Study On The Motivation Of Knowledge Workers In State-Owned Enterprises Based On Social Exchange Theory

State-owned enterprises have always been the main force of all the business types.With the development of market economy, the pace of reform process is accelerating instate-owned enterprises. With big step in the reform process of the state-ownedenterprises, more and more problems exposed. Especially, the motivation problems ofknowledge workers have seriously affected the development and restructuring processof state-owned enterprises. Knowledge workers have become the backbone ofstate-owned enterprises. Currently, state-owned enterprises are facing difficulties suchas high-quality brain drain, low organizational efficiency. Better incentives forknowledge workers are the key to solve these problems. Many domestic scholars havestudied the motivation of knowledge workers, but it is rare to interpret the incentivefrom the perspective of social exchange.This article organizes the incentive as the most typical exchange process from theorganization-staff exchange viewpoint. Firstly, it conducts a literature review andsystematical study, trying to interpret incentive from the perspective of social exchange.Secondly, it sorts out the current situation and problems of state-owned enterprises inmotivating knowledge workers, using a questionnaire survey combine interviews. Then,it analyzes the deeply reasons of the problems. And points out that state-ownedenterprises lack equal exchange consciousness in knowledge workers’ incentive. Thirdly,it combines the social exchange theory and incentive management, building a modelwhich is suitable for state-owned enterprises. The model sorts out the two sides ofexchange, the content of exchange and the process of exchange in the process ofknowledge workers’ motivation. Finally, it applies the model to solve those problems. Itproposes strategies from three stages to solve problems of the state-owned enterprises’incentive.Through systematic analysis and sorting, it draws the current problems ofknowledge workers incentive management in state-owned enterprise as follows: Firstly,there are varying degrees of deviation when the state-owned enterprises provide rewards,organizational environment, personal growth and achievement for the knowledgeworkers; Secondly, the work efficiency between knowledge workers and their immediate superior is low and there is poor working relationship between them; Thirdly,trust between groups of knowledge workers is not high, and mutual aid is lack. Fourthly,the state-owned enterprise offer inefficient incentives to knowledge workers andemployees intend to turnover. From the perspective of exchange to dig what contributesto this problem, we find different excuses:1, a state-owned enterprise own itsinstitutional deficiencies;2, internal incentive mechanisms are unscientific: it lackspreliminary analysis, inputs unscientific exchange factors, has poor communicationchannels in the process, inputs no measures to maintain relationship between theenterprises and knowledge workers which reduces employees’ loyalty;3, thestate-owned enterprises lack the awareness of establishing equality and mutualexchange relationships with knowledge workers.It binds the above analysis and influencing factors of effective exchange, buildingthe exchange model of organizational motivation. And then applying the survey resultsand the model, it proposes a targeted strategy. During the attract stage, the state-ownedenterprises should incentive knowledge workers based on their social demand in orderto enhance dynamic mechanism. During the exchange stage, they need to create a fairexternal environment, and offer different incentives to the three levels of the exchange:on the organizational level, it focus on strengthening pay growth incentives andindividual incentive; on the leadership level, it commits to improve subordinateemotional relationships; on the staff-level, it efforts to build effective workingrelationships. During the relationship maintenance phase, the state-owned enterprisesshould carry out emotional maintenance, values maintenance and culture maintenancefrom the overall situation.