The Relationship between creativity and job-related motivators in the Hong Kong hotel industry.

Abstract

This thesis aims to address the research gap of understanding the relationship between "creativity" and "job-related motivators" in Hong Kong Chinese hotel employees. The Psychometric approach to measure creativity was adopted, and specifically Byrd's model (1971) was used as the instrument to measure creativity. Risk taking and Creativity are the two factors in Byrd's model. Kovach's (1980) ten job-related motivators were adopted as the measurement of work, which includes both intrinsic motivators and extrinsic motivators. Moos' (1986) Work Environment Scale was adopted as the instrument to measure organisational climate. This instrument has three dimensions, the relationship dimension, the personal growth dimension, and the system maintenance and change dimension. The sample consists of 983 hotel employees, and the data were gathered using the questionnaire method. The data analysis proves that there is a relationship between creativity and job-related motivators (r = 0.311) with a high significance level at 0.000. However, there is no significant difference found for this relationship in the eight different organisational climates, High vs. Low organisational climate and various innovative indexes. Two demographic variables, i. e. "Education level (r = 0.469) and "Level of Job" (r = 0.444) were found to exert a significant difference over the relationship between creativity and job-related motivators. The study also discovered there is a relationship between creativity and organisational climate (r = 0.339) with high significance level. Similarly, no significant difference existed in the eight sub-sample organisational climates. A number of 2 way MANOVA tests were conducted and significant differences were found which justified further ANOVA and post hoc tests. In each dimension (creativity, job-related motivators, organisational climate), several interaction effects were found in various demographic factors. The author developed a See-Saw model to explain the relationship between creativity and job-related motivators. Like the see-saw in every child's playground, both sides (creativity and job-related motivators) of the rod of the see-saw can be independent variables, and they can both exert a force on each other. Risk-taking was found to be placed on the far left side, while Intrinsic Motivators was found to be placed on the far right side. The author recommends six C's for motivating creativity in the hotel industry in Hong Kong. They are: 1. ) Creating a macro culture by education, 2. ) Commitment from top management, 3. ) Congratulating success by reward and recognition, 4. ) Courage - risk taking, 5. ) Change - willing to accept new things and 6. ) Communication - exchanges of opinions for incubating creative ideas. To conclude, this research satisfies both etic (universal) and emit (cultural specific) objectives. The etic approach proved that creativity is found in Chinese culture, and there is a relationship between creativity and job-related motivators. However, there was no significant difference by different organisational climates in the Hong Kong Chinese culture (emit approach). National Chinese culture may have a more influential impact over this relationship.