Male 45 47 49
Female 55 53 51
Age (%)
Under the age of 32 70 75 80
32 and above the age of 32 30 25 20
Department (%)
Administration Department 20 25 25
Accounting Department 20 20 15
Business Advisory Department 60 55 60
Turnover rates (%) 15 20 27
Table 2. Turnover rate of Es Network Vietnam from 2015 to 2017
As stated in the above table, younger employees had higher turnover. The HR manager
believes that the younger ones are willing to take risk and challenge in their job, from which
they can gain more knowledge and experience for their future career, hence, they quite easy to
move and out the Company. On the other hand, middle-aged employees who are from 32 year
olds and above had lower turnover, probably because the middle-aged employees has the
tendency to stick with stable job, they conceive the important of their job. Moreover, they
afraid to change the working environment as starting the interview and make acquaintance of
new job, new colleague and new working style at their age.
Finally, those with different job characteristic suffer higher turnover. For example, in
year 2017, the turnover rate for those with Administration Department was 25%; for those with
Accounting Department was 15%; while such rates of Business Advisory Department was up
to 60%. This pattern may arise because of job characteristic. The specific of Business Advisory
Department requires that employees must to take the time to research and update
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new regulations of the laws. The employee may work under high pressure during long time.
While employees from other department may do with stable job during working here.
2. Over workload
The Company receives many complaints of employees regarding to the over
workload. Some employees experience a heavy workload for many reasons, including tight
deadlines, projects increase in the peak season that have caused staff shortages and
unplanned company growth that has created more work for the same staff. It can be
difficult to manage an overworked staff, and even the most dedicated employees often
reach their breaking points. The staffs face with the difficulties of work-life balance
because it’s an activity that needs to be maintained over time. Moreover, there is bad
meeting due to unsuitable reason for the meeting, poor agenda or none at all, the meeting
"creeps" its way into a several-hour ordeal, staff unprepared, and/or no contribution. The
staffs intend to keep silence during the meeting although they are offered for contribution
requirement from supervisor. Their managers do not receive any active feedback regarding
to work overload status or aspiration. Thus, there is no any improvement or effective ways
to change working style or encourage employee motivation. This may lead to waste time
and deflate energy for the participants.
3. Low compensation and benefits
According to interview with Mrs. Doan Thi Nhu Truc, a staff of BA Dept. for her
experience during working time at The Company. She is disappointed about benefit policy
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applied for the employee. Especially, in the peak season of project increase that requires
employee must work overtime and get high pressure to meet the deadline, even they must
work for double person’s jobs. Even though, the employees shall receive the overtime
allowance, they still believe the few promotion and poor benefit cause lack of energy and
enthusiasm. In addition, another issue worth paying a special attention to is the cooperation
and support from colleagues. She mentioned about the attitude and expression of the
colleagues when shared the jobs. Accordingly, the employee may just want to keep with
current job instead of taking the time to research and do new tasks.
4. Passive involvement
As the interview was conducted with Mrs. Tran Thi Thuy Linh stability - minded
employee who prefer a stable work than flexible work. She wants to spend working time in
a stable environment and remain unchanged. She does not want to try a new fields to
discover new chance and get promotion opportunity. She is afraid that she can’t catch up
and may face with risk for new challenges. Thus, she just finished her tasks as assigned
rather than taking the time to learn and do new things. Although there are several major
operations, they are still different in client’s business line and various specific cases that
arises in the reality of operations. Whenever the Company receives orders from the new
clients especially the client in the brand new fields, it has to make many researches about
that fields. The Company also has to bear the higher risk rate because it is the first time it
enters into the new market. That is the reason why unpredicted problems are mainly
occurred in the BA Dept. in various types and difficult to solve.
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5. Low job commitment
The interview with HR manager provides the general point of view through the
survey of the Company in the end of 2017. As Es Networks Japan desires to reform the HR
management within the Company to increase the job efficiency. They ask the
Administration Department to conduct the survey to take the employees’ opinion of the
following aspects: job satisfaction, work environment, job stress, job commitment, working
motivation, working effectiveness . The survey with 22 questions was send to 46
employees in the Company. The survey is considered as the basic understanding of
employees’ concern on current organization behavior. The survey has been done by all
employees in 03 departments and have the following result:
Result Business Advisory Accounting Administration
Criteria Dept. Dep. Dept.
Job satisfaction 61% 68% 71%
Work environment 51% 57% 54%
Job stress 76% 72% 68%
Job Commitment 38% 48% 51%
Working motivation 69% 60% 62%
Working effectiveness 82% 78% 79%
Table 2: Survey result of Es Networks Vietnam Co, Ltd. in 2017
The table result shows that in general the three departments have the same tendency.
The ratio of the job satisfaction, work environment, working motivation, working
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effectiveness are higher than 50%, which are the acceptable ratios. The employees satisfy
with their job in acceptable ratios but not really highly satisfying. On the other hand, the
job stress ratios are quite high in all 03 departments. In which, the assessment of job stress
by BA Dept. ranks the highest position with 76%. One significant point from this survey is
that the job commitment in all departments are lower than 51%, especially BA Dept. with
only 38%.
Then, the interview was conducted with Mrs. Truc, a consultant and Mr. Hoa, an
accountant, they reveal that they intend to work for the Company for around 2-3 years for
gaining enough experience, knowledge then they will take the new challenge to get a
promotion opportunity. They tend to complete their tasks as acceptable level rather than
taking time to investigate new tasks from the others. The commitment to the organization is
low so their perception is to search for another job outside the Company.
In conclusion, based on the initial interview and the internal survey of the Company in
2017, there are several symptoms of current problems that can be realized including: high
turnover rate, over workload, low performance appraisals, passive job involvement,
low job commitment. Even though it has not been defined which one is the most
important backlog of the Company, the Company still need to have the action plan to solve
these problems because they may partly influence the working efficiency of the employees
in particular and the whole Company in general.
III. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
In order to identify the potential problem of the Company, the in-depth interview are
conducted with 05 interviewers including managers of 03 departments and an ex-employees.
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As mentioned before, the AC Dept. is responsible for specialized jobs, their characteristic
therefore distinctive with the others. The manager of AC Dept. is the one who communicates
and has regularly interactive with the staffs, her judgment will be precise and show the actual
status of employees. The BA Dept. is the most important department which provides various
services in different extensive fields, hence, the manager of this team shall have the overall
view from diversified perspectives. According to the internal survey, the manager of AD Dept.
has a certain understanding of the Company together with her view of a HR manager, her idea
is valuable in justifying the problems raised by the interviews.
Similar to the initial interview, the qualitative questionnaire is applied to investigate
the most potential problem. Besides, with the aim of exploiting information thoroughly, the
wh-question and yes/no question are used interlace depending on each situation. The
interview will figure out the main problem currently existing in the Company from 05
symptoms above. The Appendix 2 is detailing the content of the in-dept interviews.
In generally, the turnover rate is increasing over the year. In which, the job
characteristic, over workload and job satisfaction may be the main factors which affect to
such rates. According to the statistic of the Company, BA Dept. reached the highest
turnover rate and AD Dept. ranks the second position.
Job satisfaction is one of factors influencing to turnover intentions. According to survey
was conducted among employees at the Company, the rate of job satisfaction is acceptable.
The employees are not satisfied with their job in case of job stress they may face with.
However, this situation only takes place during the peak season when employees have
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to work overload and it is irregular. Besides, as mentioned above, job stress may be caused
due to high turnover rate. It’s quite difficult for the Company to timely recruit new
employee replacing for employees who leave off work. Thus, current employees must to
receive handover and fulfill all tasks from others. Whether the Company has found the new
employees, job stress may be reduced. In sum, job satisfaction is not completely positive
related to turnover intention.
Job characteristic is an important key in organizational outcomes like job satisfaction,
Most of companies care about knowledge and experiences of candidates when hiring the
employees. While the employees may concern to company reputation when they apply for job,
they even don’t mind whether they fit to the employee personality and value of work which
brings to them. Some employees stick to the Company for a long time because they prefer
working in environment which fits to their personality. So, when employees find the difference
between individual and organizational, their characteristic is opposite with work values, they
may intend for turnover. However, the fit between the individual and organization has been
discovered easily for the probation period. During two months of the probation period, the
employees realize that they may fit or not for job. On the other hand, the job characteristics
also can be approached in 2 aspects: unclear job description, repeated and boring works. Some
interviews shows that as the high work volume, in order to protect themselves the employees
tends to pass the jobs that have unclear job description to the others and concentrate in their
daily jobs. With the huge number of clients they have to serves, their task area is limited and
they cannot expand their knowledge and experience the
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new field to find the work inspiration. Gradually, they feel boring about their job and loss
the inspiration to work. Then, as the result, the exit interview showed that the employees in
BA Dept. faced with the difficulties in maintaining their enthusiasm at work after 1-2
working years.
In a general expression, this relationship looks like a circle problem:
High
turnover
rate
Loss Lack of
enthusiasm suitable
with work employees
Pressure to
the Over
remaining workload
employees
On the perspective of employees in AC Dept. and AD Dept., they are facing with the
problems in developing themselves, or lack of assiduous and creative characteristics to work
effectively. Different with BA Dept., their jobs are stable and remain mainly the same from
time to time. The majority of employees in these departments are satisfied with their current
jobs and behaviors so they have the tendency of maintaining their current working style
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without any significant improvement. As revealed by Ms. Chi, manager of AC Dept. and
her staff, Mr. Hoa, most of employees thinks that they want to maintain their stable life, do
not want to take change which is similar to take risk, so that it is easier for them to balance
their work- life. It can be said that with low intrinsic motivation, the employees cannot
fully express themselves, show their strength and potential abilities as well as they cannot
recognize their weakness to improve it. That is the reason why day by day, they feel boring
at work and become passive, do not want to strive and challenge themselves with the new
things. Low intrinsic motivation prevents employees to reach the high working
effectiveness and reduce the profitability of the Company.
One of the problem that is claimed by many interviewers is that the Company provides
low performance appraisals. It means the Company does not have the assessment system to
evaluate the working of the employees as well as the reward package is evaluated as low
comparing with the other Company. From which it affects the desire of work of the employees.
They do not want to take risk and receive more jobs because they believe that even though
they work harder or more effective, they still receive the same salary. A staff of BA Dept.
