Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The rationale of a good Human Resource Management strategic planning is

basically present in order to recruit, select, motivate and retain employees with the

required characteristics for the company success, the ability to work in groups and have

the quantitative skill respectively.

This literature review examines the implementation on the human resource

management of rural bank companies in order to achieve good motivation of their

employees in the workplace.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Perhaps the most known theory in motivation is that of Abraham Maslow.

One of the many interesting things Maslow noticed while he worked with

monkeys early in his career was that some needs take precedence over others. For

example, if you are hungry and thirsty, you will tend to try to take care of the thirst first.

After all, you can do without food for weeks, but you can only do without water for a

couple of days! Thirst is a “stronger” need than hunger. Likewise, if you are very very

thirsty, but someone has put a choke hold on you and you can’t breath, which is more

important? The need to breathe, of course.

Maslow took this idea and created his now famous hierarchy of needs. Beyond

the details of air, water, food, and sex, he laid out five broader layers: the physiological

needs, the needs for safety and security, the needs for love and belonging, the needs for

esteem, and the need to actualize the self, in that order. (Maslow, 1954.)
 Figure 1

1. The physiological needs. These include the needs we have for oxygen, water,

protein, salt, sugar, calcium, and other minerals and vitamins. They also include the need

to maintain a pH balance (getting too acidic or base will kill you) and temperature (98.6

or near to it). Also, there’s the needs to be active, to rest, to sleep, to get rid of wastes

(CO2, sweat, urine, and feces), to avoid pain, and to have sex.

Maslow believed, and research supports him, that these are in fact individual

needs, and that a lack of, say, vitamin C, will lead to a very specific hunger for things

which have in the past provided that vitamin C -- e.g. orange juice.

2. The safety and security needs. When the physiological needs are largely taken care

of, this second layer of needs comes into play. You will become increasingly interested

in finding safe circumstances, stability, protection. You might develop a need for

structure, for order, some limits.

Looking at it negatively, you become concerned, not with needs like hunger and

thirst, but with your fears and anxieties.

3. The love and belonging needs. When physiological needs and safety needs are, by

and large, taken care of, a third layer starts to show up. You begin to feel the need for

friends, a sweetheart, children, affectionate relationships in general, even a sense of

community. Looked at negatively, you become increasing susceptible to loneliness and

social anxieties.

In our day-to-day life, we exhibit these needs in our desires to marry, have a

family, be a part of a community, a member of a church, a brother in the fraternity, a part

of a gang or a bowling club. It is also a part of what we look for in a career.

4. The esteem needs. Next, we begin to look for a little self-esteem. Maslow noted two

versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the

respect of others, the need for status, fame, glory, recognition, attention, reputation,

appreciation, dignity, even dominance. The higher form involves the need for self-

respect, including such feelings as confidence, competence, achievement, mastery,

independence, and freedom. Note that this is the “higher” form because, unlike the

respect of others, once you have self-respect, it’s a lot harder to lose!

The negative version of these needs is low self-esteem and inferiority complexes.

Maslow felt that Adler was really onto something when he proposed that these were at

the roots of many, if not most, of our psychological problems. In modern countries, most

of us have what we need in regard to our physiological and safety needs. We, more often

than not, have quite a bit of love and belonging, too. (Maslow, 1971)
 All of the preceding four levels he calls deficit needs, or D-needs. If you don’t

have enough of something -- i.e. you have a deficit -- you feel the need. But if you get all

you need, you feel nothing at all! In other words, they cease to be motivating. As the old

blues song goes, “you don’t miss your water till your well runs dry!”

Figure 2

He also talks about these levels in terms of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the

principle by which your furnace thermostat operates: When it gets too cold, it switches

the heat on; When it gets too hot, it switches the heat off. In the same way, your body,

when it lacks a certain substance, develops a hunger for it; when it gets enough of it, then

the hunger stops. Maslow simply extends the homeostatic principle to needs, such as

safety, belonging, and esteem that we don’t ordinarily think of in these terms.

Maslow sees all these needs as essentially survival needs. Even love and esteem

are needed for the maintenance of health. He says we all have these needs built in to us

genetically, like instincts. In fact, he calls them instinctoid -- instinct-like -- needs.

