Stigmatized and wanted: why the oil industry?

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Stigmatized and wanted: why the oil industry?

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Economics and Buiness For the degree of Bachelor of Business Administration In the specialisation of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity

Presented by: Evelin Földvári (11583258) Supervised by: Jan de Groot

EBEC Approval: EC 20200619110614

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Statement of originality

This document is written by Evelin Földvári who declares to take full responsibility

for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that

no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used

in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of

completion of the work, not for the contents.

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4 Abstract

Even though occupational taint (physical, social or moral) is a common phenomenon related to certain jobs and industries, it is not that clear what motivation explains one’s choice for engaging in a “dirty job”. To answer this question, 13 motivating factors, that have been derived from previous researches that focused on motivation, are examined in the empirical settings of the oil and gas industry which carries the stigma of moral taint. A semi-structured interview study is conducted with 9 respondents who represent different companies from different countries. Results revealed that respondents are aware of the stigma, and they were attracted to the industry’s exposure, complexity and stability, however they were more motivated by what professional advancement and personal development opportunities the company and the position can offer, more than what the industry does. Hence, it is concluded that stigma is outweighed by company and job characteristics at job selection in the oil industry.

1. Introduction

Work is significantly defining our lives and lifestyles, and it is usually something that we associate ourselves with, or more likely our social environment does (Pavalko, 1988 cited in Thompson, Harred & Burks, 2003). At times it can be an honourable perception, however a lot of times professions drag some stigma with themselves. These professions are usually perceived as dirty jobs by society, who are not related to the fields in any way (Ashforth, Kreiner, Clark & Fugate, 2007). People usually see these professions “dirty” in the most literate ways, hence the significance of associating workers with their jobs is even more considerable. Based on the work of Hughes (1958) as cited in Ashforth et al. (2007) a dirty job can be physically, socially or morally tainted, depending on the tasks the occupation involves.

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Most of previous research in the field of dirty jobs have had a focus on the “consequences” of dirty jobs. Perhaps because it has been shown that stigma on the specific tainted occupations are no secret and that stigmatized workers are acutely aware of it (Bolton, 2005; Roca, 2010). Hence, for example, it was studied what people do to “normalize” the effects of this stigma (Ashforth et al., 2007) or how it affects someone’s self-esteem in general (Bolton, 2005). However, less attention has been given to the “antecedents” of this topic, the underlying motivating factors behind engaging oneself into a tainted occupation. Despite the fact that motivation has been studied extensively in the past several decades, a gap between tainted jobs and motivation can still be identified, therefore, it will be of interest to see whether determinants of job choice, as established by previous studies, are also relevant for tainted jobs, since they drag along the association of stigma. More specifically, the role of motivations in morally tainted jobs are going to be investigated throughout this paper.

Work motivation is the motivation behind choosing a job (Park & Rainey, 2012) and it can be divided into two types that influence the reason why we perform certain activities. These two types can be distinguished based on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and both of the categories incorporate several factors (Deci, 1972). According to Gagné and Deci (2005) it is important to differentiate between the types of motivations. Additionally, as Park and Rainey (2012) defined, people choose their jobs based on individual composition of extrinsic and intrinsic motivating factors. In order to bridge the mentioned gap between motivation and tainted occupations, the paper is going to aim to answer the following question: What is the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations in explaining job choice for a morally tainted occupation? Moral taint is going to be studied in the empirical context of the oil and gas industry, because it has been picked up by the media and became a scrutinized topic since it creates fairly controversial opinions in the public. The dominant viewpoint is quite negative about the oil industry, people relate concepts such as, unethical, environmentally disruptive and corrupt to

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it, while many activist groups have also been formed against oil companies. However, there were still, for example, more than 10 million people engaged in the oil and gas industry workforce in the United States in 2015 (PWC, 2017), which is surprisingly high especially after considering the public’s attitude towards the industry.

This paper is going to contribute to previous research about (morally) tainted jobs, however from a different point of view. The aim is to expand the paper’s scientific relevance in terms of job choice motivation and to find out which factors actually influence one’s decision when it comes to choose a tainted job. Furthermore, the reason why these motivating factors matter will also be revealed. By conducting this research, managers’ attention can also be driven to the importance of motivation and what attracts people to the industry and to their jobs. Hence, they can make good use of it when it comes to advertising and recruiting new employees to oil and gas companies. In addition, if managers are aware of their employees’ initial motivation, they can focus on how to retain them.

The next section is going to explain more in depth the concept of job taint and the different types of it, which is followed by the exploration of literature related to it. Additionally, the theory behind motivation is discussed while also a summary about existing research is provided. The third section of this qualitative study gives an insight into the methodology and it is explained why the oil industry is the chosen empirical context and how the data was collected and analysed. The fourth section reviews the results of the collected data. Lastly, section five and six discuss and conclude the findings, respectively.

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2. Theoretical framework 2.1 Exploration of dirty jobs and its relevance in research

In our day to day lives in the modern society, work has a significantly defining role. It has a big influence on our personal identities, self-definition and self-expression sense of worth (Valtorta et al., 2019). People want to be perceived positively and most people want to fit in society, hence looking for constant approval from others (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2014). However, as it was discussed earlier, society does identify individuals and their jobs engaged in dirty work as tainted and these jobs can be categorized into three groups. A physical taint occurs when professions involve direct contact with either dirty or dangerous environment, like a garbage collector, a mortician or a construction worker (Ashforth et al., 2007). The second type of taint is social taint which, according to Ashforth et al. (2007), relates to workers who create contact with people who are stigmatized themselves or who represent a servile relationship to others. For instance, social workers, police detectives or chauffeurs. Lastly, the group of moral taint covers jobs that are fairly sinful or dubious or are considered as deceptive, intrusive, confrontational or otherwise defy norms of civility (Ashforth et al., 2007). When looking at this definition, think about palm readers and exotic dancers, as well as tabloid reporters or debt collectors that could fulfil the position of a morally tainted worker. Although there are three clearly separated groups of taints, a lot of jobs can be categorized into more than just one, such as a pawnbroker who wears the stigma of both social and moral taint (Ashforth & Kreiner, 2014). For people who are engaged in dirty work, the stigmatization can evolve the creation of negative feelings and shame, therefore people have to learn how to cope with it through a lot of effort, which leaves one to wonder what attracts people to be involved in these sorts of fields.