commented that as her colleague takes the maternity leave or quit job, she has to cover
multiple tasks in the time of personnel shortage in a long time, she still received the same
benefits as before. She felt it not fair when the Company does not appreciate and evaluate her
effort precisely. She believed that in such case, no one is willing to take that challenges and
share the burden with the Company. In addition, an ex-employee of AC Dept. mentioned about
the undefined career growth for the employees. Unfair compensation and
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benefit package as well as unclear career growth are the main reason that he decided to find
another opportunity outside the Company. He admits the compensation and benefit are the
motivation to push the employees’ performance and the Company satisfied it. It can be said
that the low intrinsic motivation prevents employees to have positive reactivity with their
jobs, and develop themselves while their benefit requirement remains unchanged.
In conclusion, there are several duplications in the result of the interviews, however
they can be summarized into 03 potentials problems occurring in the Company. They are
over workload, low extrinsic motivation and low intrinsic motivation. The table below
shall provide the main interview result from 04 interviewees:
No. Interviewee Over workload Low extrinsic Low intrinsic
motivation motivation
1 Mrs. Nguyen The number of over Staffs do not feel
Thi Lan Anh- time increases motivated at work.
manager of BA significantly this Staffs protect
Dept. year themselves by
The staffs complaint rejecting other
about the job stress unclear defined tasks.
and over workload Staffs do not rearch or
try new strategy in
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order to improve
working efficiency
2 Mrs. Do Le Chi- The Company is Staffs do not feel
manager of AC not full enthusiasm with
Dept. recognition and no work, do not want to
chance for communicate with
promotion teammate, colleagues
3 Mrs. Dang Thi The Company lacked Staffs just want to
Bich Van- of human resource to maintain their stable
manager of AD distribute to each life, do not want to try
Dept. Dept. new challenge, or take
risk
4 Mr. Nguyen I’m always in job I feel unfair when Not interest at work
Minh Nhut- an stress, the number of I’m paid the same
ex-employee of clients I have to serve while I have to do
AC Dept. are too much, more tasks
especially when one
of my colleage quited
his job.
Table : Summary the interview result of potential problems
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Firstly, regarding to the over workload of the employees, the main reason that leads to
the over workload of the Company is human resource shortage. Currently, due to the limited
Company’s scale, the Company does not have demand to establish the professional Human
Resource Department which can itself conduct the completed recruitment process. In order to
overcome this problems, the Company refers to outsource the recruitment to an professional
Headhunter Company to find the skillful and suitable candidates. Moreover, the Company also
takes advantage of employees’ relationship by encouraging them to introduce their friends,
acquaintances for the Company. In this case, the Company shall pay the reasonable
introduction fee corresponse with the position in the Company of the candidate. Besides
promoting the recruitment, the Company also changes its personnel strategy. As the number of
new clients increase, two or more employees are responsible for the same clients so that they
can support and assist each other. With this arrangement, it is not necessary to have two or
more employees with professional skill and knowledge. With the aim of saving cost, new
graduate students shall be recruited to support and assist their mentor. The new strategy is
apply and gain several achievements. It is not only reduce the workload of the current
employees, employees can substitute and support each other when the other leaves work, but
also saving the training cost for new employees by learning and gaining experience during the
working time. By the above reasons, over workload in the Company is improving day by day
so it is not considered as the most important potential problem to solve.
Secondly, mentioned about the extrinsic motivation, Ariani, D.W.1
defined:
“Extrinsic motivation refers to activities that are engaged to ways to get the final result, gain
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respect or avoid criticism, and not to satisfy the activity” and it is divided into three types:
identified regulation (motivation to participate in activities to successfully gain new skills
but not to enjoy the activity), introjection (motivation to perform well to avoid negative
emotions such as anxiety or humility), and external regulation (motivation derived from the
need to get rewards or punishment). Curently, the Company have operated recognition
program for all the employees to set their target, doing mid-year and full year review. The
targets are set for both business result of all departments and employees objective to ensure
the employees work efficiency and employee’s ability. The recognition program forces
employees to try their best to achieve their personal target and required a strong
collaboration between departments to reach the Company’s objectives. In addition, beside
the insurance stipulated by the Government, the Company also have additional insurance
policy which is fixed every year for 1-year employees and above . This insurance policy
allowes the empoyees to enjoy the 24/7 insurance package in a wige range of hopital and
higher percentage of medical examination fee. Salary budget is revised by the mother
company every year to ensure that the employees receive appropriate salary.
Finally, through the interview with managers, ex- employee and internal survey of the
Company in 2017, it is reasonable to determine “low intrinsic motivation” as the potential
problem of the Company and to do deeper investigation in term of company resource
limitation. From the investigation, low intrinsic motivation is affecting directly to company
working quality and employee’s daily emotion, which leads to the demand to solve it timely
from both Company and employees’ perspective. In addition, from the interview, “low
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intrinsic motivation” is recognized as the most important problem initial evidence to prove
the existence and damage to work quality. Taking consideration of the biggest concern
from the interview, the research will focus on dealing with low intrinsic motivation.
1. Problem definition
Motivation is one of the most important factors in any organization. Chintallo &
Mahadeo2
confirmed that all organization encounters the matter of motivation whether they
are in public or private sector. The research of Salman, M., Aamir, M., Asif, M., & Khan, I3
defined “Motivation is about the ways a business can give confidence staff to give their most
excellent” and “Motivation is the act of stimulating someone or oneself to achieve preferred
course of action”. In fact, this definition contributes basic idea for psychological research on
people behavior, especially in working environment. It can be understood that motivation is
the best tool for improving performance in short term and in the long term. Therefore, up to
now, there are many research about the relationship between motivation and employee’s
efficiency and organization efficiency. For example, the research of Muogbo U.S4
showed
“Not only non-monetary motivation factors but also monetary motivations such as attractive
salaries or pays act as a valuable tool and play an important role to increase employee's
performance and also increase the productivity of an organization”.
Together with the development of the international economic, many companies focus and
spend all of their heart and mind to gain the customer loyalty, they ignore the employee
motivation. There is one thing that should be recognized that when the customers interact with
the employees frequently and the behavior and attitude of the employees display the
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image of the Company. Therefore, “Company should move their attention towards the
employee motivation. Now the era of globalization companies face competition in the market,
if company could not successfully motivate their employees, company will not exist in the
competitive environment of business” as Ahmad MF, et al.5
researched. Deci & Ryan6
divided
motivated behavior into two types: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. In which,
“The first deals with behavior performing itself, in order to experience pleasure and
satisfaction in the activity, and has been called intrinsic motivation” and “the second, which
involves performing behavior in order to achieve some separable goal such as receiving
rewards or avoiding punishment, has been termed extrinsic motivation”.
Deci & Ryan6
defined “Intrinsic motivation refers to voluntary activities or behaviors
for their own desires and attaches to joy, satisfaction, interest, and enjoyable because of
their participation”. Moreover, the researchers also justify that the individuals promoted by
intrinsic motivation are motived to find challenges and improve the ability to learn new
things. In addtion, Vallerand & Bissonnette7
stated “ intrinsically motivated individuals
will participate voluntarily in activities and do not expect rewards”. Clearly, intrinsic
motivation is good for the improvement of work creativity, work quality and job
performance when people have internal desires to perform a particular task that gives them
more pleasure, develops a particular skill, or satisfies their self- esteem. Intrinsic
motivation helps employees have more creativity and strong desire to perform their best
ability and expect to receive good evaluations from their supervisors and business partners.
Therefore, intrinsic motivated employees are interested in explore new pathways and to
take greater risks as Amabile et al8
discussed.
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Lindenberg9
ddifferentiates between two types of intrinsic motivation. The first type is
enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation. This type is defined by the research of Deci, Koestner
and Ryan10
as below: “People who experience enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation derive
pleasure from the activity itself and often report a "flow experience" that makes them lose
track of time”. And the second type is introduced by Frey11
is obligation-/ challenge-based
intrinsic motivation. He believed that “Individuals feel better when they observe group norms,
such as ethical standards, professional codes of practice, or norms of procedural fairness” and
“People who experience obligation or challenge-based intrinsic motivation are prepared to
follow the norms, even if those norms limit their self-interests-as long as these individuals
accept the legitimacy of the norms, which can be an organization or a profession that
frequently corresponds closely with its members' value systems”
2. Causes validation
The causes of low intrinsic motivation in the Company were investigated and
confirmed through other interviews with 5 employees: 02 accountants in AC Dept., 02
consultants of BA Dept., HR. Through the interviews, it is realized that their comments and
idea are overlapped to each others. In addition, some of mentioned causes are valid by
existing researches as follows.
First of all, the study regarding to the level of knowledge workers is dependent upon
perception of job characteristics were investigated by Kumar13
. Beaumont et al14
informed
that kknowledge workers take the work such as research and development, advertising,
education and professional services e.g., law, accountancy and consultancy. Moreover,
Sveiby15
indicated that they are highly qualified and educated professionals. Moody et al16
’s
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theory assumes that a person's motivation to work arises from the characteristics of the jobs
he or she performs. Results from interviews declared that detail jobs of accountants and HR
are almost repeated everyday and it is not required any innovation. In contrast, part of jobs
in BA Dept. are always changed and transformed due to the demand of the clients and the
remaining part of job description is still in unchanged situation. The opinion of HR staff
reveals that “HR job is naturally paperwork, they do not involve in the Company’s business
which is not directly generate profit for the Company. They participate in the Company
activity as the back office to manage the human resource, support other departments and
perform all requests from mother company, hence, they do not know the main operations
of the Company and how do they work”. Similar to HR department, the accountants also
suffer the paper work. The main function of this department is do the accounting jobs for
clients. Their main tasks are bookkeeping and prepare financial report. As they have to do
the same job every day, of course, they will feel demotivated. The fact is that employees
feel bored when performing a repeated list of actions in their daily work. They also did not
feel satisfied while working in a stressful environment. In long time, it creates stagnation in
people thinking and behavior.
Secondly, as confirmed by the interviews, most of employees have poor ambition and
almost do not want to prove for their abilities since their career development is not paid
attention to. They feel confused when the interviewer mentioned about their personal goal
development and whether it is in line with company goal or not. It is not a major task to build
up strength for employees in Company’s development orientation. Less chance to have
promotion or to expand working experience are the symptoms of low goal orientation. In the
26

