Motivation of civil engineers and architects in Turkey

Motivation is an important factor in understanding how to meet employees’ needs and improve employees’ performance in a construction project (Wang et al. 2016). It is commonly acknowledged that highly motivated construction workers may help to improve the performance of a construction project (Uwakweh 2006; Han et al. 2008; Oyedele 2010; Jarkas 2012). Indeed, many researchers have conducted studies to shed light on the motivation of construction workers (McQuillen 1986; Cox et al. 2005; Cox et al. 2006; Uwakweh 2006; Han et al. 2008). However, motivating only construction workers may not be enough to achieve the goals of a construction project. Actually, studies exist (e.g., Oyedele 2010, 2013; Damci 2016) claiming that the motivation of both construction professionals and construction workers plays a key role in successfully completing construction projects (Damci 2016). A nonmotivated construction professional may be ineffective in performing most tasks, such as making decisions, handling problems, and managing changes, which in turn can have a negative impact on the completion of the construction project (Pheng and Chuan 2006; Seiler et al. 2012). Unfortunately, studies on the motivation of construction professionals (e.g., architects, civil engineers, and so on) are rare in the motivation literature. This study was conducted in response to the lack of such research in the motivation literature. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) to understand which motivators are considered by architects and civil engineers to be important; and (2) explore the existence of statistically significant differences between architects’ and civil engineers’ motivators in the context of Turkey.

Turkish contractors are among the leading international contractors according to Engineering News-Record 2019. Turkey (44 contractors) is ranked second, only behind China (75 contractors), in the Engineering News-Record’s Top 250 International Contractors list of 2019. In addition, the contractors reported $22.50 billion in contracting revenue in 2018 from projects outside Turkey (Engineering News-Record 2019). The Turkish Contractors Association reports that Turkish contractors have undertaken 10,108 construction projects in 126 countries, with a total value of some $400 billion between 1972 and 2019 (Turkish Contractors Association 2015). This is the reason why the case of Turkey is investigated in this study by surveying the civil engineers and architects working in Turkish construction/consulting companies. For this purpose, first a questionnaire survey was sent to Turkish architects and civil engineers to collect data on their perceptions of the importance of different motivators. Subsequently, statistical analysis was performed on the collected data to confirm whether there are statistically significant differences in the perception of some motivators by civil engineers and architects. To sum up, the major contribution of this research to the body of knowledge is that it explores the existence of statistically significant differences between civil engineers’ and architects’ motivators, which may help construction companies in motivating their architects and civil engineers more effectively.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory (1943), McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y (1960), Vroom’s expectancy theory (1964), Herzberg’s motivation–hygiene theory (1968), Alderfer’s existence, relatedness, and growth (ERG) theory (1972), and Locke and Latham’s goal theory (1990) are the motivation theories proposed to explain the motivation of individuals. This literature review summarizes these motivational theories and their application to the civil engineering and architecture professions.

The main hypothesis of this study is that there are statistically significant differences in the perception of motivators between architects and civil engineers. The tasks that were performed in this study can be summarized as follows: (1) conducting a literature review to identify the most-cited motivators of construction professionals; (2) carrying out a survey of Turkish architects and civil engineers to collect data on their perceptions of the importance of different motivators; and (3) performing statistical analysis on the collected data to verify whether a statistical relationship exists between architects’ and civil engineers’ motivators.

A questionnaire was designed that consists of two parts. The first part consists of six questions about the personal characteristics of the respondents, namely, (1) age, (2) marital status, (3) education, (4) work experience, (5) type of employer, and (6) the value of the largest project that the respondent worked on. In the second part of the questionnaire, respondents are asked to rate the importance of 20 motivators. The motivators were identified by considering the perspective of professionals employed in the construction industry (McQuillen 1986; Shoura and Singh 1998; Singh 2000; Venkatesan et al. 2009; Oyedele 2010; Damci 2016) and the perspective of professionals employed in management positions in other industries (Metcalfe 1989; Shoura and Singh 1998; Antonioni 1999; Analoui 2000). The respondents were asked to use a Likert-like scale of 1–5 in order to rate the level of importance of the motivators listed in the questionnaire, where “1” represents “not important” and “5” indicates “very important”. The target population in this study was set as the members of the Istanbul Chamber of Turkish Architects and the Istanbul Chamber of Turkish Civil Engineers, as they are the largest professional bodies of architects and engineers, respectively, in Turkey. The questionnaire was sent to the members via e-mail.