In terms of overall development, we move through these levels a bit like stages.

As newborns, our focus (if not our entire set of needs) is on the physiological. Soon, we
begin to recognize that we need to be safe. Soon after that, we crave attention and

affection. A bit later, we look for self-esteem.

Under stressful conditions, or when survival is threatened, we can “regress” to a

lower need level. When you great career falls flat, you might seek out a little attention.

When your family ups and leaves you, it seems that love is again all you ever wanted.

When you face chapter eleven after a long and happy life, you suddenly can’t think of

anything except money.

These things can occur on a society-wide basis as well: When society suddenly

flounders, people start clamoring for a strong leader to take over and make things right.

When the bombs start falling, they look for safety. When the food stops coming into the

stores, their needs become even more basic.

Maslow suggested that we can ask people for their “philosophy of the future” --

what would their ideal life or world be like -- and get significant information as to what

needs they do or do not have covered.

If you have significant problems along your development -- a period of extreme

insecurity or hunger as a child, or the loss of a family member through death or divorce,

or significant neglect or abuse -- you may “fixate” on that set of needs for the rest of your

life.
 Figure 3

This is Maslow’s understanding of neurosis. Perhaps you went through a war as a

kid. Now you have everything your heart needs -- yet you still find yourself obsessing

over having enough money and keeping the pantry well-stocked. Or perhaps your

parents get separated when you were young. Now you have a wonderful spouse -- yet

you get insanely jealous or worry constantly that they are going to leave you because you

are not “good enough” for them. You get the picture.

Self-actualization

The last level is a bit different. Maslow has used a variety of terms to refer to this

level: He has called it growth motivation (in contrast to deficit motivation), being

needs (or B-needs, in contrast to D-needs), and self-actualization.

These are needs that do not involve balance or homeostasis. Once engaged, they

continue to be felt. In fact, they are likely to become stronger as we “feed” them! They

involve the continuous desire to fulfill potentials, to “be all that you can be.” They are a

matter of becoming the most complete, the fullest, “you” -- hence the term, self-

actualization.
 Now, in keeping with his theory up to this point, if you want to be truly self-

actualizing, you need to have your lower needs taken care of, at least to a considerable

extent. This makes sense: If you are hungry, you are scrambling to get food; If you are

unsafe, you have to be continuously on guard; If you are isolated and unloved, you have

to satisfy that need; If you have a low sense of self-esteem, you have to be defensive or

compensate. When lower needs are unmet, you can’t fully devote yourself to fulfilling

your potentials.

The question becomes, of course, what exactly does Maslow mean by self-

actualization. To answer that, we need to look at the kind of people he called self-

actualizers. Fortunately, he did this for us, using a qualitative method called

biographical analysis (Maslow, 1971.)

He began by picking out a group of people, some historical figures, some people

he knew, whom he felt clearly met the standard of self-actualization. Included in this

august group were Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Eleanor

Roosevelt, Jane Adams, William James, Albert Schweitzer, Benedict Spinoza, and

Alduous Huxley, plus 12 unnamed people who were alive at the time Maslow did his

research. He then looked at their biographies, writings, the acts and words of those he

knew personally, and so on. From these sources, he developed a list of qualities that

seemed characteristic of these people, as opposed to the great mass of us.

These people were reality-centered, which means they could differentiate what is

fake and dishonest from what is real and genuine. They were problem-centered,

meaning they treated life’s difficulties as problems demanding solutions, not as personal
troubles to be railed at or surrendered to. And they had a different perception of means

and ends. They felt that the ends don’t necessarily justify the means, that the means

could be ends themselves, and that the means -- the journey -- was often more important

than the ends.

