Project Team Rewards
Literature Review
12
3.3. Perspective Two: Extreme Reward Proponents
Extreme reward proponents answer the first reward question positively, without any
restrictions (e.g. Bragg 2000, Lewis 2000, and Knight 2002). Their
arguments directly
contradict the arguments of the reward opponents (see Table 3, p. 10). As a main
justification for their perspective, extreme reward proponents quote expectancy and
reinforcement theories and sometimes Taylorism. All three theories are motivation
theories but in contrast to Herzberg’s theory, these three theories strongly support the use
of rewards (for details on motivation theories see Table 5, p. 15, and Table 6, p. 17).
The remaining five reward questions are answered differently by the extreme reward
proponents. For instance, the reward target (whom to reward?): Shirani et al. (1998)
recommend always rewarding the team and each team member gets a proportion of the
reward
5
. Cox & Tippet (2003) suggest always rewarding the individuals in the team.
Sheridan (1996) proposes
always rewarding the team and
the individuals. Finally,
Appelbaum et al. (1999) propose rewarding always the team and the top performers.
Contradicting statements like that exist for each of the remaining reward questions.
Extreme reward proponents provide little evidence for their statements. Often their
articles are published in magazine-like publications rather than peer-reviewed journals and
sometimes they do not even provide a literature list. This is true, for instance, for Bragg
(2000:38) who claims “[r]ewarding people is not rocket science” and an easy thing to do.
Even if the statements are based on studies, the authors generalise from one specific
situation to all possible situations. This becomes clear since so many contradicting
statements exist. Overall, the extreme reward proponents’ position looks simplistic,
superficially and little convincing.
5
If the reward is a monetary reward, the proportion may be the same absolute amount of money for all
members or relative to their base salary (Shirani et al. 1998).
 |
 |
 |
| Please note: All rights of this webpage are reserved. No part of this webpage may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission by the author. This html version of the book Project Team Rewards: Rewarding and Motivating your Project Team is not suitable for referencing since page numbers and layout may differ from the original book. Layout flaws are due to converting difficulties from the original file format to html and are not present in the paper copy of the book. |