Implementing Motivational and Participative Management Strategies to Curb Organisational Inequity

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the root causes of the organisational inequity in the conventional retail banking sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain. It aims to recommend practical motivational and participative strategies to curb this problem. A critical review of three interdisciplinary fields (motivation, participation and leadership) has been conducted to identify inherent limitations in the key motivation theories and determine the main gaps in the existing knowledge. Although there is a broad literature providing useful insights, their applications remain untested and inconclusive. The current literature does not provide enough scope to understand the motivational process as an open system from a business perspective because psychoanalysis and behaviorism dominated the developmental process of most of the motivation theories. In addition, the extant literature provides a great deal of information about the explicit relationship between satisfaction and motivation but very little about the implicit relationship between dissatisfaction and motivation. This study uses mixed methods approach (quantitative and qualitative). Questionnaire and semi-structured interviews are used to collect the required numerical and non-numerical data. The main findings of this study confirm the existence of organisational inequity in the conventional retail banking sector in Bahrain, there is high demand for participative management due to lack of clear and effective motivational and participative strategies, although personal factors mitigate the negative impact of organisational inequity on motivation, inadequate monetary factors and ineffective non-monetary factors play a major role in determining the level of the organisational inequity, finally the motivational process in the conventional retail banking sector is an open system because it is exposed to changes in a wide spectrum of situational factors. The findings help raise awareness for decision-makers to introduce measures to promote and develop an Integrative Motivational Framework from which six practical recommendations are derived to integrate employees’ needs and expectations with the organisational objectives in order to address the organisational inequity.