The effect of management control on employee motivation and performance in Lebanese pharmaceutical firms

Abstract

This research attempts to unveil the plausible relations of four Management Control (MC) elements (Personnel, Cultural, Results and Actions controls) on the Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivation as well as the Performance of employees in Lebanese pharmaceutical firms, as well as to scrutinize how each may vary with respect to demographics of employees. Deductive in nature, this study uses a survey strategy. A questionnaire addressed to 490 employees working in 61 different Lebanese pharmaceutical firms is used to test eight hypotheses related to the aim above. The findings show that perceptions of motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic), as well as performance, significantly vary amongst employees according to certain demographic characteristics (such as gender and years of experience) pertaining to each. Moreover, there is a positive linear association between personnel controls and intrinsic motivation (the same applies for cultural controls and actions controls). On the other hand, result controls are found to be negatively associated with intrinsic motivation, and positively associated with extrinsic motivation (the same applies for actions controls with respect to extrinsic motivation). Finally, the results portray that employees in private Lebanese pharmaceutical firms are more motivated by intrinsic motives rather than extrinsic rewards. The theoretical implications encompass assessing the merits of the SDT and motivation crowding effect theories through extending their usage in a new context (Lebanese pharmaceutical firms); on the other hand, the practical implications include the provision of professional information for Lebanese pharmaceutical firms to efficiently and effectively manage their organizations and implement the right controls.