I worked at a startup during this period, and the remuneration mainly consisted of shares. A notable incentive was that we expected substantial payment in the future. We spent many hours beyond acceptable work time with personal sacrifice and health, dreaming about a highly paid sale out. Nevertheless, with time, as the firm struggled to raise more money, the dream of a large payment started being blown away as the wind blew. This lowered morale, and we, including me, began to look for new opportunities. Finally, I quit the startup for a corporate job that offered permanent pay, health insurance, and other forms of compensation.
In retrospect, the reward system at the startup primarily affected my behavior. It inspired me to work extra hard and long for the possibility of receiving a much bigger compensation in the future. However, whenever that potential dwindled, so did my motivation and enthusiasm. This has been a great lesson in that the strength of compensation as an instrument of enticing action cannot be underrated.
Response to Blog Post 1: Theory: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
This blog post describes specific kinds of behavior, and a possible explanation is proposed based on Maslow’s theory of needs. This assumes that human beings must fulfill their fundamental needs before striving for subsequent ones (Foktas & Jucevičienė, 2021). An author in the case could initially have met their more basic physiological needs and other needs like esteem and self-actualization. Despite this, when the author’s job security became unstable, these lower-level needs, such as job security and stable income, threatened him; hence, he sought employment elsewhere.
Response to Blog Post 2: Behavior in this post can be explained under the Expectancy Theory.
It states that one’s behavior depends on how badly he or she desires it and if he or she thinks it will come his or her way. The initial driver for this author would be the excellent expectation value (probability) of a larger future payment (valence) (Foktas & Jucevičienė, 2021). However, as the company’s bright future shrunk, the author also lost hope of having that payment, which led to reduced motivation and, ultimately, resignation from the company.
Reference
Foktas, P., & Jucevičienė, P. (2021, June). Which Motivational Theories Are Suitable to Motivate Employees Belonging to Generation Y? In Eurasian Business and Economics Perspectives: Proceedings of the 31st Eurasia Business and Economics Society Conference (pp. 249-264). Cham: Springer International Publishing.https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-71869-5_16
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