The reason why moral taint is the highlight of this research is because moral identity is part of our personalities and explains who we are. Moral behaviour is an attitude that satisfies certain ethical duties and socially responsible performance and, according to Caldwell (2009),

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moral intelligence includes three key responsibilities. These are the responsibility to do no harm, the responsibility to add current value and the responsibility to add future value with one’s behaviour. Hence, there is a reason to believe that moral taint indicates a heavier stigma and people might end up receiving social penalties for their acts. What is more, in the work of Ashforth & Kreiner (2014) morally tainted jobs were opposed to jobs that are physically and/or socially tainted, since these can be considered as necessary for society. Therefore, these occupations enjoy a so called ‘necessity shield’, a sort of protection against stigmatization. In contrary, however, morally tainted jobs do not have this protection and that is why their existence might be a subject to scepticism from society’s point of view.

Research by Valtorta et al. (2019) has shown that the phenomenon of stigmatization can get to a level where laymen do not only stigmatize, but dehumanize dirty workers. Dehumanization means that people are being denied from their actual humanity (Valtorta et al. 2019) and the study revealed that people associate different metaphors to the three categories of dirty jobs. People attached biologization to physically tainted work and employees were perceived as unhygienic because of the physical contact with dirt, hence, participants indicated antipathy towards them. Social taint was related to objectifying workers because of the subordinate work activities that they usually do. Additionally, people being stigmatized based on their morally tainted jobs receive animalistic dehumanization because of the immorality involved in their jobs. Therefore, when individuals are fulfilling a position that is being determined as a dirty job, it definitely has an effect on one’s identity by perhaps feeling like they are under some kind of identity threat and these individuals had to learn how to deal with these situations. A lot of these practices have been scientifically documented by researchers and hereby they are going to be discussed.

Thompson et al. (2003) focused on researching topless dancers in gentlemen’s bars and their mitigating habits for managing the stigma of their anomalous occupation. Their results

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showed that dancers from the chosen bars made division between their social worlds, meaning that there is a small group of people, who they share their job life with and it is hidden from the rest, as well as applying three conventional neutralizing techniques to behaviour rationalization. These three are denial of the injury, condemnation of the condemners and appealing to higher loyalties (that most of them claimed they worked there just so they can support their children, parents or partners financially). Moreover, Thompson et al. (2003) found out that dancers actively used cognitive and emotive dissonance to ease up the emotional strain they had to deal with, to differentiate between their attitudes and values, and distance themselves from the job as it more and more dictated. In another study completed by Ashforth et al. (2007) it was shown how people were dealing with the dilemma of dirty work, although the focus was on managers’ perspective. The results from the interviews depicted some tactics being in line with Thompson et al.’s (2003) findings. Managers have a tendency to also condemn the condemners and to distance from the role. These two were categorized in the group of defensive tactics, which also included avoiding, accepting, blaming the clients or just using social comparison. Additionally, managers also have the tendency to use social buffers, confront clients and the public, or to reframe, recalibrate the meaning of the work, or even refocusing the attention onto the non-dirty side of the job (Ashforth et al. 2007). Furthermore, research has not only revealed the struggles of dirty jobs on the individual level, but Roca (2010) shed light in her paper onto the fact that it is an issue on the organizational level too. Nevertheless, the author explained that there is a possibility for facilitating employees’ daily work lives and to overcome the barriers of stigmatization by applying the practices of moral imagination. Moral imagination can help to understand the moral conflicts that come from the tainted occupation on the top of enabling workers to face these conflicts (Roca, 2010).

One would think that the phenomenon of stigmatization and taints in dirty jobs only affect people who are actively engaged with the particular jobs. However, in the paper of

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Bergman and Chalkley (2007) it is proven that job stigma drags along some kind of ‘stickiness’ with it. This means that even though someone had left the tainted workplace or job already, they still experience the stigma that originated from dirty work. Bergman & Chalkley (2007) claimed that this ‘stickiness’ derives from internal attributions created by others about dirty work and can be dissolved in several ways depending on the time when the fact is being revealed in a relationship, on the valence of the relationship and how much time has passed by since the information has been revealed.

Considering all the consequences stigmatization has, all the efforts people have to do to mitigate the effects, it is reasonable to question why would one want to be engaged in it. Some studies, although, have reflected on tainted job motivation partly by for example saying, that home care workers (“aides”) have the intention to do the job because they have practical autonomy while it also benefits their skill building opportunities (Stacey, 2005). Moreover, it was claimed by gynaecology nurses in the paper of Bolton (2005) that they believe there is a need for special skills in that area. This could be an indicator that they know there is need for them, which is in line with Ashforth & Kreiner’s (2014) statement about the possible ‘necessity shield’ that a select few physically and socially tainted jobs enjoy. Preliminary research hence provides some explanation what motivates people to be engaged in a tainted occupation, however their understanding is limited, since the focus in those studies was not exclusively on motivation. Nevertheless, there is an extensive literature on what motivates people’s job choice, which will serve as the basis for the motivating factors that are going to be researched throughout this paper. The factors (see Table 1. in Appendix) will be derived from this literature and their relevance will be assessed in the context of tainted jobs.

