Motivation in extreme conditions

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the Study
1.2. Statement of the Problem
1.3. Research Aim and Objectives
1.4. Structure of the Dissertation

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction to the Chapter
2.2. Theoretical Framework
2.3. The Motivation of International Workers
2.4. Employee Empowerment and Career Development in an International Workplace
2.5. Challenging Tasks and Risk-Taking in a Foreign Work Environment
2.6. Linking Literature Review with Research Objectives and Methodology

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Research Design
3.4. Sampling Methods
3.5. Instruments Used
3.6. Data Collection
3.7. Data Analysis
3.8. Ethical Considerations
3.9. Limitations of the Study

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS OF ANALYSIS
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Interpretive Paradigm
4.3. Themes

Conclusion

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Summary of the Study
5.3. Discussion of Themes
5.3.1. Need for Challenging Tasks/Jobs
5.3.2. Salaries and Contractual Terms
5.3.3. Position to Help Others
5.3.4. Adventure
5.4. Conclusions
5.5. Theoretical Implications, Limitations,And Suggestions for Further Studies
5.6. Reflection

Bibliography

APPENDICES

Appendix I: Interview schedule

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Mogadishu, Somalia is one of the most dangerous cities in the world to live in due to the ongoing political instability in Somalia and frequent terror attacks on hotels, diplomatic residences, government offices and even residential areas in the city. In this case, Mogadishu is not just risky to live in but also dangerous to work in. However, there are daring workers who come from all over the world to serve in different capacities and tasks in the city. The researcher, therefore, sought to establish what motivates these people to leave their peaceful countries to work and stay in Mogadishu. To answer the question, the researcher conducted a qualitative study. The study involved 34 participants who were interviewed on motivation strategies, organisation culture and management of the organisation they work to understand what attracts them to work in Mogadishu. From the interviews, the researcher noted that salaries and bonuses, challenging tasks, need to help the disadvantaged and adventure were the main reasons that made people to leave their peaceful countries and move to Somalia. In a nutshell, the researcher found that motivation to work in violent areas such as Mogadishu depended on a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors as well as environmental factors.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the Study

Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, is a dangerous city. In the first three months of 2012, 800 households suffered eight kidnappings, 13 rapes, 38 robberies, and 36 other physical assaults. Given that millions of people have been forced to leave the country while hundreds of thousands have been killed during more the than three decades of conflict (UN, 2017), why do many people still relocate to the city for work? Furthermore, threats to the lives of civilians in Mogadishu are enhanced by the ineffectiveness of the security bodies to deal with criminal activities. According to Walton (2013), the ineffectiveness of security bodies in Mogadishu is attributed to low morale due to poor remuneration and lack of equipment. Besides, Mogadishu has become a breeding ground for extremist groups taking advantage of the city’s insecurity and political instability. The largest extremist group based in Mogadishu is the Al Shabaab militant organisation. Al Shabaab (AS) is the most dominant group of Islamic fighters operating in the country complemented by their counterpart, the Islamic State (IS), the minority of the two Islamic fighters’ group (Zimmerman, 2011). Despite these security threats, hundreds of workers still come from different parts of the world to work in Mogadishu. This research is, therefore, designed to explain why people will leave their peaceful countries or cities to work in the incessant violence of Mogadishu, Somalia.

For many years, employee motivation was simply defined as intrinsic (Fallatah and Syed, 2017). Recent studies of workplace motivation describe the broader social environment as important, noting that its causes or an effect on individual work-related motivation remain a mystery. For instance, motivation is increasingly discussed in terms of the workplace environment, individual’s behavioural factors, and interpersonal relations, among others. Furthermore, the study of what motivates a specific individual in the unique work environment has become the centre of many psychological and business researches (Bassett‐Jones and Lloyd, 2005; Danish and Usman, 2010; Locke, 1996, Roos, 2005). Nonetheless, there is still no clear explanation on worker motivation in a workplace environment characterised by incessant violence, political tensions, uncertainties and continuing civil war like Mogadishu, Somalia.