The self-actualizers also had a different way of relating to others. First, they

enjoyed solitude, and were comfortable being alone. And they enjoyed deeper

personal relations with a few close friends and family members, rather than more

shallow relationships with many people. Maslow, 1971)

They enjoyed autonomy, a relative independence from physical and social

needs. And they resisted enculturation, that is, they were not susceptible to social

pressure to be "well adjusted" or to "fit in" -- they were, in fact, nonconformists in the

best sense. (Maslow, 1971)

They had an unhostile sense of humor -- preferring to joke at their own expense,

or at the human condition, and never directing their humor at others. They had a quality

he called acceptance of self and others, by which he meant that these people would be

more likely to take you as you are than try to change you into what they thought you

should be. This same acceptance applied to their attitudes towards themselves: If some

quality of theirs wasn’t harmful, they let it be, even enjoying it as a personal quirk. On

the other hand, they were often strongly motivated to change negative qualities in

themselves that could be changed. Along with this comes spontaneity and simplicity:

They preferred being themselves rather than being pretentious or artificial. In fact, for all
their nonconformity, he found that they tended to be conventional on the surface, just

where less self-actualizing nonconformists tend to be the most dramatic.

Further, they had a sense of humility and respect towards others -- something

Maslow also called democratic values -- meaning that they were open to ethnic and

individual variety, even treasuring it. They had a quality Maslow called human kinship

or Gemeinschaftsgefühl -- social interest, compassion, humanity. And this was

accompanied by a strong ethics, which was spiritual but seldom conventionally religious

in nature. (Maslow, 1971)

And these people had a certain freshness of appreciation, an ability to see things,

even ordinary things, with wonder. Along with this comes their ability to be creative,

inventive, and original. And, finally, these people tended to have more peak experiences

than the average person. A peak experience is one that takes you out of yourself, that

makes you feel very tiny, or very large, to some extent one with life or nature or God. It

gives you a feeling of being a part of the infinite and the eternal. These experiences tend

to leave their mark on a person, change them for the better, and many people actively

seek them out. They are also called mystical experiences, and are an important part of

many religious and philosophical traditions. (Maslow, 1971).

Maslow doesn’t think that self-actualizers are perfect, of course. There were

several flaws or imperfections he discovered along the way as well: First, they often

suffered considerable anxiety and guilt -- but realistic anxiety and guilt, rather than

misplaced or neurotic versions. Some of them were absentminded and overly kind. And
finally, some of them had unexpected moments of ruthlessness, surgical coldness, and

loss of humor.

Two other points he makes about these self-actualizers: Their values were

"natural" and seemed to flow effortlessly from their personalities. And they appeared to

transcend many of the dichotomies others accept as being undeniable, such as the

differences between the spiritual and the physical, the selfish and the unselfish, and the

masculine and the feminine.

Metaneeds and metapathologies

Another way in which Maslow approach the problem of what is self-actualization is to

talk about the special, driving needs (B-needs, of course) of the self-actualizers. They

need the following in their lives in order to be happy:

Truth, rather than dishonesty.

Goodness, rather than evil.

Beauty, not ugliness or vulgarity.

Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of opposites, not arbitrariness or forced choices.

Aliveness, not deadness or the mechanization of life.

Uniqueness, not bland uniformity.

Perfection and necessity, not sloppiness, inconsistency, or accident.

Completion, rather than incompleteness.

Justice and order, not injustice and lawlessness.

Simplicity, not unnecessary complexity.

 Richness, not environmental impoverishment.

Effortlessness, not strain.

Playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery.

Self-sufficiency, not dependency.

Meaningfulness, rather than senselessness.

At first glance, you might think that everyone obviously needs these. But think:

If you are living through an economic depression or a war, or are living in a ghetto or in

rural poverty, do you worry about these issues, or do you worry about getting enough to

eat and a roof over your head? In fact, Maslow believes that much of the what is wrong

with the world comes down to the fact that very few people really are interested in these

values -- not because they are bad people, but because they haven’t even had their basic

needs taken care of!

When a self-actualizer doesn’t get these needs fulfilled, they respond with

metapathologies -- a list of problems as long as the list of metaneeds! Let me

summarize it by saying that, when forced to live without these values, the self-actualizer

develops depression, despair, disgust, alienation, and a degree of cynicism. (Maslow,

1968)

Maslow hoped that his efforts at describing the self-actualizing person would

eventually lead to a “periodic table” of the kinds of qualities, problems, pathologies, and

even solutions characteristic of higher levels of human potential. Over time, he devoted

increasing attention, not to his own theory, but to humanistic psychology and the human

potentials movement.
Motivational Factors

There are several ways to categorise motivational factors in current literature.

