Motivating the Stakeholders, a Feature of SMEs

Motivation, in a narrow meaning, based on a classical vision on the organisation and management, aims only at the employees or staff of the organization. This optics still predominates both in theory and in the worldwide managerial practice. Motivation, in a broad meaning, contoured in recent years, based on a modern vision on the organization and management is centred on the stakeholders, namely on those people, categories of staff and organisms who have major interests in developing the activity and performances of the organisation. In order to understand motivation, the managers must first understand the reasons why the individuals behave in a certain way and for which they have certain reactions under threatening situations or by which influencing is attempted. Motivation is an internal process, not an imperative one which can be compelled from the outside. Managers must understand the motivation strategies, the way in which they succeed or fail on the grounds of the way in which they succeed in influencing the inner motivations of the employees.