In the current study, the researcher recognises that past studies have not indulged extensively into what may motivate a person to work in violent areas, such as Mogadishu, Somalia. The researcher noted that these past studies focused on enhancing understanding of the concept of worker motivation and forms of motivation under normal circumstances (Saijanen, 2017, AbzalBasha, 2016). On the other hand, studies, such as Haider et al (2015), Manolopoulos (2007), and Fallatah and Syed (2017) discussed the effect intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation on employee’s performance. However, I will demonstrate that external factors, such as political violence, terrorism threats, and governance instability will have a potentially significant impact on worker motivation and performance. Focusing on Mogadishu, Somalia, this research is designed to explore why workers continue to offer their services to the people there despite clear risks to the life they face. In addition, this research will help to shape an understandingof what researcher motivates people in these extreme workplace environments.

1.2. Statement of the Problem

There has been a comprehensive study conducted on motivation, however not much on what motivates the staff to work in one of the hostile places in the world Mogadishu (Haider et al 2015, Manolopoulos, 2007, Fallatah and Syed, 2017, Sebastião, Zulato and Trindade, 2017). For example, motivation has been found to refer to attaining the organisational main goals by satisfying an individual employee’s needs or demands (Ahmad et al., 2010). Basically, these studies regard work motivation as a set of internal and external forces that initiate work-related behaviour and determine its form, direction, intensity and duration (Salanova and Kirmanen, 2010; Wan, 2009). This concept relates to the work context specifically as it includes work behaviour in unique work environments and environmental influences of work behaviour. Mogadishu is a unique workplace environment in that the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) is constantly battling with the insurgency and continuously trying to enforce the peace and stability of the country. Currently, Al Shabaab and IS keep conducting activities that completely undermine the efforts of the Federal government of ensuring a secure city for the populace. In addition, the clan dynamics where clan-based fighting often breaks up and the militia factor are not helping FGS to successfully obtain the national objectives (Murru, 2017).This ongoing violence threatens the safety of workers and their ability to perform their tasks to their full potential.

Though some of the international workforces come from peaceful countries across the globe, countries with low-risk levels compared to Mogadishu, it is intriguing that most of them are not deterred by the security situation prevailing in Mogadishu (Baas, 2018). They instead opt to keep working in the country regardless of other substantial life-threatening external factors. The research aims to enhance understanding of what motivates these international workers to come and stay in Mogadishu.

1.3. Research Aim and Objectives

The main goal of this study is to provide an in-depth insight into the work motivation in extreme conditions. In doing so, the researcher answers the following research question:

- What motivates international employees from peaceful countries to keep working in a hostile and high-risk city Mogadishu, the Somali Capital?

To effectively answer the research question, the researcher intended to attain the following objectives:

i. To investigate what causes the influx of international workforce of different skill sets to flood violent/unstable/war zones, despite different prevailing life-threatening risks posed by security and political instability.
ii. To help readers gain a better understanding of the motivating factors that cause international workforce to be attracted to keep working in violent/unstable/war zones
iii. To contribute to the body of knowledge by filling the gap on motivational theories as they not narrowing down to specifically address what motivates employees to work in a hostile environment.

1.4. Structure of the Dissertation

The dissertation is organised into five chapters:

i. Chapter I (Introduction) provides background notes necessary to frame the research questions. The chapter also illustrates the goal and objective of the research and explains the structure of the dissertation.
ii. Chapter II (Literature review) examines the literature and relevant material used for this research, emphasising the approaches and positions of influential writers and scholars in relation to motivation theories, which are directly linked to the new area investigated on this paper, the internationals workforce who are flooding the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
iii. Chapter III (Methodology) highlights the procedures involved in conducting the study. The chapter outlines how the data was gathered and analyzed in order to attain the study objectives. The chapter also explains how the study participants were selected as well as ethical issues and challenges faced in conducting the research.
iv. Chapter IV (Results of analysis) presents the results of the data analysis. That is, the author identifies various themes and emerging issues from the raw data collected from the field.
v. Chapter V (Discussion and conclusions) presents a discussion of results, reflections, summarisations and recommendations from the study. The discussion correlates all the findings and attempts to provide indications and trends that can help to answer the research question. Reflection covers all the challenges and issues that unexpected surface, especially during the data collection, which includes all the lessons learned throughout the process of the thesis. This chapter also draws from conclusions of the study and offer recommendations not only on the organisation X’s strategic management but also to tactical management and operational workforce on how to go about addressing the issues that surface, which are not good for employees’ motivation. The chapter also draws a clear conclusion of the study.

