Research Paper on:
Employee Empowerment and Workplace Motivation

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
employee performance and it is up to the manager to motivate employees. Certainly, very few people would argue that employees who are not motivated "have less energy, are more likely  to resist change, and less likely to suggest needed improvements or take that extra step to keep customers coming back" (The OD Toolpack, 2000). Thus, it pays any organization to  do what is necessary to motivate their workers. This is not always as easy as it may sound. Arnold and Krapels explained this very succinctly: "Employee motivation is perhaps the  ultimate management challenge. Most managers are faced with the task of motivating dissimilar and often unpredictable groups of people" (1996, p. 8). Herein lies the challenge for human resource directors,  supervisors and managers in any work environment. There are volumes of research about motivation but it remains a concept and practice that is misunderstood more often than not. This  lack of understanding leads to ineffective actions on the part of management, i.e., what is known about motivation is not put into practice successfully or effectively. One of the basic  problems, of course, has already been cited - not all people respond to the same things. What one person finds very motivating another does not find motivating at all (Accel  team, 2000). That is a fact of human nature. Since the 1940s, numerous theories regarding motivation have been offered. Some of these include: * Expectancy Theory - this theory is  related to three constructs: expectancy, instrumentality and valence. Basically, the theory suggests that employees are motivated when their expectations are met, when their efforts result in the promised reward and  when the reward is valuable enough to them to work for it (Ambrose 1999, p. 231). * Goal-Setting - goal setting theory continues to be validated. Research has