Economic Growth through Societal Motivation

Economic engines are fostered through the patterns of human development and the creation of an environment that allows them to realize their fullest potential on the market. The economic system should encourage exploratory entrepreneurial behavior that leads to tangible rewards for societal members to ensure momentum continues to thrust forward. The same mechanics that apply to organizational motivation also apply to national motivation as each member determines whether or not they will engage the market with their skills and abilities. 

The book Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty outlines how wealth is increasingly accumulating into fewer and fewer hands thereby retarding the financial growth of the middle class. Wealth distribution tied directly to performance helps to encourage greater levels of motivation and innovative ideation.  Higher performance should be encouraged throughout the layers of society to have the highest development of the economic system. 

Expectancy-Value Theory:  People will determine how much effort they are going to put forward to obtain goals. If the system doesn’t offer these rewards or if people are effectively blocked due to issues such as racism, religious bigotry, sexism, nepotism, corruption, or improper wealth allocation national motivation will decline. 

Path-Goal Theory: It is not enough to offer the rewards without offering the right rewards for the right kinds of activities. Employees that work hard, develop new products, and create better ways of conducting business have a right to increased income. The rewards must match the path to ensure the highest amount of effort.

Cultural Reward Systems: Each culture has their own embedded reward systems that encourages higher levels of motivation within that particular cultural context (Rosenblatt, 2010). Once the culture is set it will change the vantage points of societal members and influence what actions will lead to effective rewards that adjusts social intelligence and thinking. 

Skill Set Creation: To think, build, and produce requires the motivation to learn and develop. The system must reward employees who successfully complete training, obtain certificates, graduate with degrees, and improve their earning potential in some way. The closer learning is associated to current societal needs the higher the alignment of effort and skill. 

Ideation to Production: When good ideas are ignored only because they didn’t come from the “right” person with the “right” social connections the system suffers as less people learn to open their ideas to unjust criticism. Development of a nation requires the ability to explore various types of ideas from multiple sectors of society. 

Treaties and Agreements: Opportunities are based on the ability to sell products on the global market that obtain rewards for societal members. The types of agreements developed for trade and information sharing will determine the potential opportunities generated. The agreements influence the productive structure of a nation.

Wealth allocation should impact all segments of society to be effective. Developing a stronger society requires all-hands-on-deck through offering appropriate rewards, effective paths that help the greatest amount of people, the skill-set to produce, open-minded enough to accept new ideas, and having the international agreements in place to develop new opportunities.

The way the system operates and develops has a natural impact on the methodologies people use to make decisions. Every person uses judgments to determine whether or not additional effort will lead to increased rewards or other valued benefits. A lifetime of rewards, punishments, successes, and failures will determine the overall way in which a people think and becomes embedded into a nation’s culture. 

It is the entire system and its impact on the population that will determine whether or not a nation will succeed or decline or suffer the fate of history. Each member is surrounded by the factors of their environment and the way in which other people think that creates social perception as encased in culture. It is this cultural perception matched with appropriately pathways to success and tangible rewards that will determine if the system has the capacity to continue to grow in the future. 

Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA. ISBN 9780674430006

Rosenblatt, V. (2010). Social axioms, values and reward allocation across cultures. Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings.

Higher Employee Performance through Path-Goal Theory

The Path-Goal theory helps to define methods and pathways to successful achievement of organizational objectives. The theory postulates that leadership behavior is subject to the satisfaction, motivation, and performance of their subordinates. Strong leadership implies that such leaders should engage in behaviors that enhance employee abilities and reduce deficiencies. Organizations can do this through coaching, counseling, servant leadership, and engagement. The specific style of leadership and direction are based upon two contingencies that include the environment and the employee characteristics. Through the use and application of Path-Goal Theory organizations can realize higher performance.

The path-goal theory was originally developed by Robert House in 1971 and then revised again in the mid 1990’s. The theory came into business as a strong approach of managing employees and improving upon their overall performance. The ultimate goal is to provide them a path to achieve their objectives through proper communication and encouragement.  It is seen as a method of encouraging engagement.

The success of leadership depends in part on environmental factors and follower characteristics. 1.) Environmental factors relate to culture, power dynamics, team characteristics, etc… that is outside the employees control. 2.) Employee characteristics are those individual characteristics that depend on employees themselves such as employees’ needs, locus of control, experience, perceived ability, satisfaction, willingness to leave the organization, and anxiety. Proper leadership requires the ability to adjust that leadership style based upon these two contingencies. 

A study conducted by Sikandar Hayyat explored path-goal models of leadership and found that both directive and participative leadership styles encourage higher levels of performance (2012).  The study also indicates that subordinate job expectations are influenced heavily by leader behaviors. Directive styles are more focused clarifying paths while participative styles are more beneficial in setting, clarifying, and achieving goals. Employees take cues from their leaders to determine proper courses of action.

The directive style offers paths for employees to accept or reject while the participative style tries to draw subordinates into defining and understanding these goals. It is possible to see the benefits of directive methods once employees have been acclimated into a company and trust the organization while the participative style may be more beneficial for new employees that seek direction but must willingly accept paths and goals as appropriate. The researcher Robert House actually suggested a servant leadership style as most appropriate.

Columbia Records is an excellent example of an organization that used Path-Goal Theory to realize objectives. They inspired performance, contentment, and motivation by clarifying paths on how to achieve goals, rewarding employees once they have achieved those defined goals, and removing organizational obstacles that lowered the chances of employees being successful (Vandergrift & Matusitz, 2011). The process and its defined goals were transparent and trusted by employees which lent to higher levels of engagement.

The path-goal theory is one method of viewing leadership and workplace engagement. Organizations that seek to increase employee’s abilities should think about how their leadership provides appropriate direction on expectations, reward employees who follow appropriate paths, and encourages employees to adopt those paths for themselves. Through proper management organizations can realize higher levels of performance beyond job descriptions and basic standards. 

Kinicki, A. & Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational Behavior: Key concepts, skills & practices (fourth edition). McGraw-Hill Company.

Malik, S. (2012). A study of relationship between leader behaviors and subordinate job expectations: a path-goal approach. Pakistan Journal of Commerce & Social Sciences, 6 (2). 

Vandergrift, R. & Matusitz, J. (2011). Path-goal theory: a successful Columbia Records story. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 21 (4).