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Introduction to the Chapter

This chapter provides an overview of past studies on worker motivation in extreme condition. It reviews past studies thus providing the researcher with the direction of constructing data collection and analysis tools. Additionally, findings from extant studies help in maintaining a sense of topic perspective throughout the study while also availing opportunities to articulate the actual meaning of the data collected and analyzed. To attain the highlighted objectives of the literature review, a wide range of secondary sources served as key bibliographic tools to assist in the identification of relevant work for review. Relevant literature sources were found from a number of academic domains, such as business studies, human resource management, psychology, and other social sciences.

2.2. Theoretical Framework

In this section, the researcher has made an attempt to discuss the concept of motivation, factors that determine employee motivation and how these factors may influence an international worker’s decision to work in violent and life risk areas, such as Mogadishu.

For workers to perform their tasks to their best abilities, they must be motivated and committed to realising both personal and organisational goals. Motivation is usually strong when one has a vision, a clear mental image of a certain situation or achievement, faith in one's abilities and also a strong desire to materialise it. Generally, motivation has been described as embracing positive incentives while avoiding negative incentives (Saijanen, 2017). Here, an incentive can be defined as an expected reward or an aversive event that is present in the environment (Manolopoulos, 2007). In this case, motivation pushes one forward, toward taking action and making the vision a reality. Ball (2018) explained motivation as forces motivating people that can be both positive and negative. Negative forces can push people away from unwanted situations. Motivating forces can be positive, as in impelling one to reach a certain goal (Witte, 2004). For example, you can be positively motivated about going to work because you like your colleagues and some parts of the work, and negatively motivated because you have bills to pay.

Consequently, four major arguments from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory have been adapted to most of the contemporary motivation theories in an attempt to explain various work motivation factors (Avaev, 2016). Firstly, if a need has been satisfied, then it cannot motivate. For example, a person with an already well-paying job will not move to take another job elsewhere unless the new job offers something besides money, such as personal/career development. Secondly, once a particular need has been satisfied, another need will arise. However, these studies indicated that the new need does not necessarily according to Maslow’s hierarchy. For instance, a person’s need for creativity may replace safety and survival needs in an individual’s hierarchy. Thirdly, workers have a desire to work their way up in the hierarchy of needs pursuing satisfaction of higher order needs. Lastly, the dissatisfaction of needs can lead to frustrations, stress and other mental health issues (Avaev, 2016).

Meanwhile, contemporary studies have revealed various limitations of Maslow’s theory. Some of the limitations of this theory include difficulty in measuring the amount of satisfaction required for a person to move to the next level of needs, lack of clarity on whether there are skills required to attain safety and physiological goals and lastly, this theory only deal with single behaviours and provide no guidance on how to deal with group behaviours (Eron, 2013). Comparatively, Vroom’s expectation theory focuses on how people choose their actions. According to Vroom’s expectation theory, a person’sdecision to pursue a certain job is influenced by the individual belief about effort and performance. Davidescu (2017) confirmed that job decisions are a person’s free choice based on their expectancy calculations. That is, people will rationally choose a particular job if they are expecting positive outcomes.

Elsewhere, modern proponents of Hertzberg’s two-factor theory still argue that factors that lead to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are distinct and can be classified in terms of motivators and hygiene factors. Motivators are defined as factors that give positive satisfaction to the employee and it originates from the intrinsic aspects of the job itself (Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman, 1959). These factors include challenging work, recognition of one’s achievement, responsibility, personal growth and involvement in decision making in the organisation,among others. Motivators tend to make the employee have an emotional connection with their job. The researchers have, therefore, argued that many workers tend to be motivated with the challenging or sometimes the risky nature of the work. The employee challenges himself to develop their talents and realise their full potential in this challenging environment. For instance, working in a challenging environment comes with added responsibility to work and provide learning opportunities to the person to work at a higher level, which can lead to performance growth in every task. On one hand, motivators are attributed to intrinsic feelings. Apart from responsibility and learning opportunity, other motivators include recognition, achievement, advancement and career growth (Witte, 2004). In the presence of the motivators, satisfaction levels of employees are expected to grow.

On the other hand, hygiene factors can be described as those factors that do not necessarily lead to positive satisfaction but could lead to greater levels of motivation. However, in the absence of these factors dissatisfaction may arise. Some of the hygiene factors include status, job security, salary, fringe benefits, good pay, and vacations, among others (Bassett‐Jones and Lloyd, 2005). Hygiene factors are extrinsic to the job itself and largely arise from aspects of company policies and supervisory practices. According to this theory, hygiene factors are the main causes of personal dissatisfaction in the workplace among employees. From this discussion, theorists insist that contend that hygiene factors do not have significant long term impact on worker motivation. In this regard, it is doubtful that people will be motivated by these extrinsic factors to work in violent areas.