physical domain, Lee et al17
suggested that differences in goal orientations can affect intrinsic
motivation by influencing perceived competence or autonomy. People who are higher on task
orientation and lower in ego orientation should experience feelings of competence, because
judgment of ability is self-referenced and success is determined by learning and self-
improvement. Because these criteria are under the person's control, individuals higher in task
orientation are expected to experience an increase in intrinsic motivation when activities are
mastered. In real life, they face difficulty on concentrating in the specific work and
experiencing give-up feeling as not being master in the area they intend to investigate. From
time to time, the intrinsic motivation is going down and abraded. The resulted feeling is that
they “finish the work without considering which is good for their career development” as
shared by legal executive. In fact, career development and talent sustainability for employee
level is not in the current focused list of the company, therefore employees may feel inertia in
their thinking and it constrains their intrinsic motivation.
Thirdly, the Company cares about manager level by offering a more attractive rewards
rather than employee level. There is a deep decentralization in benefit system by level of
employees, which may decrease intrinsic motivation of them. In addition, the recognition from
line manager is as important as from company as it is not frequent to get acknowledgement
from organization, on-time compliment from line manager will have positive effects.
According to Oldham et al18
, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are not independent of each
other. Employee will work hard if he knows the results of his behaviors can satisfy certain
needs, so organizations can motivate employees by some methods, which lead to satisfy
employees' needs. Worthy performance record and rewards are common
27

