Motivation Theories: Validity During Economic Crisis. The Evidence of Greek Structural Design Engineers

Abstract

A first attempt to understand human motivation dates back to the time of Greek philosophers and focuses on hedonisms a basic driving force in human behavior One of the first studies on motivation in the workplace is the work of Frederick Taylor (1911) and his collaborators that resulted in the development of the Scientific Management theory. In the 1950s, many new models of employees motivation emerged, while in the mid-1960s, a new approach to studying work motivation emerged, that focused on outlining the processes that could explain job motivation. These American motivation theories reflect the cultural environment of the United States of the late 19^th and 20^th century and were developed based on American national culture in conditions of rapid economic growth. In Greece during 2010-2018 a great economic crisis happened resulted in high and constantly increasing unemployment rates, and a reduction in the well-being. It may be therefore not be particularly suited to studying cases that escaped this particular socio-economic model or required a rethink of the importance of the motivation factors considered by them.