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2.2. Exploration of job choice motivation and its relevance in research 2.2.1 Extrinsic & Intrinsic motivation

Throughout the previous decades, many studies have considered the significance of motivation when it comes to dedication to important things, such as work. According to Ratliff & Hicks (1998), in order to be successful, for a company it is essential to know what motivates its employees. Additionally, McCabe et al. (2005) argued that it is important for managers to recognize their staff members’ motivation in order to be able to retain them and recruit new employees.

According to Jurkiewicz, Massey and Brown (1998) there is no universal principle for explaining everyone’s motivation, thus one way to execute it is by reviewing external and internal motivating factors behind someone’s decision. Someone is intrinsically motivated if the activity that is being performed entails no other rewards than the activity itself (Deci, 1972), hence, the satisfaction comes purely from executing a task. Cases of intrinsic rewards can be sense of accomplishment or feeling of self-worth (Houston, 2000). In contrast, extrinsic rewards come from accomplishments done in order to “attain a separable outcome” (Park & Rainey, 2012). Incentives and salary, tangible rewards, job security, status and prestige, approval or threat all can be categorized as extrinsic motivating factors (Deci, 1972; Houston, 2000; Park & Rainey, 2012).

Although it would be impossible to simply generalize job motivation, because it varies from person to person, previous researches have proved that individuals within the same profession can share similar motivation. McCabe et al.’s (2005) work explored what drives nurses’ motivation when choosing nursing as a career (though nurses are considered to be socially tainted, in this paper nursing was not a subject of stigmatization). Data showed that key intentions included attraction to the challenging and interesting work, employment security and travel opportunities, as well as helping others and working closely to people. Goh &

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Lourdusamy (2001) intended to communicate what motivates students to choose teaching as their careers. Findings depicted that teachers find initial motivation in service conditions, altruism, the stimulating and noble nature of teaching profession itself and being able to execute some social influence on children.

Moreover, several studies have been conducted to settle down the motivational differences between public and private sector employees. According to Houston (2000) previous research has found that private service motivation relies more on extrinsic than intrinsic rewards. These extrinsic motivating factors were higher salary, job security and status and prestige. Indeed, Houston (2000) in his own research verified that public sector employees care less about extrinsic rewards, such as pay or working hours and feel more incentivized by seeking accomplishment. Hence, public and private organization workers value different motives. Buelens & van den Broeck (2007) confirmed too that civil servants are less motivated by money, however the authors found that public sector workers were also less motivated by self-development and self-growth, responsibility and work challenge. This shows, just as Ratliff & Hicks (1998) stated in their work that both types of motivation have significant roles when it comes to decide about one’s occupational engagement.

2.2.2 Objective & Subjective theory

The second stream of research related to motivation that is going to be reviewed together with extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, is job choice theory. Behling, Labovitz and Gainer (1968), as it was cited in many different papers (Tom, 1971; Pounder and Merrill, 2001; Mahony et al., 2006), outlined the framework of this theory, and is a comprehensive approach that is used to reflect on factors that affect job decisions and to examine potential employees’ job perceptions and intentions in deciding to which organization to work for. The framework proposes three separate theories of job choice, including objective theory, subjective theory and critical contact theory, nevertheless in this paper only the former two will be in focus. Objective theory defines

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job candidates as “economic beings” and it claims that people choose jobs based on the economic benefits (objective factors) of the work, such as salary, benefit packages or different kinds of advancements (Behling et al., 1968 in Pounder & Merrill, 2001). This theory can be related to the motivations of extrinsic rewards. In contrast, subjective theory determines individuals as “psychological beings” and states that people choose jobs if they perceive that the organization is going to be able to satisfy their psychological needs, and so they decide by valuing subjective factors of the job (Pounder & Merrill, 2011). Thus, the role of intrinsic motivating factors can be brought in line with the subjective theory.

Mahony et al. (2006) explored what factors affect the likelihood of taking a faculty position in sports management by using the framework of job choice theories. The outcome of the quantitative research showed that the most important objective factors were base pay and the location of the workplace, and some subjective factors, including care from the organization’s side and fit in the department or program, were also rated as important. Critical contact factors had no significance. In the experiment of Pounder & Merrill (2001) it was revealed that school principals are motivated to choose their profession, because they had a desire to achievement and to influence or improve education, and they had an interest in the salary and other benefits. These outcomes also show that both subjective and objective factors play an important role in deciding about a position.

To conduct this research the most common factors have been identified based on previous studies’ questionnaires and surveys, and the ones that showed relevance are going to be examined in this paper. Some of the factors were derived from studies that relate to job choice theory and some of the variables were derived from researches include extrinsic and intrinsic motivating factors. However, because of the connection explored between the two sets of concepts, objective and extrinsic motivating factors are going to be named and treated simply as extrinsic factors, while subjective and intrinsic motivating factors are both going to be

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handled as intrinsic factors. All the factors being studied in this paper can be seen in Table 1. (in Appendix) with a short explanation regarding their meanings.

3. Methodology 3.1 Data collection

In order to find out what motivates individuals to work at an oil company a qualitative research was conducted with semi-structured interviews (see Interview questions in Appendix). Interviewees were reached by referral of family and friends, as well as using the snowball sampling approach. In total 9 interviews were conducted, with 6 female and 3 male respondents, falling into a wide age range. Most of the interviewees were from Hungary, however answers were provided by Egyptian and Australian individuals too. All of the interviews were done within a timeframe of 3 weeks period and every interview occurred in a one-on-one setting. The average length of the interviews were around 45 minutes. Because of the ongoing pandemic (Covid-19), every interview had to be done through an audio or a video call with the help of several online platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber. All of the interviews were audio-recorded, which the participants were informed about when they were first contacted and through a short document that was sent to them prior to the interview took place. Additionally, in this document participants were assured that all their data are being handled confidentially and anonymously (see Document 1. in Appendix).

