The perception of the Federal Aviation Administration employees of the Airway Facilities division on the personal and institutional factors affecting the motivation toward their empowerment

The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception of personal and institutional factors affecting the motivation of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees of the Airway Facilities (AF) division in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands toward their empowerment.;How the employees perceived their job satisfaction related to the following variables: age of the employees, job position, employee development, and experience; the employee perception of their organizational climate (open/close) and the decision-making process and group cohesiveness; and the employee perception on institutional variables affecting motivation and their own empowerment.;The population of the study consisted of an entire workforce employed by the FAA's AF division stationed in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and St. Croix. It was mostly technicians who had been trained in the engineering technologies in order to provide maintenance to the National Airspace System (NAS). This organization consisted of 83 employees from both management and labor.;The literature review was complied from major authors such as Max Weber, Peter Drucker, Alvin Toffler, Abraham Maslow, and Robert Owens, capturing their thoughts and expertise on organizational theory, education, and motivation.;The methodology used was a descriptive study which incorporated quantitative methods. Beforehand, however, the instrument employed for the collection of the data was a questionnaire of 40 items with a Likert scale from 5 (strongly agree) to 1 (strongly disagree). The scores identified in the questionnaire for each item were processed/summarized with measurement distributions for each identified scale utilizing the data analysis method of "frequency analysis." The major findings of this research project identified the personal and institutional factors that affected the motivation of the employees studied. For example, 60% of the participants did not feel that their job satisfaction was low because of supervisors' lack of trust in them while 40% of the participants felt that there was a lack of trust among their co-workers. A phenomenon was created, however, since participants indicated that there was openness between group members. Furthermore, the findings indicated that the overall work force was accepting the idea of employee empowerment since most of the participants felt that being allowed to participate in the organization's decision-making process motivated them. However, the findings indicated that the concept of employee empowerment created a slight threat to the supervisors' security while the results did show their growing support for the concept. Participants also expressed a great awareness of the concept of employee empowerment, indicating that education in this area had been effective. Moreover, the results indicated that the concept of employee empowerment was being accepted as part of the normal work routine on accomplishing needed tasks.;The majority of employees are eager to be empowered in having autonomy over their jobs and participating in their organization toward solving problems and issues. However, certain conditions must first be corrected. For instance, one of the main recommendations for implementing employee empowerment was to conduct a series of team-building and group dynamics training so that these organizational members can build a stronger foundation in group cohesiveness. Another recommendation, was for the organization to allow their members the opportunity to develop their skills through autonomy. This could be accomplished by ridding Theory X type management styles through change leader training. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...