The Modern State of Research of the Staff Motivation Problem in the Thesis of Ukrainian Scientists

Motivation of the staff – encouraging employees to work efficiently in order to achieve objectives of the business or their own – has been the subject of much investigation of Ukrainian scientists as the development of the ways of efficient motivation is an urgent task of the modern science.A large number of scientific works on the subject of motivation has been written so this has generated a need for defining theoretical and practical problems of staff motivation which require further research. Thus, the aim of the article is to determine the key directions in the studies of motivation in the works of Ukrainian scientists, and to make the prospects for studies in this area clear.The theoretical analysis of the abstracts from the thesis for doctor’s degree in economics, which were defended in 1999 – 2010, has shown that in Ukraine the scientists study motivation in the following basic directions: first, motivation is considered as economic incentive, financial stimulus, motivation by payment; second, mainly the problems of motivation in special conditions are studied, namely: motivation in an economy in transition, motivation in agriculture, in banking, in commerce, in small businesses, in the conditions of restructuring as well; third, the idea of motivation is limited to the problem of staff assessment and the results of their work; forth, motivation is treated as a mechanism and some recommendations concerned its effectiveness are given.As a result of the research it has become possible to specify the promising lines of investigation of motivation which haven’t received sufficient attention in the science of economics: first, peculiarities of motivation of executives and managers of different levels, whose role has increased greatly in modern conditions, haven’t been adequately studied; second, the notions of "mechanism of employee motivation" and "mechanism of staff motivation" should be made clear; third, it is necessary to solve one of the most important tasks of forming an efficient mechanism of staff motivation, i. e. to reach harmony of aims of business and staff through integration of mechanism of employee motivation into mechanism of staff motivation; forth, it is necessary to continue studying the problem of assessment of efficiency of staff moti­vation mechanism.The importance of these tasks for personnel management at Ukrainian enterprises dictates the necessity of scientific research in the field of staff motivation that will make the subject of further studies of the authors