methods of motivation. Organizations know which methods motivate their employees more
effectively. Whereas verbal rewards tended to enhance intrinsic motivation, physical rewards
(even when the rewards were given controllably) can have a negative impact on intrinsic
motivation when they are offered to people for engaging in a task without consideration of any
standard of performance (Cameron et al19
). In reality of the Company, it is unable to provide
specific physical reward as HR manager mentioned in in-depth interview, the Company tends
to change to use in-time verbal recognition and reward to compensate to employees. However,
consultant employees claimed that they have not received deserved benefit and verbal
recognition and compliment is not performed naturally to get it effect employee’s
comprehension and activity. Furthermore, there is no basic standard for manager to perform
the encouragement without being selfish and biased. The HR staff has pressed the comment
that company has not use effectively the “in-time encouragement and oriented employees to
reach personal success”. It naturally increases the feeling of dissatisfaction and therefore,
employee’s intrinsic motivation decreased accordingly.
Finally, motivational climate was the strongest predictor of enjoyment/interest and
pressure/tension subscales. Researchers have identified a mastery motivational climate as
being associated with higher levels of intrinsic motivation according to Seifriz et al20
.
Comparing with the real situation of the Company, even empowered employees are one of the
key elements leading to success, it is not performed clearly by BA Dept.. There is not
confidence from employees to express their own idea to improve working environment and
they tend to maintain the norm of current condition. In addition, company did not have much
competition for employees to show their skills or innovation through projects. After a long
28