3.2 Trustworthiness of research

In order to ensure the highest possible trustworthiness of the research a couple of techniques provided by Guba (1981) were followed. To ensure credibility the method of triangulation was implemented, and data was collected from different sources; from 9 different individuals working at different companies with varied cultural and professional backgrounds.

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Triangulation also strengthened the confirmability of the study. All the interviews were recorded so the referential adequacy of material collection could be ensured (Guba, 1981). In addition, throughout the interviews the questions were going from more general to more specific ones to avoid question-order bias. To make sure the transferability of the data collection, participants were encouraged to nominate other potential interviewees who could view things from a different angle. Lastly, to improve the dependability of the data, social desirability bias was tried to be avoided by emphasizing, before the interviews started, that all I was interested in is personal motivation, hence there was no right or wrong answer, while I was also changing the ways how the questions were asked, thus minimizing the risk of habituation of the respondents. To not to distort their answers, interviewees were not told what is the specific reason behind focusing on the oil and gas industry.

3.3 Empirical context

The reason why the oil industry was chosen as the studied field within dirty jobs is because the definition by Ashforth et al. (2007) about morally tainted jobs is in line with society’s perception of the oil industry, because it is somewhat sinful, deceptive and confrontational. The market is monopolized since most of the control over the world’s oil stocks is in the hands of a couple of big oil companies. These companies are aggressively pushing forward and are using predatory techniques and bribery in order to extract favourable regulations (Gupta, 2017). There is corruption, lobbying and complying and it is easy to implement unethical practices, since it holds high political power. Politicians, CEOs and union leaders are perceived as the oil elite according to Lyall (2018). In countries where there is poor institutional quality, oil businesses have even higher chance and incentive to apply corrupt practices (Gupta, 2017). Moreover, besides lobbying and corruption, oil companies are also very unsustainable and contributing to the degradation of the environment significantly. A study that has been conducted in the area of Niger Delta, Nigeria showed how harmful oil production can be, because it comes with

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massive gas flaring and thus greenhouse gas emissions, it creates economically useless lands because of the installed pipelines under the ground and there is huge amount of oil spillage into the waters (Eweje, 2006), as well as making use of finite resources. Additionally, a research by Freilich and Popowitz (2012) also indicated that fracking, a method used to access more oil, is highly polluting air and waters, it disrupts lands and natural habitat and it is a chemical contaminator. These factors are all contributing to crossing the planetary boundaries (Rockström et al. 2009).

3.4 Data analysis – transcribing and coding

To begin the analysis, first all of the interviews were transcribed manually. The interviews that were conducted in Hungarian were also translated into English parallel to transcribing them. The length of the interview transcriptions range between 4 to 10 pages.

In order to analyse the data, a systematic coding procedure was utilized. This procedure followed a similar framework that was laid out by Treviño et al. (2014) which comprised of open and axial coding. Specifically, a deductive method was used due to the fact that the motivating factors under analysis were already established, thus served as the axial codes. Therefore, the focus was on identifying which motivating factors are the most common ones by creating open codes (see example codes in Table 2. in Appendix), and to identify why or how those factors show significance. Codes were either “first- or second-order”. The difference is based on whether the codes were closer to participants’ terminology (first-order codes) or rather theoretical constructs were involved in coding (second-order coding) (Treviño et al., 2014). There were two rounds of coding, in order to make sure there is no essential information left out. After all this, a table was made in order to categorize what open codes belong to the different motivating factors (the categories or axial codes), in the case of every respondent (see

Table 3 in Appendix.). From this table it was clear which factors were the most commonly

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were considered to be important based on how frequently it was mentioned as a valuable trait for respondents. Additionally, a difference has been identified between partial and full importance. In order to facilitate the research process memos were made throughout coding and the analysing process. Interpretation of data is subjective, nevertheless dependability and confirmability were tried to be kept as high as possible.

4. Results

Firstly, the background of the respondents will be explained, which will be followed by findings about employees’ acknowledgement of the taint related to the industry. Eventually, findings about employees’ motivation is identified.

Every respondent works at a multinational company, either at a European or at an America one, and they all work in a corporate setting. Some have been in the industry for only a couple of years, some have spent decades here already. For most of them their job in the oil industry was either the first, or one of their first professional jobs. The initial reason why every interviewee applied for their jobs was because their attention was driven to it through recruiting, by friends or family or they just heard about a vacancy or a programme that was likeable to them.

In total 13 motivation factors were investigated throughout the research (see Table 1.), however only 7 of these factors seemed to show full importance when people were deciding about their jobs. These were Opportunity for career advancement/professional growth, Job

security, Benefits & Compensations, Work challenges, Chance to learn new things/self-development, Chance to make use of special skills and Personal interest/ attachment.

Additionally, 3 factors, Salary, Location and Reputation were being indicated as a partial influencer in respondents’ choices. See a summary of the results in Appendix as Figure 1.