Hard and soft, monetary and non-monetary, extrinsic and intrinsic are some of them.

These are all different words for describing almost the same thing, and the most suitable

words for this study are extrinsic and intrinsic since what we call the myth often is

discussed using these concepts in scientific literature and research. These are also broad

concepts, including all kinds of motivational factors, which is something for example

monetary and non-monetary do not do. From this perspective, as you will see, monetary

and non-monetary motivational factors are different kinds of extrinsic motivational

factors.

Extrinsic motivational factors are the inducements that an organisation provide

their personnel for good job performance, for example bonuses or job titles, while

intrinsic are those an individual experience through good job performance, for example

responsibility and feeling of competence. (Chen, et.al., 1991)

Intrinsic motivational factors are inherent in the job and carries emotional values

to a greater extent than do extrinsic. They are subjectively experienced and less

conspicuous and contentious than extrinsic because they are often viewed as both rewards

and responsibilities, not only rewards. Extrinsic motivational factors on the other hand

are controlled by others and tend to be more materialistic than intrinsic. (Chen, et.al,

1991)
 Reward

Extrinsic

Intrinsic

Monetary Non Monetary

Collective Variable Fixed

Socioemotional (Individual)
(Individual)

Figure 4
Taxonomy of Organizational reward Types

As the figure shows both monetary and non-monetary motivational factors are

extrinsic to their nature. A monetary one is any motivational factor that has a substantial

cash value. Examples are bonuses, stock options and a pay raise.

Non-monetary motivational factors are more symbolic in their nature. They can

have a limited monetary value as well, but are then distinguished from monetary in that

they satisfy some sort of socioemotional need. Hence they are also called socioemotional

motivational factors. Examples of non-monetary motivational factors are awards and

recognition for good performance. Non-monetary motivational factors that also have a

small monetary value can for example be dinners or football-tickets. (Chen, et al.1991)
 Non-monetary motivational factors that are often mentioned in liaison with

researchers and their motivation are among others, as you might recall from the

introduction, publishing in a technical journal or a mentioning in the company newsletter.

Note though that they are not said to be motivated by all kinds of socioemotional factors.

For example they do not aim for management posts according to the myth.

As the figure shows the monetary motivational factors can be either collective or

individual. Collective motivational factors can either be focused on group or company

performance targets. A motivational factor provided a whole work group can for example

be a bonus, where everyone gets the same amount. Collective motivational factors that

focus on company performance can for example be profit sharing or medical insurance

provided to a broad classification of personnel.

Individual motivational factors are obviously provided to particular individuals

only and are contingent on individual performance. In opposition to those provided to a

group these tend to be very differential. Examples are merit salary increases and

individual bonuses. Researchers are often said to be individualistic in their nature, which

we interpret as if they should respond more positively to individual motivational factors

than to collective.

Further, the motivational factors can be either fixed or variable. Fixed

motivational factors are added to the base salary, for example a merit salary increase,

while the variable refers to those provided one time only, like a bonus.

Inherent driving forces are intrinsic and often undermined. It is those that make a

person carry out a task because the task is motivating in itself, it gives the individual

experiences or reduces tensions. In a research context an example could be the researcher

that is caught by an intellectual problem to the extent that he can not stop thinking about

it. Positive inherent driving forces are strongly bound to the individual since they have to

do with self-actualisation, i e the highest level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which

have been discussed early on in this chapter. All creative tasks are probably dependent on

inherent driving forces (Svensson and Wilhelmson, 1988)

A motivational factor that triggers intrinsic motivation is being allowed to work

with what one finds interesting, and that is one of the things that researchers are often

said to respond positively to. If allowed to work with one’s own ideas this is a

motivational factor in itself and can work as a substitute for extrinsic motivation in form

of money and other material things. Intrinsic motivators let the workers focus on the task

at hand and be creative instead of competing for bonuses. (Stenmark, 2000).