time, “employees’ willing and effort should be affected” has been mentioned by the former
analyst.
Overall, from results of interview, job characteristic, goal orientation, verbal
recognition and compliment and motivational climate are considered as potential causes to
employee’s low intrinsic motivation in the Company.
According to the impact of the problems, many interviewees revealed that they care
about two main valid cause: Job characteristics and performance appraisals. Employees
feel easier to adapt gradually to the change instead of applying mass transformation in
every working aspect. The basic action to show company’s goodwill to enhance
employees’ working quality is to allocate and to have clear job description for staffs. It is
basic and effective tool for functional employees to reassess their value and mission in
conjunction with Company’s development. Besides, verbal recognition and rewards should
be built up as a connection between management team and employees rather than its
felicitation. It could be communicational bridge to deliver employees’ aspiration to
managers as well as sending hope and encouragement to staffs.
They also claimed that maintaining personal goal orientation following company’s
development requires long steps and much more improvement since it should be review
annually to reflect correctly the change of business condition. Likewise, motivational climate
improvement in the company cannot be applied for employees only. It should be built as one
of big action program for whole company to take part in to develop competition while
maintaining collaboration. It is in line with the limited budget for the first time company
29

aimed to improve employees’ intrinsic motivation. From these rationales, solutions are
taken into consideration for two antecedents: job characteristic and performance appraisals.
The cause- effect tree is decribed as below:
IV. SOLUTION
As above analysis, it shows that there are many factors causing the low intrinsic motivation
and all of them are important. So, in order to improve this status, it is required to find out
effective solutions which is being investigated to deal with the problem. According to research
programs, criteria of the solution are including period and budget to obtain basic
transformation. After careful consideration of the resource, it is effective to apply short term
solution which may take its active and tight advantages. The interviews with interviewees were
carried out to collect their opinions for alternative solutions as showed in Appendix 2.
30

