Lessons Learned from the Greek Economic Crisis and the Changes in Organizational Behavior, Focusing on Motivation and Leadership Issues. The Case of Greek Structural Design Engineers

Abstract

The modern business operates in an ever-changing environment that is strongly influenced by technological, political, social, economic, and scientific issues. Their future and success are based on their ability to manage properly and to develop their human resources. Because of the economic crisis that started on 2008 the work environment worldwide changed in a great number of organizations. This sudden change of organization generated new topics in the field of organizations. Leadership and motivation in the workplace are two of them. The current work paper focuses on the in-depth analysis of a small group of employees (qualitative research) in a workplace with a strong influence from the Greek economic crisis. In the first part is presented the social and working face of Greece, the timeline of Greek crisis and its consequences. Empirical research conducted within the changing environment, its results, conclusions, and recommendations complete the current paper. The outcome highlights the need of efficient leadership, communication, and intrinsic motivation within the economic crisis environment.