Motivation of Construction Engineers in Yunnan, China

Construction has been perceived as a pillar industry in China’s economic revitalization (Han et al, 2001). Rapid economic expansion in China has resulted high volumes of construction activity. In the period 1990~1998, the strong construction industry and the rapidly growing construction industry were concentrated along the coast of China, but Han et al (2001) stated the construction industry contributed a higher proportion of GDP in the western and central provinces than the coastal provinces.

Yunnan province, as one of the above western provinces, has been developing at an amazing speed since 1980, especially during 1995~1998. Because Yunnan province shares a border of 4,060 km with Myanmar in the west, Laos in the south, and Vietnam in the southeast, accession to the World Trade Organization helped this province to draw considerable attention to its development of International Passageway connecting the South-Western China with South-Eastern Asia and South Asia.

After 2002, the government emphasized the development of inland regions by means of trickle-down economic growth from the coastal provinces and the improvement of urbanization. These development policies as well as the development of International Passageway provide a historic chance for the development of construction industry in Yunnan province.
However, it is also a challenge to the construction industry in Yunnan province to seize this opportunity of development. Generally, as Chen (1998) observed, the construction industry in China faces serious challenges and will require deeper reforms to address the remaining problem areas. He also indicated that construction management is still considered to be a serious problem in China. On the other hand, the government is keen to secure improvement in the performance of the construction industry through competitive bidding, management efficiency, training, increased labour productivity, quality control, advanced technology and great enterprise autonomy and accountability (Chen, 1998). That means the construction industry in Yunnan province has to deepen its reforms to achieve its goals under the government’s guide.

Effective motivation programs are considered as an approach to motivate employees toward organizational goals. On the other hand, unawareness of the motivation and performance of construction engineers will increase the difficulty of establishing effective motivation programs, which are based on understanding the behaviour of engineers. In other words, construction engineer motivation affects project productivity considerably so that researches on engineer motivation are required. However, in the construction industry, researchers commonly concentrate on the motivation of workers but ignore that of engineers.

Therefore, the study of engineer motivation is called for to facilitate the efficient use of engineers as project specialists. Especially, for project managers, the significant effect of engineers as team members deserves more consideration on “how to motivate them effectively” when project teamwork has become more and more important for construction productivity. Moreover, the study of engineer motivation might contribute to the effective motivation policies and programs which have been emphasized in China’s construction industry reforms.

Miss Dai Jiliang made a study to investigate the motivation of construction engineers in Yunnan province, China. Her three objectives were to: (1) explore construction engineers’ needs and their satisfaction on the corresponding needs; (2) determine the validity of the expectancy theory of engineer motivation, performance and satisfaction; and (3) address some recommendations for the methods applied to motivating construction engineers.

Conclusion

Below are the three important conclusions drawn from the findings of the study.

1. The exploration of construction engineer needs and their satisfaction on the corresponding needs not only illustrates the less satisfied engineers, but also facilitates more effective motivation policies such as the physiological needs and safety needs could be emphasized by the management to enhance satisfaction.

2. The validity of expectancy theory is not strongly supported by this study. But expectancy theory still provides a conceptual base for understanding the motivation of construction engineers in Yunnan province, China. The results of analysing the relationships predicted by expectancy theory imply that job clarify is useful to improve the expectancy of the engineers even though the expectancy has no strong relationship with effort and performance. Also, the results of analysis indicate that negative consequences of poor performance influence on effort more significantly than positive consequences for good performance do. The low motivation scores of the engineers suggest the present motivation policies might require improvement.

3. Job clarify could be achieved by the establishment and communication of clear performance goals. Negative consequence of poor performance might be considered by the management to influence effort expended by engineers. Important needs could be placed on the motivation agenda.

The result of this study implies that engineers’ general job satisfaction and intrinsic satisfaction are higher than satisfaction on the need factors. This means that engineers’ professions are attractive for them, but the outcome of work can not meet their needs successfully. The management might be in an external-internal embarrassment: decreasing profit margin caused by furious competition in the construction market and stagnant market-oriented reforms of the SOEs or myopia human resource management in the URCs and RCTs.

The Chinese government believes that the long-term development of the construction industry should still be centrally planned (Mayo et al, 1995). The goals of the official long-term plan include the performance of the Chinese construction industry’s output, productivity, construction quality, housing construction, employment, and international contracting (Zhong Guo, 1992).

Project-oriented organizations are encouraged by government so that the management of construction companies are inspired to adopt project-oriented work methods to achieve their goals in the construction market. Compared with traditional construction enterprises in China, project-based organizations allow project managers to make quicker and more responsible business decisions. Therefore, instead of being parent-government-unit-driven, project-based organizations are driven by market and more efficient.

Not only in the SOEs but also in the URCs and RCTs, project-oriented work methods will improve the competence of construction companies in terms of employees’ motivation. Firstly, in project-oriented organizations, motivation policies emphasize the direct relationship between project profit and individual income and welfare. The results of this study reveal that the physiological needs and safety needs were not met very well. Thus, the project-oriented compensation method will motivate engineers more effectively than other methods. Secondly, project-oriented motivation policies contribute to developing an effective workforce. The employees in smaller construction firms prefer a stable group to an ad-hoc one when they work as a team. Effective teamwork will attract engineers to cooperate with each other and maintain a solid group. On the other hand, in a manager’s view, training and development of workforce could be applied on this stable team-base. Hence, especially in the URCs and RCTs, the project-oriented human resource management could match the organizations’ long-term strategy exactly.

Her thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

Effective motivation programs are considered as an approach to motivate employees toward organizational goals. Construction engineers, as project specialists, influence construction productivity substantially. Therefore, it is necessary to explore their motivation. A survey was conducted in Yunnan province, China on the basis of expectancy theory of construction engineer motivation as well as their needs and satisfaction on the corresponding needs. The findings of their needs and satisfaction illustrated they were less satisfied; and the results based on expectancy theory indicated that the motivational climate is very poor. Considering the construction industry reform in China, the findings were discussed on the background of the characteristics of China’s construction industry to conform to its current status.