And this section would convene on proposing solutions to solve the problem. Some
solutions would be applied for assumption support as below.
1. Proposal of solutions
The factors leading to the low intrinsic motivation in the Company seem like in the
sport. According to the research conducted by Nikos Ntoumanis and Stuart Biddle were
with the School of Education at the University of Exeter21
, the purpose of this study was to
examine the relationships of achievement goal orientations and perceived motivational
climate to perceptions of the intensity and direction of competitive state anxiety. Although
some studies have demonstrated that task orientation and mastery climate are associated
with adaptive emotional patterns and ego orientation and performance climate are linked to
less adaptive emotions, others have not verified these findings. No significant direct links
were found between motivational climates and competitive anxiety, thus implying that
“motivational climates may have an indirect impact on affective responses through the
different goal orientations”. The analysis of goal orientation factor as below shall show
effective solutions for both motivational climate and goal orientation.
Solution for second cause, goal orientation, has been investigated. Lee, Hsu-Hua; Yang,
Tsau-Tang22
’s study shows that for employee creativity to occur, organizations must “build a
context conducive to creativity”, in addition to “identifying employees with creative potential”.
Complementing and extending earlier research, they had developed and tested a cross-level
model about how work unit goal orientation might relate to employee creativity. They had also
theorized and examined the mediating role of employee information
31

elaboration linking work unit goal orientation and employee creativity. Moreover, they
conducted a questionnaire survey based on multi-source data from 340 employees
comprising 53 teams in eight Taiwanese organizations. The results indicate that “the work
unit goal orientation is positively, whereas the work unit performance-avoidance
orientation is negatively, related to employee creativity through employee information
elaboration”. Furthermore, work unit goal orientation also plays a cross-level moderating
role: the positive relationship between individual-level learning orientation and information
elaboration is stronger when work unit learning orientation is higher, but weaker when
work unit avoidance orientation is higher. These mean the employee must identify clearly
their goal orientation. Comparing to the Company’s requirements on job description, the
employee should be in connection with the orientation of organization. The Company
should make the questions about candidate’s orientation in interview before recruitment.
Once the employee’s orientation is in line with the Company’s orientation, it may be easier
to perceive and dedicate to the sustainable development of the Company.
For third cause, job characteristic, had been disclosed. Under Hossein Bahreinizadeh*1,
Heidar Hamrangnia Qojehbeiglu223
’s research had mentioned that Hackman, J. R., & Lawler,
E. E (1971)24
empirically tested the relationships among the job characteristics, individual
differences in need strength and employee's motivation, satisfaction, performance, and
absenteeism on the job. The results indicated that “positive relationship was found among job
dimensions and dependent measures: motivation, satisfaction, performance and attendance”.
This correlational study has done to examine the relationship between job
32

