WHAT IS MOTIVATION? Motivation is the process by which a person’s efforts are energized, directed, and sustained towards attaining a goal. Effort is a measure of intensity or drive. High levels of effort are unlikely to lead to favorable job performance unless the effort is channeled in a direction that benefits the organization.
A. Early theories of motivation Three early theories of motivation provide the best-known explanations for employee motivation, even though their validity has been questioned. 1. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory was developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow. This theory states that there is a hierarchy of five human needs: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. - As each need is substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant.
- The text describes these five needs as physiological (basic food, drink, water, shelter, and sexual needs); safety (security and protection from physical and emotional harm); social (affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship); esteem (internal factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement, and external factors such as status, recognition, and attention); and self-actualization (a person’s drive to become what he or she is capable of becoming). - Maslow separated the needs into lower-level needs (including the physiological and safety needs) and higher-level needs (including social, esteem, and self-actualization). 2. McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y were developed by Douglas McGregor and describe two distinct views of human nature. - Theory X is the assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, avoid responsibility, and must be coerced to perform. - Theory Y is the assumption that employees are creative, enjoy work, seek responsibility, and can exercise self-direction. - Theory X assumes that Maslow’s lower-order needs dominate individuals, while Theory Y assumes that higher-order needs are dominant. - No empirical evidence exists to confirm that either set of assumptions is valid or that altering behavior based on Theory Y assumptions will increase employees’ motivation. 3. Motivation-hygiene theory, developed by Frederick Herzberg, is the motivation theory that intrinsic factors are related to job satisfaction and motivation, whereas extrinsic factors are associated with job dissatisfaction. - Herzberg believed that the opposite of satisfaction was not dissatisfaction. (See Exhibit 16-3) According to Herzberg, simply removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job would not necessarily make the job satisfying. - Hygiene factors are factors that eliminate dissatisfaction. They include factors such as supervision, company policy, salary, working conditions, and security—i.e., extrinsic factors associated with job context, or those things surrounding a job. - Motivators are factors that increase job satisfaction and motivation. They include factors such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, and advancement—i.e., intrinsic factors associated with job content, or those things within the job itself. - Herzberg’s theory has been criticized for the statistical procedures and methodology used in his study. In spite of these criticisms, Herzberg’s theory has had a strong influence on how we currently design jobs. 4. The three-needs theory, developed by David McClelland, is the motivation theory that says three acquired (not innate) needs—achievement, power, and affiliation—are major motives in work. - The need for achievement (nAch) is the drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, and to strive to succeed. McClelland found that high achievers differentiate themselves from others by their desire to do things better.High achievers like moderately challenging goals. They avoid what they perceive to be very easy or very difficult tasks. - The need for power (nPow) is the need to make others behave in a way that they would not have behaved otherwise. - The need for affiliation (nAff) is the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships. - A person’s levels of these three needs are typically measured by reacting to a set of pictures included in the Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT.
B. Contemporary theories 1. Goal-setting theory is the proposition that specific goals increase performance, and difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance than easy goals.
What is known about goals as motivators? - Intention to work toward a goal is a major source of job motivation. Specific and challenging goals are superior motivating forces. Specific hard goals produce a higher level of output than do generalized goals. Is there a contradiction between achievement motivation and goal setting?
No, as the following points explain: Goal-setting theory deals with people in general; achievement theory is based only on people who have a high need for achievement. Difficult goals are still recommended for the majority of employees. The conclusions of goal-setting theory apply to those who accept and are committed to the goals. Difficult goals will lead to higher performance only if they are accepted. Will employees try harder if they participate in the planning and formulation of goals?
It cannot be said that participation is always desirable However, participation is probably preferable to assigning goals whenever a manager expects resistance.
Will people do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing toward their goals?
Feedback acts to guide behavior. Self-generated feedback has been shown to be a more powerful motivator than externally generated feedback.
2. Reinforcement theory is counter to goal-setting theory. It proposes that behavior is a function of its consequences. - Reinforcement theory argues that behavior is externally caused. - Reinforcers are consequences immedi¬ately following a response that increase the probability that the behavior will be repeated. - Reinforcement theory ignores factors such as goals, expectations, and needs; it focuses on what happens when a person takes an action. How can the concept of reinforcement be used to explain motivation? - People will most likely engage in a desired behavior if they are rewarded for doing so. - These rewards are most effective if they immediately follow a desired response. - Behavior that isn’t rewarded or is punished is less likely to be repeated. - Managers can influence employees’ behavior by reinforcing the work behaviors they desire.
3. Job Design Theory can be used to influence employee motivation. Job design is the way tasks are combined to form complete jobs. Managers should design jobs to reflect the demands of the changing environment as well as the organization’s technology, and its employees’ skills, abilities, and preferences of its employees. - Job enlargement - increasing job scope, the number of different tasks required in a job and the frequency with which those tasks are repeated. - Job enrichment, another approach to designing jobs, is the vertical expansion of a job by adding planning and evaluating responsi-bilities. In job enrichment, job depth, the degree of control employees have over their work, is increased. 4. The job characteristics model (JCM) is a framework for analyzing and designing jobs that identifies five primary job characteristics, their interrelationships, and their impact on employee productivity, motivation, and satisfaction. These five job dimensions are described below (see Exhibit 16-6): - Skill variety is the degree to which a job requires a variety of activities so that an employee can use a number of different skills and talents. - Task identity is the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work. - Task significance is the degree to which a job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people. - Autonomy is the degree to which a job provides substantial free¬dom, independence, and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out. - Feedback is the degree to which carrying out the work activities required by a job results in the individual’s obtaining direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his or her performance. - Skill variety, task identity, and task significance combine to create meaningful work. Autonomy leads to an increased sense of responsibility for outcomes of the work. Feedback leads to knowledge of the actual results of the work activities. - The JCM suggests that intrinsic (internal) rewards are gained when an employee learns (knowledge of results through feedback) that he/she personally (responsibility through autonomy of work) has performed well on a task that he/she cares about (experiences meaningfulness of work through skill variety, task identify, and/or task significance). - The more these three conditions characterize a job, the greater the employee’s work motivation, performance, and satisfaction and the lower his or her absenteeism and likelihood of resigning. - The JCM also provides specific guidelines to managers for job design.
5. Equity theory is the theory that an employee compares his/her job’s input-outcomes ratio with that of relevant others and then corrects any inequity Referents are the persons, systems, or selves against which individuals compare themselves to assess equity.Equity theory recognizes that individuals are concerned with their absolute rewards as well as the relationship of those rewards to what others receive. What will employees do when they perceive an inequity? - Distort either their own or others’ inputs or outcomes. - Behave in some way to induce others to change their inputs or outcomes. - Behave in some way to change their own inputs or outcomes. - Choose a different comparison person. - Quit their job. 6. Expectancy theory is the theory that an individual tends to act in a certain way based on the expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual. Three relationships are important to this theory. - Effort-performance linkage (expectancy) is the probability perceived by the individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to a certain level of performance. - Performance-reward linkage (instrumentality) is the degree to which an individual believes that performing at a particular level is instrumental in, or will lead to, the attainment of a desired outcome. - Attractiveness of the reward (valence) is the importance that the individual places on the potential outcome or reward that can be achieved on the job. Four features are inherent in expectancy theory: - What perceived outcomes does the job offer the employee? - How attractive do employees consider these outcomes to be? - What kind of behavior must the employee exhibit to achieve these outcomes? - How does the employee view his or her chance of doing what is asked?
The key to understanding expectancy theory is understanding an individual’s goal and the linkage between effort and performance, between performance and rewards, and between rewards and individual goal satisfaction.