REWARD TYPES

EXTRINSIC
MONETARY Individual: Permanent merit increase in base salary
Permanent skill-based salary increase
Annual bonus based on individual performance
One-time stock award for individual achievement
One-time cash award for individual achievement
Collective: Cash bonus based on company profits
Stock options
Annual group bonus based on team performance
Cash award for team performance at project completion
NON-MONETARY Company recognition: Mention in company newsletter
(Socioemotional) Recognition event for high achievers
Small value non-cash award (dinner for two, tickets)
Photo or plaque in a public location
Proffessional recognition: Publishing in a technical journal
Recieving a patent
Presenting work at professional meeting/internal seminar
Promotion: Promotion on the technical ladder
Promotion on the management ladder
Better lab or office facilities
Becoming a corporate fellow
INTRINSIC Individual/Collective: Working with competent collegues
Working on a challenging assignment
Having an intellectual challenging research environment
Having an opportunity to initiate a new project or activity
Having freedom to pursue one's own ideas
 In the table above are the examples of motivational factors in all the discussed

categories.

The Banking System

From the very earliest times, financial institutions have been closely integrated

with rural and agricultural life. Indeed, some of the earliest bank deposits in the third

millennium B.C. were in the form of grain and even cattle. In the third century B.C.,

Egypt’s government granaries were transformed into a network of grain banks, centered

in Alexandria.

Today, rural financial institutions range from the massive to the small—the kind

based in a single community. Japan’s Norinchukin Bank, for instance, acts as a form of

central bank for nearly 5,000 cooperative organizations and supports lending and the

taking of deposits through a multi-level system with 16,000 outlets. Agricultural Bank of

China has nearly 25,000 branches spread across rural and urban areas. In Europe, there

remain 4,500 cooperative banks of varying sizes with more than 60,000 branches in total

and a strong presence in rural areas. Many large banks with origins in rural communities

continue to play an important role there, while substantially expanding their business

lines and geographic coverage. For example, Raiffeisen Zentralbank Austria bears the

name of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (1818-1888), the pioneer of German cooperative

banking. It has expanded its business aggressively into the new markets of central and

eastern Europe and serves a total of 12 million clients. By the same token, France’s

Crédit Agricole has developed into a global, full-service universal bank, made larger by

its merger with Crédit Lyonnais in 2003, yet still enjoys a particularly strong market
position throughout rural areas of France. And Rabobank in the Netherlands is expanding

rapidly overseas with strong agribusiness capabilities. The transformation of these large

European institutions points the way for the future development of rural lenders in

emerging markets such as Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia. (www.booz.com/cn).

Rural banking is different from urban banking. A quick look at the landscape of

customers and their needs highlights why: The population is spread out across the

countryside and so is more dispersed and harder to reach. In general, income levels are

lower in rural areas than in urban areas. And agriculture, which is influenced by crop

cycles, weather, and natural disasters, is typically the primary basis of customers’ income

and deposits, their collateral for loans, and their ability to repay. Finally, the nature of

land ownership rights and land distribution is critical to determining what collateral can

be offered and what recourse banks have if customers default. This all has a major impact

on the riskiness and attractiveness of bank lending. These factors can cause rural banking

to generate higher costs, lower revenues, and higher risks than urban banking. Hence,

both local and foreign banks in many countries have been focusing their expansion

efforts on higher income groups in the cities. This can lead to governmental and

community concerns about lack of access to finance in the rural areas and about rural

populations being left behind. Some banks, however, have built their success in the

countryside. Since the start of European cooperative banking, championed in rural areas

by Raiffeisen, some banks have found ways to meet rural needs—and have done so

profitably. (ww.booz.com/cn).

Rural banks have gained their advantage by making the local community their

main focus. They often have branches in locations not served by other banks. Employees
know local needs and circumstances far better than competitors do, so lending judgments

can be based on personal knowledge and understanding of agricultural conditions.

Reflecting this community focus and origin, many banks are organized as cooperatives,

so their profits flow back to the local community. This has allowed profitability to be

balanced with other community needs over time. It has also reinforced local identity and

pride when smaller communities fear or resent outside institutions that make profits at the

expense of the local community.