characteristics (task significance, autonomy and feedback) and job performance
(citizenship, task and counterproductive behaviors) of employees. Hackman & Oldham
(1974, 75)24’
s study had suggested three conditions: (a) a person must experience the
work as meaningful, as something which is generally valuable and worthwhile; (b) a
person must experience responsibility for the results of the work, that is, he/she must feel
personally accountable and responsible for the work results; (c) a person must have
knowledge of the final results of the work being done, that is, he/she must understand the
effectiveness of his/her job performance. In consideration of such conditions, the solution
needs to be implemented including clear explanation and assignment, empower and make a
logical evaluation to employee. By these ways, the employee will make their best effort for
doing the job, achieving the goals and their motivation will be enhanced. Moreover, the
skill of task significance, autonomy and feedback should be applied logically. As the
Company’s requirement on job description, employees are encouraged to development.
The employees should have both careful understanding and clear opportunities about their
job so that they can become more active person and high intrinsic motivation. Besides, it is
also considered as motivational element for taking part in outside of work activities. Many
researchers have examined the cause of individual acts and the emerged data have been
classified as motivational factors and needs (Ardahan and Lapa 2010). Scientists who have
worked on the motivational factors agreed that needs motivate people to act. According to
a study conducted in Illinois University25
have shown needs which motivate people to
exercise outdoor activities including getting away from routine and family, escaping from
responsibility, realization of self, improvement and learning new skills, building
33

relationships and others. The study also discovered the benefits of outdoor activities. These
things lead to active impact to employee’s manners in both work and personal life. There
are may young and sensitive employees in the Company. Most of them are very dynamic,
enthusiasm and willing to participate in outside of work activities. Thus, the Company
should assign outside tasks to employees like outdoor activities together with current main
tasks which has got positive response. The interviews have disclosed that the employees
prefer a job which enhances intrinsic employee value.
Finally, low performance appraisals, has been studied. Many organizations believe that
performance appraisals provide these key benefits for employees and managers. The goal of an
appraisal is to foster employee development, increase communication between managers and
employees, provide valuable feedback to employees on their performance and recommend
strategies for continued professional growth. Firstly, employees get regular feedback about
their performance and receive suggestions for overcoming weaknesses. Secondly, managers
and employees work together to set performance goals, identify training and development
needs, and discuss career opportunities that often result in salary increases. Thirdly, managers
gain insight into different jobs, which fosters better working relationships and strengthens their
management skills. And finally, managers and employees communicate regularly and develop
open relationships. However, as per the interview conducted in the Company, it has not yet
record reasonable employee’s performance appraisal. The result disclosed that employees are
not agreed with no-appraisal in the Company and they had not received intrinsic motivation as
their perspective. Therefore, the Company should recognize importance of employee’s
performance appraisals in order to
34

apply effective solutions for improving of low intrinsic motivation. Accordingly, the
Company has to design job descriptions with detailed information on task scope,
supporting mean, others to sure that employees can conduct smoothly. By giving small and
attractive presents, it is a way to increase internal motivation. In addition, paying attention
to employee encouragement which may make the selfishness and impact to variety
individual goal compare to organization’s goal. However, the encouragement has be on
time with right method and included participation of both manager and staff.
They are the basic and effective tool that the Company can use to enhance the working
effectiveness of the emloyees, from which the employees can show their value and easier
to achieve their tảget. Beside that, with the performance appraisal, the connection between
management team and employees become stronger and. It could be the communicational
bridge to directly encourage the staffs.
In addition, maintaining personal goal orientation requires long steps and much more
improvement. Likewise, motivational climate improvement in the company cannot be
applied for employees only. It should be built as one of big action program for whole
company to take part in. Because the limited budget for the first time company aimed to
improve employees’ intrinsic motivation. From these rationales, solutions are taken into
consideration for two antecedents: job characteristic and performance appraisals.
2. Evaluation of solutions
According to the above analysis, it can be determined 2 main causes of the problem: job
characteristic and compensation and benefits. From which the study proposed 03
alternative solutions as follow.
35

The first alternative solution is conducting the clear and detail job description from
which allocate the employee into the suitable jobs. Gan et al 26
has stated that “A job
description can best be thought of as a blueprint of the position. It outlines the essential
duties and responsibilities that are expected of the employee and the basic purpose of the
work the employee is expected to perform. Writing an effective job description entails
more thought than one would think”. Therefore, writing an enough and meaningful job
description is not simple and easy. It required to have the deep understanding in specialize
jobs as well as enough experience to generalize the whole tasks. Through a clear job
description, employer’s expectation employees’ responsibility will be declared to ensure
for a fair contract signed by two parties and it is a basic to assess any performance in the
future. Effectively written job descriptions also can give an employee career guidance and
help develop their careers. The job should include start with job scope to identify the acting
area, with very detail information of work location, supporting tools,… to ensure that
employees can perform smoothly. Mission is a compulsory part to orientate employees’ job
performance, career path and personal development, all items should be reviewed to
express the development shape of company and team. Following is detail task of functional
employees including annual, quarterly, monthly and daily work, where the requirement for
performance is showed clearly. Last but not least, criteria for candidate is showed to
express the specific requirement for the job, mainly included education degree, historical
experience, professional knowledge, skills and competencies.
Second alternative solution is that providing the ideal working environment. Eventhough
building an ideal working environment is not an simple process, it requires the large amount
36