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18 4.1 Acknowledged stigma

Every respondent acknowledged the fact that society has a negative perception about the oil industry, and thus they attach some kind of negativity to it and to its workers too. One respondent even used the word “stigma”. The main reason behind this negativity, according to respondents, is because oil industry is harmful for the environment. Someone put it like this:

“When people think about oil industry, I think a Youtube video or a documentary of an environmental disaster is what they picture.” - Interviewee 2

It also became clear that they often get reminded of this by family and friends. Moreover, it has been acknowledged that the attitude that society represents towards the industry is also because it has a bad impression in media and people think it is just a profit seeking, governmental company that exploits our natural resources in order to keep up our consumeristic behaviour, which can be corroborated by a quote of one of the respondents:

“…the phenomenon of oil bleaching just got burnt into the minds of older generations that they think it is a money laundry and a very expensive thing, and this is all they see, laymen who are not in this field properly.” -

Interviewee 5

Looking at the quote above, two things can be highlighted. One, there is a difference between age groups’ perception about the oil industry. Two, there is a contradiction between employees’ perception who are actually involved in the day-to-day industrial practices and society who cannot see ‘behind the scene’. It has also been confirmed by respondents that they generally have a good opinion about their companies and what they represent in the industry. Hence, respondents claimed companies should be more active in communicating with and educating people, so they could mitigate the stigma attached to the industry.

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19 4.2 Motivating factors

4.2.1 Job security

Almost 90 per cent of the interviewees stated that it played a huge importance in their decision to have a secured job, hence they selected the oil industry. They knew that it is standing on stable grounds, it is a demanded and profitable sector since it has been the centre piece of our capitalistic and consumeristic behaviour for centuries now. For example, one interviewee claimed:

“…I knew that the oil industry was and is going to be a stable industry for quite a long time, because we will be needing it, it is one of the three main energy resources and, it is going to sound bad, but there is money in the

industry basically.” – Interviewee 8

Even though respondents were motivated by the stability of the industry, some of their attractions towards job security was two folded by the intentional choice that has been made to work for a big company with a multinational background. The quote below illustrates the argument:

“Yes, it was important to me to have job-security, so to work at a big company and to always get my salary on the first. Of course, this salary is a little bit lower than if you started working as a freelancer, […] but it’s a

secure one.” – Interviewee 2

4.2.2 Opportunity for career advancement/ professional growth

Almost every respondent also saw the chance to grow themselves professionally or move forward in their careers when choosing their jobs. Mainly people claimed they saw this opportunity because the company has a multinational background. At multinational companies, people can easily fulfil their wishes to become managers and leaders, because these businesses are based on the structure of hierarchy, in addition to the diversity they represent, as the following quote proves:

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“…I saw it in the system and the company that there are more branches and hierarchical levels, so I was told what is the company structure and this gives you a clue as well, that yes, this is a type of a company that I can

have a chance to even move somewhere.” – Interviewee 3

However, some respondents were also motivated to choose their jobs not only because the company has diversity, but because of the diversity of their position too:

“From one hand like I said the supply chain is very long, and you know finance is involved in every stage, so if you know one stage very well, then you can go on and move to a different one if you want to change, and on the other hand, finance is a huge-huge area, starting with investments and licenses, through the connections we

make with our customers to how much profit comes in in the end.” – Interviewee 9

4.2.3 Salary and Benefits & Compensations

Although, as it was mentioned by the respondents, they see that the oil industry is a profitable sector, that “there is money” turned over and there are competitive wages offered; salary was only important for 55 per cent of the interviewees and for the rest, it was only partly or not even important. For employees that salary mattered said they just wanted to generate a good base for their future family or maintain every day costs and to live well off. Or just simply because oil industry was one of the highest paid industries 25 years ago and it was attractive to them. People who have been identified with partial motivation towards wages claimed that salary was important, however not necessarily a main motivation to choose the job.

As opposed to salary however, benefits and compensations (both monetary and non-monetary) made it more attractive for interviewees when they were deciding, hence it influenced their motivation to a higher extent. Several respondents mentioned the benefit of receiving a “cafeteria package”, which means that up to a certain amount the company covers the costs of weekday food consumption, or health care packages that cover medical costs. In addition, some people appreciated the benefits of receiving a salary for 13. and 14. months per

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year (bonuses), the use of a company car and mobile phone while others also mentioned the traveling opportunities that come with the job.

4.2.4 Location

For some people the location really did matter, because they have had bad experiences with previous jobs, because it was in a city that was very tempting or they were just simply motivated by the proximity of it. However, this was also not an essential criterion for respondents. 4.2.5 Chance of learning new things/ self-development and Personal interest

Findings have revealed that people did not only have extrinsic motivations to join the company, but there were factors that motivated them intrinsically too. One of the most common motivations was to have an occupation where they can learn and develop themselves. Hence, they wanted to work in a completely different field than they did before and to learn new skills. They explained this by the importance of experiencing new things, and the importance of not getting stuck at a phase in life. A lot of respondents claimed that they had a lack of knowledge about the industry and this was actually motivating them and influencing their decision to take a job in the oil sector. The reason how people saw the opportunity for learning and self-development is because of the diversity and complexity of the industry:

“…you definitely have a lot to learn and if someone is actually interested and dives into the industry, it turns out it is very complicated.” – Interviewee 4

Nevertheless, some responses did not only reflect on the diversity of the industry, but the diversity of the company or the position that they applied to:

“And by the way the company I work for they really give options for development for people, so they can be assignments – short and long ones too, so you go and learn and develop, so that was one of the attractive things

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In the sense of diversity, learning new skills and personal interest are related to each other. Participants showed genuine excitement and personal interest towards the industry and they showed that they chose their jobs in the oil industry, because it is such a diversified and complex field that it aroused their interest, it made them curious and it was a motivation for them to get to know the industry. Respondents expressed themselves and their personal interest in the field with phrases like exciting, interesting and mystic. The following quote represents this standpoint very well:

“Mobilization itself, or the fact that I am a fan of auto and motor sports and I found interest behind the science of oil, yes that attracted me. Also, the history and the power of oil I find interesting, not the power of oil itself but the political power I mean, the power it has over the faith of nations. So, one of the most interesting material that exists, because it is a disgusting and sticky something and think about how millions of lives depend on it. It’s an

interesting thing.” – Interviewee 2

4.2.6 Work challenge

Another motivation that comes intrinsically and every interviewee revealed its significance was work related challenges. The attraction was explained by simply just seeking to get out of the comfort zone, to learn new things by completing a challenge, to make use of creativity or just because it makes work more enjoyable. Although, most of the respondents indicated that these challenges are related to the job or position and not necessarily to the industry. For instance, a network development project manager said that he liked the idea of working on fast paced projects, since every project only takes about 6-7 weeks to execute from beginning to end. Or, another respondent who works as an HR personnel said that the challenge originating from the ‘people element’ of the job which comes from dealing with, helping and solving people’s issues was very attractive.