In another study, Haider et al. (2015) linked an employee motivation to a reward. The authors pointed out that nonfinancial rewards, such as additional holidays and team events, can improve employees’ motivation, and increase their loyalty and commitment to the company. Saijanen (2017) also notes that rewards and recognition are considered by many sources being the best tools to motivate and inspire employees. Discussing various motivational theories, Islam (2014) noted that if employees feel that their inputs such as efforts, commitment, loyalty, trust, and enthusiasm to the organisation are fairly and adequately rewarded by outputs such as financial and non-financial benefits or incentives, they remain motivated and continue to provide inputs towards higher productivity. With that, employees can continue to work for the organisation even in hardship areas.

Ball (2018) while highlighting the Maslow theory of needs indicated that outcome or reward that is perceived to be highly significant and important can result in a higher level of effort and performance by the individual employee. On the other hand, Bergh and Theron (2003) state that to facilitate positive feelings, the individual then seeks activities that offer increasing stimulation. The individual may work towards an optimal level of stimulation by taking risks or become attracted to challenging situations that stimulate his or her curiosity. Bergh and Theron, 2003) also stated that if employees perceive their remunerations too low in relation to their inputs when compared with co-workers, they may lower their inputs by putting less effort into the work.

More recent theories have noted that worker motivation is the mechanism, which ultimately influences people or employees to behave in certain ways including the decisions regarding where they intend to work (Raziga and Maulabakhsha, 2015;Haque, Haque and Islam, 2014). According to Raziga and Maulabakhsha (2015) individual employees’ were found to be motivated by environmental, ability and personal factors whether it is in charitable organisation, service-oriented or manufacturing firm. An attempt to find the common ground between early theories and recent studies on motivation can, therefore, help us to the better implication of motivational theories in the current study. For instance, Haque, Haque,and Islam (2014) suggested that positive minded employees were more likely to choose to work in a violent area because of intrinsic factors, such as new challenge, passion, love, recognition or just a feeling of helping others.

Though motivation is a powerful tool to predict a person’s behaviour at the workplace, studies show that it significantly vary from one person to the other depending on their abilities and other environmental factors that affect behaviour and performance. Some of the environmental factors include salary and incentives, supervision, and promotion opportunity. Moreover, Manolopoulos (2007) found that age differences are an important predictor of an individual’s motivation. Raziga and Maulabakhsha (2015) indicated that elder people were less motivated by the extrinsic features of the job but were more focused on the intrinsically rewarding features of the job. Saijanen (2017) showed that work motivation is also strongly influenced by cultural characteristics. For instance, collectivist countries tend to have higher levels of work motivation compared to individualist countries. Similarly, higher motivation levels were associated with countries that exhibited along versus short-termorientation.

From the past theories, it has been revealed that internal and external motivation mechanisms which are triggered by needs, decision-making process and environmental factors influence a person’s behaviour and job decisions. However, one of the main limitations of these theories is the assumption that every individual gas similar needs and follow a standard decision-making process. Furthermore, these theories fail to explain how various needs and goals are chosen by individuals and how they are prioritised when a person is making a life or career-defininga decision like moving to a dangerous city to take a new job or contract. These theories also fail to consider the impact of factors such as culture, norms and social influence in the success or failure of the motivation process. Most crucially, the theories fail to answer the question of how knowledge of different personality traits can fit into these theories. With these limitations in mind, the researcher demonstrates how a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of the job can enhance a person’s work motivation and contribute to their career decisions. This research is, therefore, designed to demonstrate how a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors may motivate international workers to consider or continue working in violent prone areas, such as Mogadishu.

2.3. The Motivation of International Workers

Motivation is a concept used in multiple different contexts and in each has a slightly different definition. However, when discussing the employee motivation, it is defined by Bao and Nizam (2015, p. 34), as “employee's intrinsic enthusiasm about and drives to accomplish activities related to work”. On the other hand, Herzberg, Mausner,andSnyderman (1959) simply defined employee motivation as what will prompt him/her to act in a certain way or develop a propensity to a certain type of behaviour. Barba-Sánchez and Atienza-Sahuquillo (2017) pointed out that understanding the process of an individual’s motivation lies in the meaning and relationship between, needs, drives, and incentives. From this perspective, employee motivation is a process that begins with a physiological or psychological need that activates behaviour or a drive that is aimed at achieving a unique goal or objective. From the multiple definitions that have been presented and for the purpose of the current study, a practical definition linking past definitions to the current case has been adopted as follows: Employee motivation refers to how employee’s behaviour is triggered, energised, sustained, directed or even stopped and what kind of reactions are present in an individual when this process is going on. For the purpose of this study, the motivation of an international worker can simply be described as the individual’s drive to work in a foreign country experiencing civil war.