of financial and human resourse. Due to the limited budget of the Company, It tries to
improve the working environment to encourge the employees to work more effective. The
Company should build up an event team who takes care of company activities and internal
events. The team will be the organizer of monthly gathering, quarterly employee
communication, annually year end party and summer team building,... The suggestion
which received the most agreement and support from interviewees are building up a team
of a team who takes care of company extracurricular activities and internal events In order
to reduce cost, there should be support from one or two staffs in each departments. Even it
may be difficult in the start, members will be step by step getting acquaintance with and
enjoy the happiness of making decision, support self and others. At the end of 1-year term,
anniversary medal will be rewarded to the team to memorize their contribution. Budget for
the sharing session and reward is 45 million VND. In addition, it is suggested that the
employees will have an outside meeting, combined with soft skill training to discover
further aspect of peers and other team members. It is also a chance for the club to practice
for their future activities of event holder. Due to limitation of budget allowance, outside
meeting at a place near Ho Chi Minh office for 56 employees is placed with 45 million
VND. The result of this solution should be assessed through the operation of the
preparation of events as well as event’s result and effect directly to members of the club,
whether their creativity and intrinsic motivation have been enhanced.
The third solution is that management team to perform compensation and benefit system to
foster its benefit in timely encouragement functional employees for their exceeded-norm
behaviors or contribution. In detail, when the Company starts a rewards and recognition
37

program for staffs, focus on constructing an appropriate, fair rewards program that meets
staff’ needs and expectations. The Company proposes a simple process: developing a
written plan that clearly identifies the program's elements; setting criteria to give equal
rewards for equal performance; keep it simple; identifying and budgeting for the financial
resources and using familiarity with staff members as individuals to identify rewards and
recognitions. In addition, managers is encouraged to perform the internally assessment
monthly at the basic to have general review of department’s operation and quick catch to
the point for reward to show their effectiveness. Management team will set up core criteria
for selection candidate to reward in 2 weeks, however, the first criteria for the choice is the
brightest performance of team member, individually or group work will not be factors to
filter. Budget for employees rewards and recognition is 20 million VND for the year 2017
and it seems to be expanded if the effectiveness is recognized. HR team to coordinate with
line manager to record the effect of this solution, may be through short survey to in-time
recognizing the pros and cons of compensation and benefits system.
Mentioned above is the non-physical benefit of three alternative solutions, in summary,
financial cost and benefit of the project is summarized as table below for the first year. If
the solutions can prove their effect, they are considered to apply to whole company:
38

V. ORGANIZATION OF ACTIONS
As suggested by the interview respondents and based on the specific context of the
Company, the head of human resources department should be responsible for the
implementation plan which lasts for one year and is applies to the whole Company.
Objective of change plan is clearly to implement three mentioned alternative solutions
within timeline and budget approved. By the way, results of the changing actions should be
recorded to assess the effect of the solutions. It will be the base for any amendment or
replication in a wider scope to enhance the positive renovation to whole company. These
related managers will contribute specific comment of their department into the discussion
to unify a general solution to employees in the Company.
The actions list is built following timeline below to ensure the actions will happen in
early 2017 to foster their effect:
39

In the first 1. BOD and HR manager examines and consider the potential problem
two week of
2. Set up the planning action to implement the action
Jan 2018
In the last 1. Choose the person in charge by appoints 02 current HR employees as
two week of the fixed responsible persons.
Jan 2018
2. These employees self determine to recruit the part time staff for the
assistant
In Feb 2018 1. Send the job description form for employees to fullfill
2. Communicate with employees
3. Set the event team
4. The event team research and general the current situation of Company’
activites
In Mar 2018 1. Complete the job description
2. Start to organize the event monthly
3. Recruit new part time staff for conducting 360 degree assessment
system (if necessary)
In April, May 1. Gather information for conducting 360 degree assessment system
2018 2. Complete the for conducting 360 degree assessment system
40

3. Planning for training program
June 2018 1. Get the approval from BOD
From Jul 2018 1. Apply compensation and benefits system
VI. CONCLUSION
The research has been performed to investigate the problem in the company and
addressed that low intrinsic motivation is existing and placing some negative impacts to
employees through investigation and multiple - round confirmation. With support from the
literature, potential causes are acknowledged to be reconciled against the reality for the
identification of actual causes. The case study identified real antecedents on which
solutions are drawn to tackle the main problem in the short period of time. They were two
key dimensions: job characteristic and benefit and compensations. After researching, a
combination of acts is designed to solve the issue with the evaluation from the insight
interviews with critical stakeholders and the literature itself, which include reassess job
description, setting up sub task as extracurricular activity to employees and enhancing
compensations and benefits policy. The organization of actions is suggested to implement
the solutions within one year and under budget of 253 million VND. Result will be
recorded and the survey will be considered to expand to enhance working quality of all
departments in the company nationwide. And as the Company’s commitment to care about
its working environment, talent sustainability criteria, clear vision and strong business
ambition toward future are confirmed to be improved through this research.
41

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