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4.2.7 Chance to use special skills

Majority of the respondents have acquired a degree from higher education, therefore almost everyone who had it wanted to make use of their qualification at their job, so they chose a position that was in line with it. Some of the respondents were engineers, someone studied English Literature or Media and Communication Science and some of the respondents acquired a Business degree. The fact that these people have finished completely different university studies, and they are working in the same industry or for the same company, shows how divergent the oil sector truly can be and proves the attraction to diversity by interviewees. The intention to make use of university qualification relates to the motivation to apply for the specific job and it is not industry specific motivation. Besides university qualification, some people wanted to use other skills too, such as foreign language skills, however the company’s multinational background provided the opportunity for this and again, not necessarily the industry’s circumstances.

4.2.8 Reputation and Status & Prestige

On top of the diversity that companies represent and the opportunities they can give to the respondents, interviewees also emphasized the reputation of the companies as a motivation why they chose their jobs. Most of the people explained this motivation for reputation by saying that this can give them prestige while working there and also, if they want to move on in the future, the company gives off credibility and a good base for starting at a new company. Hence, they were not actively seeking for a job that increases their prestige, but saw the opportunity for it by being attracted to the company’s reputation.

4.2.9 Social pressure, Influence and Goal fit

No one has reported that they would have been under social pressure at job selection, hence this factor is not relevant. Additionally, minority of the respondents had intentions to influence the organization or to choose the industry because personal goals were in line with the

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organization’s goals. Therefore, since these two factors did not show any consistency, they are also not being considered as significant motivating factors when it comes to choosing a job in the oil industry.

5. Discussion 5.1 Discussion of findings

This research helps to understand what is the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations in explaining job choice for a morally tainted job. The most important extrinsically motivating factors that influenced participants’ decision at job choice are Opportunity for career advancement, Job security and Benefits & Compensations, while the most important intrinsic motivating factors include Work related challenges, the Use of special skills, Chance to learn new things and Personal interest. Three more factors, Salary, Location as extrinsic and Reputation as intrinsic motivation were also attracting people at job selection, however these were less common and significant.

Out of these factors two predominant reasons behind motivation emerged. Within the extrinsic factors, except Location and including Reputation, the elements surrounding the theme of career advancement proved most important. Amongst the intrinsic factors it was self- improvement that presented itself as the most common motivation driving an individual in this morally tainted industry. Furthermore, more importantly it was found that these motivators, both intrinsic and extrinsic, related to the company or to the specific job role regardless of the industry to which that company resides within. The only factors that showed relevance as a motivation to the oil industry itself were Job security, Chance to learn new things and Personal interest.

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5.1.1 Perception of taint

As findings show society does attach a stigma to the industrial practices, mainly because of the environmental damage these practices result in, and also because they just view oil businesses as profit driven ventures. Older generation stigmatizes the industry more for the reasons of corruption and profit seeking, whereas younger generation focuses more on the environmental issues of it. However, respondents generally have a positive view about their companies, because they mentioned several times that companies are working on being more environmentally conscious, they implement protocols and rules in order to expand their businesses to step on the more sustainable and “greener” paths. This indicates that taint is being separated from the companies within the industry by the respondents.

5.1.2 Motivation

It seems like the most important motivating factors that come extrinsically were important at the time of job selection, because people were focusing on building their careers and professional growth by making sure they are doing it on stable grounds. Hence, people chose multinational companies to work at, because they knew there is going to be a chance to move forward, especially in an industry that is very much demanded and the centre piece of the global economy. This can also be a reason why benefits and compensations were more attractive at job choice than salary itself. Benefits can be intangible, like business travels, that build their character and develop someone’s career while tangible benefits, like a company car, can facilitate one’s work which can all be helpful to move forward in one’s career. Whereas, salary mainly only motivates one in the beginning, however after a while its importance diminishes, because it does not add to someone professionally or personally. Additionally, the reason why salary was important for some people and it had less of a significance in others’ motivation can be explained by the difference between generations. People who have been working in the

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industry for decades now, claimed that money was very attractive to them, which may indicate that older generations and younger generations prioritize different values.

In contrast, intrinsic motivating factors represented the intention and the value of self-improvement, which seemed to be equally important regardless of age. People were mostly looking for a job that was interesting, challenging and was being able to make them to learn new skills. Participants saw the opportunity for these motivations to be fulfilled by joining an oil company, because people were new to the industry, it was filled with mystery and with unexplored challenges of the culture of a multinational company. Although being in a new and multinational environment can enhance learning capabilities, it also offers a chance to develop oneself in the sense of already gained skills and acquired knowledge. Therefore, it was also important for almost every respondent to choose a job where they can make use of their acquired university degrees and qualifications.

