Employee's motivation from a cultural perspective - a key element of the hospitality industry competitiveness

Culture itself has a significant role in providing a framework in which motivational factors work. In addition to motivation, organizational culture facilitates the crucial aspects of organizational life, such as unity among employees and the general welfare. The literature defines different types of traditional motivational practices that are seen as connected to the system of rewards such as promotion, holidays, pay-for-performance and personal achievements. Innovative motivational practices are, on the other hand, described as improvements of the working environment, work organization and the job itself. The reason why these new practices were introduced is that they are related to productivity and employee satisfaction. Most employees of the hospitality companies do not have a higher education, this being not required by most of the jobs in this field. If education is not a competitive advantage, and Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011 - World Economic Forum ranked Romania regarding the quality of the education system, specialized research and training and investment in staff training on 84, respectively 95 and 72 place out of 139 countries analyzed, we believe that employee motivation can be an asset when it comes to sustainable tourism. And the crucial point is that without motivation employees are inefficient and expensive. In the study we used a questionnaire-based survey, analyzing the views and opinions of respondents in the investigated hospitality companies from Mures region regarding motivational factors, criteria of payment determination as well as positive and negative incentives, elements that determine performance. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of Emerging Markets Queries in Finance and Business local organization