The reliability of the scale used in a study can be checked by using various techniques, Cronbach’s alpha (α) being the most commonly used technique to determine the internal consistency of a survey when using a Likert scale (Oyedele 2013). This method predicts the reliability of a given set (Santos 1999; Gliem and Gliem 2003). In this study, the reliability analysis was conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), Version 25, IBM, New York. The standardized Cronbach’s alpha value can be computed using the formula in Equation 1. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is in the range of 0–1. If the value is closer to “1”, it indicates high reliability of the used scale. If the Cronbach’s alpha value is equal to or higher than 0.60, it can be concluded that the reliability of the scale is satisfactory (Santos 1999; Gliem and Gliem 2003). (1)α=N(N−1)x(σx2−∑i=1Nσyi2σx2)\alpha = \frac{N}{{\left( {N - 1} \right)}}x\left( {\frac{{\sigma _x^2 - \sum\limits_{i = 1}^N {\sigma _{yi}^2} }}{{\sigma _x^2}}} \right) where N is the number of items in the test, σ_x² is the variance of the observed item scores, and σ_yi² is the sum of all i item variances.

It is claimed that the use of a severity index (a nonparametric ranking analysis procedure) rather than arithmetic mean scores (parametric statistics) to rank such data would produce more significant results. The formula used to calculate the severity index is given in Equation 2 (Idrus and Newman 2002; Chen et al. 2010): (2)Severity Index=∑i=15(wi×fin×a){Severity}\,{Index} = \sum\limits_{i = 1}^5 {\left( {\frac{{{w_i} \times {f_i}}}{{n \times a}}} \right)} where i is the point given to each personal value by the respondent (ranging from 1 to 5); w_i is the weight for each point (where “1” represents “not important” and “5” represents “very important”); f_i is the frequency of the point i by all respondents; n is the total number of responses; and a is the highest weight (in this study, a=5).

Jamieson (2004) and Carifio and Perla (2008) suggest that Likert data should be analyzed by using nonparametric tests. The Mann–Whitney U-test, which is a nonparametric technique, was performed on the collected data to test the existence of statistically significant differences in the perception of motivators between architects and civil engineers. If the p-values are <0.05, it indicates that there is a statistically significant difference between them at the 95% significance level.

A total of 179 members of the Istanbul Chamber of Turkish Architects and a total of 394 members of the Istanbul Chamber of Turkish Civil Engineers completed the questionnaire. The personal characteristics of the respondents are presented in Table 1. Based on the information presented in Table 1, the demographic characteristics of architects and civil engineers are not exactly the same but quite similar. Indeed, if one takes a look at age, marital status, education, and experience in the construction industry, type of employer, and the value of the largest project that the respondent worked on, one can observe that the architect and civil engineer populations that are compared in this study are quite compatible.

In order to confirm whether the motivators and their associated Likert scale actually measure the motivation of construction professionals, Cronbach’s alpha values were computed using IBM SPSS Version 25; the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients calculated for each motivator are presented in Table 2. As seen in Table 2, since the overall Cronbach’s alpha value for this study was found to be 0.855, which is higher than 0.60, good reliability and satisfactory internal consistency of the scale used in the questionnaire can be deduced.

Based on the average scores presented in Table 2, the motivators that are most important to architects and civil engineers are “job satisfaction”, “achieving success in my work”, “efficient collaboration with friendly and congenial teammates”, and “participation in decisions that affect my area”. In other words, this finding reveals that Turkish architects and civil engineers rate the same motivators as the most important motivators. It is understandable that both architects and civil engineers score high on “job satisfaction” and “achieving success in my work” because according to Schein (1990), technical/functional individuals attach great importance to these motivators. On the other hand, high scores on “efficient collaboration with friendly and congenial teammates” and “participation in decisions that affect my area” also make sense because, according to Schein’s (1990) career anchor categories, individuals in management positions are motivated by these factors. In addition, according to Hofstede (1980), Turkish individuals place emphasis on maintaining harmony in the group to which they belong. Therefore, it is understandable to have high scores in “efficient collaboration with friendly and congenial teammates”.