5.1.3 Taint’s relation to motivation

It is important to note that only some of the motivating factors were related to the oil industry itself at the time of job choice. These few factors indicated participants’ enthusiasm towards the industry’s diversity and complexity, while also claiming that they made a conscious decision, because they knew there is need for oil in order to maintain the dynamics of our capitalistic economy. Nevertheless, those intrinsic and extrinsic factors under analysis applied more specifically to the company of the employee rather than the industry, meaning that when individuals were seeking jobs, they were driven by the benefits of the specific company itself, irrelevant of the industry to which that company resides in. Especially considering their motivation to work for a multinational company, so they can be in an international environment. This can be explained by the phenomenon of globalisation; we value things more when they are bigger and diverse. Hence, it seems like the “power” of the companies’ reputation and situation outweigh the stigma that is attached to the industry itself. Consequently, employees

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tend to neglect the stigma that is attached to the industry, which actually seems to be contradicting to the initial idea of occupational taint.

Additionally, a lot of their work-related needs were also found to be satisfied by the position respondents fulfilled (in corporate settings), which is why they could also potentially neglect the stigma, since they are not in direct contact with oil and the ‘unethical’ practices in the industry. Moreover, considering the motivation to choose the industry it could be also interpreted that, due to the factors previously mentioned about the necessity for oil as a commodity in our economy, to some extent the role may enjoy the ‘necessity shield’ conceptualized by Ashforth & Kreiner (2014), after all.

5.2 Contribution to literature

From one hand, this research contributes to the literature of tainted occupations, more specifically morally tainted jobs. Findings also confirm that, if there is stigma, it is acknowledged by the ones who are affected by it (Bolton, 2005; Roca; 2010). Nevertheless, stigma has never really been studied in the context of oil industry, therefore, this paper broadens the horizon of the literature. What is more, this study has built a more in-depth knowledge about employee’s motivation to choose the oil industry, which differs from previous studies’ focal point of how that stigma is handled and mitigated. Hence, this leads us to the second research stream which this study contributes to; motivation at job choice. This study proves that in the private sector intrinsic rewards are just as important as extrinsic ones (Ratliff & Hicks, 1998), while also demonstrates that the examined motivating factors are just as relevant in the context of a tainted job, as in the context of a “normal” job.

5.3 Practical implications

This research promotes a couple of relevant implications for practice, mainly for managers and recruiters at oil companies. As a manager, it is important to know why employees of the company chose to join (Ratliff & Hicks, 1998). Managers at oil companies should take into

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consideration, that people are looking for jobs that challenges them and that they want to learn new things, hence they should provide it as much as they can when assigning people to tasks. In addition, it is also important for managers to let employees develop themselves related to their qualification and skills on top of introducing them to the diversity of the industry.

Recruiters should focus on “promoting” the complexity and the diversity of the industry, since that attracted all the respondents (McCabe et al., 2005). Moreover, they should also emphasize the opportunities for career building, and that they can also improve themselves professionally as well as personally, especially if it is a multinational company.

5.4 Limitations

Just like every research has its weaknesses, this paper is no exception from that. Firstly, it needs to be taken into consideration that this research was conducted by one person, which can violate findings’ credibility. Secondly, there was a constraint of time for conducting the research, the whole study was done in four months, therefore it limited the opportunity to reach out to more interview participants, for persistent observation or to use overlapping methods (Guba, 1981). Thirdly, since the interviews could only be done online, this might have had an effect on the conversations. Doing interviews on video or just audio calls might feel a bit impersonal, which could influence interview participants answers’ length and depth. In addition, because the Hungarian interviews had to be translated, data might be distorted to some extent. Lastly, because the chosen field and motivation of the participants are specific, the study’s transferability to other contexts might not be that simple. Hence, interpretations of this study must be done with these limitations in mind.

5.5 Future research suggestions

Since the number of interviewed individuals was limited, future research should reduplicate this study but with a bigger sample size. It would also be worth to research motivation of job choice within different departments or positions (CEO, managers etc.), in order to reveal

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deeper, more specific insights. Additionally, it could be interesting to do this research, but in certain nations and to compare their answers with each other, because there is a chance for differing motivation based on culture.

Throughout the interviews some people indicated that some factors were important for staying at, but not for joining the company, thus it could be explored what motivates people on a daily basis to work somewhere. What is more, it would make sense to reach out to employees who work at refineries, drilling sites etc. (who are actually in direct contact with oil), because those people are more engaged with the practices that makes the industry stigmatized.

6. Conclusion

There has previously been extensive literature published about the topic of occupational taint, related to how people experience and deal with the stigma attached to their jobs. Nevertheless, it has been left unclear what motivates employees to take a “dirty job”. Therefore, this paper has focused on finding out what extrinsic and intrinsic motivating factors influence one’s decision at job selection for a morally tainted job, more specifically the oil industry. Results revealed that out of the 13 examined motivating factors, both extrinsic and intrinsic, 7 proved to have significant importance at job choice by representing the themes of career advancement and self-improvement when selecting a job, on top of being motivated by the industry’s complexity, diversity and stability (in economic sense). Nevertheless, those factors were mainly just reflected onto the company rather than the industry. Which means, even though respondents acknowledged that people attach negativity to the industry, it did not seem to influence their decisions at the time of job choice, since mainly the focus was on how the company or the position satisfies their work-related motivation, while also recognizing the necessity of the industry for our economy. In short, motivation to seek career advancement opportunities and to

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seek self-development opportunities in a secured environment outweigh the power of a stigma that is attached to an industry, especially when a company is a multinational one with high reputation.

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31 References

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34 Appendix

Documents

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35 Tables

Table 1. Summary and explanation of the chosen motivating factors

Motivating factors Explanation (in the context of this research)

Extrinsic:

Social pressure (Mitchell et al., 2020) One chooses the job because he/she feels some pressure by family or friends. Opportunity for career advancements /

professional growth *

(Jurkiewicz et al., 1998; Pounders & Merrill, 2001)

Motivation to choose a job because there is an opportunity recognized for moving forward in one’s career.

