101年 - 101 國立嘉義大學_觀光休閒管理研究所博士班招生考試試題：觀光休閒遊憩文獻評論#146377

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1. Introduction
　Understanding the intricacies of incentive travel programs has far-reaching ramifications for the travel and tourism industry. The size of the worldwide incentive travel industry is estimated at US$17 billion, with predictions that it may grow to over $50 billion by the end of the decade. "Moreover, travel rewards have a tremendous impact on every dimension of the industry, including accommodations, destinations, tour operators and travel agencies. In 1988, employers spent on average more than $1600 per incentive travel winner and an equivalent amount for the winner's spouse. Despite the importance of incentive travel to the tourism industry, there is a lack of empirical support regarding its effectiveness and attractiveness. The comparable attractiveness of the most popular incentives, which includes cash, merchandise and travel, has not been clearly established in the literature.
　Additionally, there have been limited efforts to assess empirically the contributions of contests, which are typically used to determine which employees will be rewarded. To this end, research was undertaken with a view toward ascertaining the motivational effects of contests as well as determining the attractiveness of incentives, particularly travel incentives, to employees. The influence of social pressure on the reward attractiveness was also examined.
　To summarize, there have been limited efforts to assess empirically the contributions of contests on employee motivation and productivity. The influence of various personal characteristics on the desirability of specific reward options has also not been fully examined, thereby making it difficult for managers to understand which type of employee would be most attracted to a particular incentive opportunity.
　The influence of perceived social pressure on the attractiveness of reward options also has not been fully examined. Given the above framework and the need to respond to the dearth of research in this area, the present study was undertaken with a view toward furthering our understanding of the intricacies of incentive travel programs and the contests that are used to determine award winners. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine the attractiveness of travel, merchandise and cash awards as incentives in the workplace. The influence of social pressure on reward attractiveness was also examined. Finally, the motivational effects of contests and respondents' willingness to increase their productivity　were evaluated.

2. Methodology
　Questionnaires were mailed to a sample of employees of a major life insurance company which currently operates an incentive program. An insurance company was selected as an appropriate site for the study since the insurance industry is one of the top users of incentive travel. The incentive rewards presently being offered at the company include annual sales conference trips, cash awards and merchandise awards. Sales conferences were described on the questionnaire as 'annual trips to sales conferences'. The qualifications and the site selection for the conferences vary each year. Destinations have included Amelia Island, the Bahamas and Las Vegas. Cash awards were described as involving up to $1000 in cash and merchandise awards were described as including answering machines, calculators and cameras. These descriptions are consistent with the awards that have been given in the past.
　The company is also interested in implementing personal vacation trips, described on the questionnaire as weekend excursions or getaways to selected destinations and, thus, they were included in the questionnaire to determine their attractiveness to employees.

3. Instrument
　The instrument was pilot tested with 24 employees of area businesses before the final instrument was prepared. Revisions to improve the clarity of the items were made based on their comments. Meetings were also held with appropriate management level individuals at the company in an attempt to further determine item appropriateness. The instrument consisted of several sections. Respondents were asked to provide personal demographic information (ie age, sex, household income, job status, education level) in order to assess differences in attractiveness among the various categories. The other sections of the instrument included: reward attractiveness scale; perceived social pressure assessment; willingness to increase productivity assessment; and sales contests assessment. Perceived social pressure was measured by asking respondents to consider the person, other than themselves, who would most strongly influence their decision to select a reward option. The first question in this section began by asking respondents to indicate their primary relationship to this person. They were then asked to indicate on a 7-point scale the degree to which this person would encourage them to select each of the reward items. This item was anchored by 'strongly discourage' and 'strongly encourage'. Motivation to comply was measured by asking them to respond to the statement, 'Generally speaking, I want to do what this person thinks I should do'. Operationalizing perceived social pressure in this manner is based on past research efforts of Ajzen and Driver. To assess willingness to increase productivity, respondents were asked to assume that there is only one type of incentive reward offered at the company. For each of the rewards, they were asked to indicate on a 7-point scale anchored by 'no additional effort at all' and 'a great deal of additional effort' how much effort they would be willing to exert in order to achieve that reward. This format follows the previous work of Hastings et al. Reward attractiveness was measured in a similar fashion. Respondents were asked to rate the incentive options, which included cash, merchandise,personal vacation trips and sales conference trips, on a 7-point scale anchored by 'very unattractive' and 'very attractive'. Respondents' attitudes about the sales contests were assessed by asking them to react to several questions using a 7-point scale anchored by 'strongly disagree' and 'strongly agree'. The items were adapted from Beltramini and Evans's earlier study.

4. Conclusions
　The present study provides fertile ground for future research questions concerning incentive travel programs. First, seemingly contradictory results were obtained when comparing the incentive options on some key variables. For example, although the 'travel-type' rewards received the highest rating for attractiveness, cash received the highest rating for productivity improvement. Moreover, sales conferences received the highest rating for 'motivational effect'. Clearly, additional research is needed to explore the interrelationship between these variables before such results can influence those who determine policy in work organizations. This is an important research task, and one that we believe should be encouraged, given its far-reaching implications for management.

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