The Globalization of the Countryside

Over the past 20 years, however, these success stories have been in the minority.

Rural banking has largely been seen as a backwater, cut off from the more profitable

urban and international opportunities in the financial world. Banks of all kinds have faced

the need to restructure rural branch networks to optimize profitability. Cooperative banks,

with their historical culture of consensus, have sometimes struggled to make decisions

rapidly enough to innovate at the same pace as their competitors with different structures.

Competitive pressures have increased the need to focus on profitability as the key

performance measure. But now the spotlight is switching back to rural areas. The

countryside is globalizing—and with it, rural banking. The same forces driving the

globalization of international business are bringing new opportunities to rural financial

services. Rural areas in some emerging markets are matching or surpassing urban areas in

consumption growth. The mobility of people, capital, and ideas both changes customer

needs and enables innovative ways of meeting them. Businesses and value chains are

increasingly integrated both within countries and across borders. Technology and

connectivity lower costs and improve real-time information access. The

countryside is less and less isolated and increasingly integrated.

Rural Banks: The Philippines Perspective

The rural banking sector has geared up to face the challenges and to seize the

economic opportunities they present. Year on year, rural banks are exhibiting robust asset

growth and strong capital build-up. As of end 2007, the sector’s total assets reached PhP

149.5 Billion, an 18% increase from the previous year. Total capital accounts have also

shown double digit growth of 13.4% from PhP 18.4 Billion in 2006 to PhP 20.9 Billion in

2007. The Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) has remained above the minimum 10%

required by the Bangko Sentral at 15.7%. The business of rural banking has also

continued to show viability and profitability. Net Income After tax (NIAT) increased by

20% from PhP 2.3 Billion in 2006 to PhP 2.8 Billion in 2007. Return on Assets and

Equity also continue to increase.(Tetangco Jr., 2008)

Savings mobilization and lending activities have also been on an uptrend. Deposit

liabilities in 2007 were at PhP 108.1 Billion, a 21.5% increase from the previous year.

Similar double digit increases were seen in the sector’s lending activities. Total loan

portfolio of rural banks increased to PhP 93.3 Billion from only PhP 77.1 Billion in 2006.

While lending activities expanded, the high quality of the portfolio was maintained. As of

the 4th Quarter of 2007, the Non Performing Loans (NPL) Ratio was 9.67% which is an

improvement from the 11.11% for the same period for the previous year. (Tetangco Jr.,

2008)

Using these indicators, rural banks are faring equally or even better than its

universal, commercial and thrift bank counterparts while remaining true to its core

mission of serving the needs of the countryside. Rural banks alone cover around 80% of
the total municipalities in the Philippines with nearly 730 banks and over 2,000 branches

nationwide. The real value added of rural banks, however, does not lie solely on their

broad geographical presence but just as importantly on their deep understanding of the

character, peculiarities and needs of the rural customers. (Tetangco, 2008).

Rural banks are not just simply using these new virtual networks and branches, as

they are now available to them. They are going the extra mile in finding ways that are

practical, as they are innovative, to make these new channels more attuned to the needs of

their rural clients. Some banks are using available technology to place ATMs in hard to

reach areas that do not even have telephone lines. Other banks, through a partnership with

RBAP-Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) and G-Cash, have taken

mobile phone banking to another level. The participating rural banks are now using the

electronic cash platform in delivering financial services like deposits, withdrawals and

loan payments. Indeed, mobile phone banking has the unique opportunity to reach a

wider spectra of clients and tap those who are traditionally marginalized and “unbanked”

– the lower income segments of the population. The successful experience, thus far, of

the rural banks, mobile phone companies and the BSP have caught the attention of the

international community who are lauding our efforts in using technology to increase

access to finance. (Tetangco, Jr.2008).

The above discussion of the rural banking system, then and now, have opened a

considerable amount of economic upgrade in the provinces thereby creating employments

and opportunities for the local residents. However, creating employment and

opportunities are not enough to satisfy the human needs of the people.
 The motivational theories and approaches that were discussed early on in the

chapter are proof that employees have needs that should be satisfied for them to be able

to work efficiently.