On the other hand, architects and civil engineers attach different levels of importance to the least important motivators. “Comfortable physical work environment” and “participation in decisions that affect organizational policies” were found to be the least important motivators for architects, while “working on projects of my choice” and “avoiding harm and trouble” were the least important motivators for civil engineers. In other words, not having these motivators does not demotivate civil engineers and architects in an organization. This finding can be explained by the fact that many civil engineers work on construction sites and are used to coping with unfavorable weather conditions and safety hazards in different geographical locations, hence their disinterest in “projects of my choice” and “harm and trouble”; and that many architects work in design offices and are used to performing in standard office accommodations and to work as part of a design team, hence their disinterest in “work environment” and “organizational decisions”. In addition, having low scores on “working on projects of my choice” and “participation in decisions that affect organizational policies” is consistent with Hofstede’s (1980) contention that being told what to do and being closely monitored are expected from Turkish individuals.

Turkish civil engineers rate only two motivators (i.e., “participation in decisions that affect organizational policies” and “comfortable physical work environment”) lower than “important”. On the other hand, Turkish architects rate five motivators lower than “important”, which are “comfortable physical work environment”, “participation in decisions that affect organizational policies”, “a job where I get feedback on how I am doing”, “working on projects of my choice”, and “avoiding harm and trouble”. The p-values obtained from the Mann–Whitney U-test are presented in Table 2, which show that there is a statistically significant difference (difference statistically significant at α = 0.05) in the perception of motivators by civil engineers compared to the perception by architects. This finding reveals that even two professions that collaborate quite closely in practice may attach different levels of importance to motivators. The motivators that are found to be perceived differently by civil engineers and architects are discussed below.

Working on projects of my choice: Architects attach more importance than civil engineers to this motivator. This result is understandable since architects do mostly design work. It can be explained by the fact that creativity is more important in finding a good solution for architectural design problems when compared to finding a solution for an engineering problem. Indeed, Mutlu-Danaci (2015) stated that the concept of creativity is crucial in the architectural profession. An architect’s creativity may be restricted if the project is not within the architect’s comfort zone. In other words, forcing an architect to work on a project that is not his/her choice may affect the architect’s creativity (by restricting his/her imagination) and, consequently, his/her performance in a negative way. Therefore, it is not surprising that architects attach more importance than civil engineers to this motivator.

Construction professionals, namely, architects and civil engineers, play an important role in managing design and construction. The success of construction projects depends on the motivation of construction professionals in making decisions, handling problems, and managing changes. Even though motivating construction professionals is an important factor in completing a construction project successfully, little research has been carried out about it. This study highlights the motivators that are considered to be important by architects and civil engineers and explores the existence of statistically significant differences between architects’ and civil engineers’ motivators. With this aim, a questionnaire survey was administered to Turkish architects and civil engineers to collect data on their perceptions of the importance of different motivators. Based on the survey results, the most important motivators of architects and civil engineers are “job satisfaction”, “achieving success in my work”, “efficient collaboration with friendly and congenial teammates”, and “participation in decisions that affect my area”, indicating that architects and civil engineers are on the same page concerning motivators that are widely accepted in the literature to be of importance to many professionals (e.g., Shoura and Singh 1998; Antonioni 1999; Analoui 2000; Oyedele 2010). Statistical analysis was performed on the collected data to explore whether there are statistically significant differences in the perception of some motivators by architects and civil engineers. While no statistically significant differences exist between architects’ and civil engineers’ perceptions of 15 motivators, managers should note that there are statistically significant differences relative to five motivators, namely, “working on projects of my choice”, “impacting my subordinates positively”, “avoiding harm and trouble”, “comfortable physical work environment”, and “tasks and responsibilities that are clearly specified”. All these five motivators are considered as more important by architects than by civil engineers.

Knowing the personal values that are considered most important or perceived differently by civil engineers and architects can assist companies in the construction industry in hiring/appointing professionals by making sure that the professionals’ personal values fit the personal values desired in positions earmarked for making strategic decisions. Identifying architects’ and civil engineers’ motivators may help construction companies in motivating their architects and civil engineers more effectively, thus developing a workforce that performs design and construction better, which may in turn improve the performance of a construction project. The only limitation of this study is that personal values may be affected by individuals’ demographics and life experiences. This issue should be investigated in future research.