Conventionally, the organisation management has a responsibility to motivate employees by creating a good working environment, where employers maintain a neutral position when dealing with employees. Ball (2018) highlighted that employees want to work in an environment that is productive, respectful, provides a feeling of inclusiveness, and offers a friendly setting. Ball (2018) on the same article summarising motivational theories further notes that fair treatment creates motivation. It adds a crucial additional perspective to motivation theory, of comparison with ‘referent’ others (people we consider to be in a similar situation). Saijanen (2017) noted that competent and loyal employees are a base for successful companies, and therefore retaining them is crucial. Ahlrichs, 2000 cited in Hong et al., (2015) also point out that hiring knowledgeable people for the job is essential for an employer. But retention is even more important than hiring. This is true as many employers have underestimated costs associated with turnover of key staffs. Also, Islam, (2014) suggests that getting the right people in the right place and setting them in accordance is also a challenge for any motivational theory.

According to King (1970), there exists a specific reward system that will lure a specific worker to commit within his or her workplace environments. Generally, the employee reward system is defined as a set of programs designed by an organisation to appreciate and motivate employees to perform better. A reward is considered as an item experience with monetary value (but not necessarily money) that is provided for desired behaviour or performance, often with accompanying recognition. Nelson and Nelson (2012) defined a reward as something special, a special gain for special achievements, and a treat for doing something above and beyond. Saijanen (2017) also explains rewards from another perspective as enforcers, which are stimuli that increase the probability to reach the desired response. The two main types of enforcers are positive and negative, and both are used to achieve the wanted outcome. The positive enforcers are added to the situation, and they are what the object desires. The negative enforcers are used by being removed from the situation, which can be seen as a removal of punishment.

An individual worker may decide to go to work in a foreign country with riskier and even more life-threatening workplace environments as the expected rewards in those countries may be significantly higher than in their countries. According to Armstrong (2002), an employee is attracted to financial and non-financial rewards, which are at least better those they have in their current positions. Similar to Armstrong (2002), AbzalBasah (2016) went further with a supportive statement to the Armstrong stating that financial rewards can be either performance-based, which includes an incentive pay, group bonuses, and commissions, or membership-based, which covers such rewards as basic pay, pay for time, or rental allowance. These rewards will be even more attractive if the international company have a comprehensive policy and plan to continue enhancing or maintaining this attractive rewards policy. According to Brun and Cooper (2014), recognition is a non-financial reward that may push a person to join another company in their country or in a foreign country. Some employees are looking for opportunities where their efforts can be appreciated in terms of both their work performance and personal investment. Basically, it means appreciating the employee’s performance or commitment in some way, that the employee knows his or her value. In order to maximise the results of recognition, it should be given systematically both officially and casually.

Employee commitment can also act as a motivating factor for an employee to accept a transfer to a foreign country without considering the risks that they may face. According to Hong et al (2012), giving an employee an opportunity to lead a project in another country can be viewed by that employee as approval on his abilities by the company. A committed employee also believes that his/her company cares for their interests and thus would not put them in a risky workplace environment. In a foreign country, for instance, the reward system should lead to a feeling of a strong sense of belonging. The reward system in these companies tends to be fair, transparent and equal for the same level of employees. Cultivating a culture of belonging builds a sense of ownership from the employees (King, 1970). That is, employees will feel that they are essential components of the organisation or company thus are committed to ensuring that it succeeds. Encouraging a culture of belonging increase the togetherness of employees within the workplace, if well implemented. A culture of belonging can be defined as an organisational culture characterised by shared philosophies, ideologies, values, assumptions, beliefs, expectation, attitudes, and norms that knit a community together. A sense of belonging could help the employees to pull each other up when not feeling well or when going out of direction (King, 1970). As a result of employee engagement with the company, international workers will continue to work in these dangerous environments to maintain unity and togetherness within the organisation and inculcate norms and values, which are based on standing together under all circumstances.

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