Empirical Research On Motivation Factors For Knowledge Workers In Information Technology Enterprises

In the information age and the era of knowledge economy, the knowledge workers have grown into very important human resources for IT enterprises especially those who have mastered major information technologies. Some of them even have mastery of the core techniques of this field, and they have the continual innovation ability which can help their enterprises maintain the sustainable development, thus making them the most important human resources for IT firms. If IT enterprises want to obtain the core competitive capability and preserve the sustainable development, they must pay attention to the incentive problems of knowledge workers and try to develop effective incentive mechanism so as to reduce the loss of economic interests caused by the turnover of knowledge workers. Meanwhile, such mechanism can motivate knowledge workers’greatest potential and lead them to make the biggest contribution to their firms.Combining the theoretical study with empirical research, the present paper takes the basic incentive theory as the starting point and focuses on the exploration of the motivation factors of knowledge workers in IT firms. Based on the incentive theory and demand characteristics of knowledge workers, this paper takes those knowledge workers from IT firms in Chongqing as the respondents and then proposes the research hypothesis. The data is collected by questionnaires, and the SPSS17.0is employed to analyze the data. According to the research conclusion, countenneasures and suggestions are presented in terms of the motivation factors in IT enterprises. This paper is divided into five parts. The first part mainly elaborates the research background, research questions, research purposes, research significance, research contents, research methods and research ideas and the innovation of this paper; the second part is the introduction of some relative theories and reference, and the contents mainly concentrate on the explanation of the objects of this research, relevant incentive theories and the present research situation of the knowledge workers’ motivation factors at home and abroad; the third part is the research design including the refinement of motivation factors, the research hypothesis and the design of the questionnaire; the fourth part shows the empirical testing and result analysis; the fifth part consists of the research conclusion and the insight of the research and the limitations and prospect of this research. And the last two parts play the most important roles in this paper.The results of this research show that the importance degree of knowledge workers’motivation factors in IT enterprises is different from the degree of practical experience of motivation factors; the main motivation factors of knowledge workers in IT enterprises are the salary and welfare, personal growth, job factors, enterprise environment and interpersonal relationship; those which have a significant influence on the importance degree of motivation factors are gender, age, education, positional level and work seniority, and the work nature has no significant effect; the importance degree of motivation factors is positively correlated with the degree of practical experience of motivation factors. Combined with the empirical research conclusion, this research provides the following enlightenments:1. the emphasis on individual growth, the implementation of training and career development;2. the attention to team cooperation and the creation of a good working environment;3. a scientific and reasonable design of motivational mechanism of salary and welfare;4. the focus on the motivation of the enterprise environmental factors;5. the stress on the motivation of the work itself. The conclusion of this study can help IT enterprises to solve the motivational problems of knowledge workers, and the managers of IT enterprises can refer to the research insight of this paper when they try to motivate knowledge workers.