Motivation Of Construction Engineers In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The economy of Vietnam grows rapidly, especially in HCM city which has always reported as have high levels of economic activity, constantly leading in terms of economic growth since entering WTO. Under the strategy for industrial development to 2010 and the vision for 2020, HCM City is expected to become an industrial city by 2015 and play the role as an economic driver of the southern focal economic zone and the whole country. These development policies provide a chance for development of construction industry in the City. On the other hand, the HCM city people’s committee will have new policies to improve the goal of construction industry. One of these is increasing the productivity of construction engineers through motivation of construction engineers.

In industrial construction, one of the issues confronting constructors and owners of construction project is how to improve construction productivity. Stated in another way, how can construction projects be completed cost effectively? It is believed that increasing construction engineer productivity through improved motivation would result in significant savings in construction costs. The behavior of engineers affects project productivity. There fore, the study of engineer motivation is very important.

Mr. Nguyen Duy made a case study to know the wants of the construction engineers in HCM City, Vietnam and how it contributes to effective motivation policies and programs to increase their productivity. His study’s objectives were: (1) to survey construction engineers’ needs and their satisfaction in the Vietnam construction industry; (2) to propose some recommendations to motivate construction engineers working effectively; and (3) to specify the validity of the expectancy theory toward motivation of construction engineers in the Vietnam construction industry.

Mr. Duy’s concluded that the construction engineers’ needs and satisfactions did not meet. Almost all engineers considered a three high need factors such as good orientation and training, good relationship with colleagues and good welfare condition. The company must be properly addressed these factors if it wants to carry out the policy that will motivate the engineers effectively.

The result of his study implies that engineers’ general satisfaction and intrinsic satisfaction are higher than satisfaction on their need factors. This means engineers’ professions are attractive for them, but the outcome of work can not meet their needs successfully.

His study also illustrated that the validity of expectancy theory was not strongly supported. But expectancy theory still provided a conceptual base for understanding the motivation of construction engineers. Analyzing the relationships predicted by expectancy theory implied that job clarify is useful to improve the expectancy of engineers even though the expectancy has no strong relationship with effort and performance.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

ABSTRACT

Construction industry is the one that drives virtually ever economy. It is needed to provide the infrastructure, plants, industries and houses for the population. For the industry to serve the economy it needs resources. One of the most important and critical resource in construction is manpower. This resource, unlike other resources, is the only one that free will. As a result, it is important for manager of construction to understand the factors that influence construction engineer performance. To motivate construction engineers, it is necessary to know how they respond to their environment and what they need. A survey was developed base on expectancy theory. This survey was conducted in construction industry in HoChiMinh city, Vietnam. The study was carried out to determine the factors that affect the motivation of engineers, for example, physiological (breathing, food, water, sleep,...), safety (security of body, of employee, of health..), belonging (friendship, family, ..), esteem (confident, respect by others, achievement,..), self-actualization (morality, creativity, acceptance of facts,…). Hence, proposing some recommendations to motivate construction engineers working effectively. Further more, this research also specify the validity of the expectancy theory toward motivation of construction engineers in the Vietnam construction industry.