Job security (Houston, 2000) Motivation to choose a job because one knows it is a safe choice.

Salary (Buelens & van den Broeck, 2007) Motivation to choose a job because of appealing wages.

Benefits & Compensations (Mahony et al., 2006; McCabe et al., 2005)

Being motivated to choose a job because of different benefits (both monetary and non-monetary) that come with the job.

Location (Mahony et al., 2006) Motivation to choose a job because of favourable location of workplace. Status & Prestige (Houston, 2000; Ratliff &

Hicks, 1998; Jurkiewicz et al., 1998)

Motivation to choose a job because one believes it will gain his or her prestige. Intrinsic:

Chance to use special abilities/ skills (Jurkiewicz et al., 1998)

Motivation to choose a job because there are certain skills that one wants to make use of. Chance to learn new skills

/self-development*

(Jurkiewicz et al., 1998; Buelens & van den Broeck, 2007)

Motivation to choose a job because opportunity is seen to learn new things.

Personal interest/attachment (Seiler, 2012) Motivation to choose a job because one is simply just interested in it.

Influence on others/workplace/industry (Pounders & Merrill, 2001)

Motivation to choose a job because one has intentions to affect (influence) others at the workplace or even the workplace or

industry. Reputation of the industry (Mahony et al.,

2006)

Motivation to choose a job because of the reputation that the industry represents. Goal fit between individual and industry

(Mahony et al., 2006)

Motivation to choose a job because personal and workplace goals are in line with each other.

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Table 2. Example of open codes

IR: What kind of career advancement and career building opportunities did you see in the oil industry and to what extent did this influence your decision? IE: From one hand like I said the supply chain is very long, and you know finance is involved in every stage, so if you know one stage very well, then you can go on and move to a different one if you want to change, and on the other hand, finance is a huge-huge area, starting with investments and licenses, through the connections we make with our customers to how much profit comes in in the end. I am a type of person who is interested in a lot of things, and I always go into the direction where I can see that there is opportunity and it also interest me. So I thought I have to start somewhere, and I thought finance is perfect for this and I find it very exciting, I know a lot of people don’t find it like that and it’s a challenge mentally, professionally in every aspect, and also the oil industry is very exciting and diverse, so if you put the two together then you get quite a good matrix.

Motivation for career advancement opportunities in the sense of position (finance)

Motivation to choose finance – mentally and professionally challenging

Motivation to work in oil industry is because it’s very diverse and exciting – personal interest

Table 3. Categorization of open codes

Interviews Extrinsic motivating factors

Social pressure Opportunity for advancement/ professional growth

Job security Salary Benefits &

Compensations

Location Status & prestige Interviewee 1 --- -Seeing career advancement opportunities -multinational company provides opportunity for advancement -Perception of job security in the industry

-Motivation for job security -Importance of job security because it is a demanded and stable industry -Industry is needed for our economy

Importance of salary

-Both non-monetary and

monetary(insurance) benefits made job more attractive -Importance of traveling as benefits - Attraction to industry because of its exposure

Influence of location on decision (partly) Reputation provides prestige (company related) Interviewee 2 --- -professional growth by learning from professionals -attraction to the opportunity of professional advancement because of its diversity (company related) - Choosing the company as a young person because it is a ‘milestone’ on the way to building career -big company provides job security because salary is assured every month -Money as partly motivating factor -money is more like motivation to stay -importance of benefits as packages -importance of benefits because it facilitates work

-benefits make job more attractive -importance of location because of its proximity and environment -prestige is more like motivation to stay

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37 Interviewee 3 ---- -multinational company provides opportunity for advancement and to learn - Multinational company provides opportunity for advancement -oil industry as a motivator for advancements -Importance of job security and provided because it is a stable and demanded industry -job security as motivation -importance of job security because it is stable industry -salary as motivation - importance of benefits as a bonus --- -Reputation of company gives prestige Interviewee 4 --- -multinational company provides opportunity for advancement -opportunity for advancement -job security provided because of multinational background of company -partial importance of salary --- -Location has no big weight but it matters not to go too far

---

Interviewee 5 _---

-Motivation to work for a multi company because of career advancement -importance of job security and is provided because industry is stable and demanded for our economy -big(multinational) company provides job security -importance of salary -importance of benefits such as a company car, cafeteria package and bonus checks -motivation of location because of previous bad experience -reputation of the company gains prestige Interviewee 6 --- -seeing industry as a milestone in career (initially)

-industry has a lot of opportunities because it is very diverse --- -industry is high paying -salary is important to provide good base for family -importance of salary for good life --- -Location as an influencer because it was in a big city --- Interviewee 7 _--- - Motivation of career advancement because of company not industry structure

-importance of industry’s stability -motivation of job security because of industry’s stability --- - Partial motivation of business travel opportunities -partial motivation of location - Motivation to gain prestige through company’s reputation -Partial motivation to gain prestige through oil’s reputation Interviewee 8 --- --- -Motivation to join because oil industry is stable and it is needed for our economy -Motivation to join is because there is money in this -No special interest in oil industry, but was chosen because it is a safe option by its stability -Importance of stability in life - Importance of working at a big company because it provides job security -importance of salary to be able to maintain costs -importance of salary -importance of job benefits as packages - Importance of job benefits because it is there if you need it

-importance of location by its proximity --- Interviewee 9 --- -Motivation for career advancement opportunities in the sense of position (finance) - Opportunity for advancement - Importance of job security because it is a stable industry - Partial motivation of salary - Motivation of salary to get enough to live well off - Motivation of benefits as cafeteria package - Importance of location ---

Stigmatized and wanted: why the oil industry?