Motivation and Work Performance Among Barong and Gown Employees: The Case of Fashionable in Lumban, Laguna

Date

12-2023

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness Management

College

College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Maria Noriza Q. Herrera

Committee Member

Dinah Pura T. Depositario, Jennica Amielle M. Mora, Melodee Marciana E. De Castro

Abstract

FashioNoble is one of the established Barong & Gown microenterprises in Lumban, Laguna that usually employs its local talents, unlike its competitors who mostly outsource their labor, because of their mission to preserve this sociocultural tradition and to provide income opportunities to its townmates. However, during the last quarter of 2023, it faced an all-time high voluntary turnover rate, of ≈ 35%, and the primary reason stated by the manager was better income opportunities. This implied a problem in its maintenance function. Still, there was also a minor issue on the output quality of its current workers which was long overdue, thus suggesting its motivation function to tackle both, since earlier studies on Organizational Behavior asserted that this aspect influences employee outcomes, i.e., performance and retention. Therefore, this study delved into the motivation of its employees, their work-related behavior, and the factors surrounding such, inspired by the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to particularly cover their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

In implementing the study, it identified 11 variables, including the five categories of needs and overall motivation as the independent variables, the task performance, and productivity of the employees as the dependent variables, and their job tenure, employment status, and role as moderating variables. Furthermore, it used a mixed method, measuring the first two groups of variables through a five-point Likert Scale, and interviewing the manager and employees of FashioNoble for qualitative responses. The quantitative data underwent summary statistics, correlation, and moderation analysis, and the Problem-Tree Analysis, McKinsey 7S Model, and Advantages vs. Disadvantages analysis of the qualitative data supported their findings.

The collected data include the demographic characteristics of the employees, the situational factors and motivation practices of the management, and the level of perceived motivation, task performance, and productivity of the former. After analyzing these, it was revealed that employees of FashioNoble were relatively diverse in terms of background but mostly are female, 25-54 years old, high school graduates, casual employees who worked in the enterprise for less than five years either as tailors, quality controllers, cutters, computerized embroiderer operator, painter, beader, and pressers. As for the context, the management motivated them extrinsically and the constraints surrounding such practices might have contributed to the perceived job insecurity and burnout among its employees. This was noteworthy because Kuvaas et al. (2017) asserted that extrinsic motivation is positively related to negative employee outcomes. Nevertheless, it was found that the employees were extremely motivated and perceived themselves as always productive, proficient, and adaptive in working. However, no significant associations were found except for the Safety Needs-Task Performance pair, which has a moderate negative association. This deviated from most of the earlier studies but Newstrom (2007) explained this through his Performance-Satisfaction-Effort loop which suggests that high satisfaction from motivation does not automatically lead to better performance.

The measures used for this study only accounted for the perception of the respondents due to the absence of relevant documents for such. However, these are still significant due to its explanation about a socio-culturally attached microenterprise and the measures' reliability. In terms of practice, FashioNoble was the primary beneficiary of its recommendations since these were based on its problems which might also be present in other microenterprises. The solutions formulated were mostly modifications or additions to the motivation function of this agribusiness microenterprise.

As for the novelty, this research pioneered the study of motivation function in microenterprises in the university and accounted for a relatively new combination of variables that have not yet been investigated in this type of agribusiness industry. Therefore, the findings here could be one of the stepping stones in future studies in this field.

Language

English

LC Subject

Clothing and dress—Philippines, Small business

Location

UPLB College of Economics and Management (CEM)

Call Number

LG 993 2023 M17 C67

Notes

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Document Type

Thesis

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