theories of motivation essay sample

Theories of Motivation

Motivation: “ The process that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.” Motivation is the result of the interaction of the individual and the situation. Individuals differ in their basic motivational drive. The level of motivation varies both between individuals and within individuals at different times. EARLY THEOREIS OF MOTIVATION

1950’s:
These three theories are:
Hierarchy of needs theory
Theories X and Y
The two-factor theory.
They represent a foundation from which contemporary theories have grown. Practicing managers still regularly use this theories and their terminology in explaining employee motivation. Contemporary way of thinking.

Abraham Maslow’s “ Need Hierarchy Theory” :
One of the most widely mentioned theories of motivation is the hierarchy of needs theory put forth by psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow saw human needs in the form of a hierarchy, ascending from the lowest to the highest, and he concluded that when one set of needs is satisfied, this kind of need ceases to be a motivator. As per his theory this needs are :

(i) Physiological needs :
These are important needs for sustaining the human life. Food, water, warmth, shelter, sleep, medicine and education are the basic physiological needs which fall in the primary list of need satisfaction. Maslow was of an opinion that until these needs were satisfied to a degree to maintain life, no other motivating factors can work. (ii) Security or Safety needs :

These are the needs to be free of physical danger and of the fear of losing a job, property, food or shelter. It also includes protection against any emotional harm. (iii) Social needs :
Since people are social beings, they need to belong and be accepted by others. People try to satisfy their need for affection, acceptance and friendship. (iv) Esteem needs :
According to Maslow, once people begin to satisfy their need to belong, they tend to want to be held in esteem both by themselves and by others. This kind of need produces such satisfaction as power, prestige status and self-confidence. It includes both internal esteem factors like self-respect, autonomy and achievements and external esteem factors such as states, recognition and attention. (v) Need for self-actualization :

Maslow regards this as the highest need in his hierarchy. It is the drive to become what one is capable of becoming, it includes growth, achieving one’s potential and self-fulfillment. It is to maximize one’s potential and to accomplish something.

As each of these needs are substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. From the standpoint of motivation, the theory would say that although no need is ever fully gratified, a substantially satisfied need no longer motivates. So if you want to motivate someone, you need to understand what level of the hierarchy that person is on and focus on satisfying those needs or needs above that level. Maslow’s need theory has received wide recognition, particularly among practicing managers. This can be attributed to the theory’s intuitive logic and ease of understanding. However, research does not validate these theory. Maslow provided no empirical evidence and other several studies that sought to validate the theory found no support for it. “ Theory X and Theory Y” of Douglas McGregor :

McGregor, in his book “ The Human side of Enterprise” states that people inside the organization can be managed in two ways. The first is basically negative, which falls under the category X and the other is basically positive which falls under the category Y. After viewing the way in which the manager dealt with employees, McGregor concluded that a manager’s view of the nature of human beings is based on a certain grouping of assumptions and that he or she tends to mold his or her behavior towards subordinates according to these assumptions. Under the assumptions of theory X :

Employees inherently do not like work and whenever possible, will attempt to avoid it. Because employees dislike work, they have to be forced, coerced or threatened with punishment to achieve goals. Employees avoid responsibilities and do not work fill formal directions are issued. Most workers place a greater importance on security over all other factors and display little ambition. In contrast under the assumptions of theory Y :

Physical and mental effort at work is as natural as rest or play. People do exercise self-control and self-direction and if they are committed to those goals. Average human beings are willing to take responsibility and exercise imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving the problems of the organization. That the way the things are organized, the average human being’s brainpower is only partly used. On analysis of the assumptions it can be detected that theory X assumes that lower-order needs dominate individuals and theory Y assumes that higher-order needs dominate individuals. An organization that is run on Theory X lines tends to be authoritarian in nature, the word “ authoritarian” suggests such ideas as the “ power to enforce obedience” and the “ right to command.” In contrast Theory Y organizations can be described as “ participative”, where the aims of the organization and of the individuals in it are integrated; individuals can achieve their own goals best by directing their efforts towards the success of the organization. However, this theory has been criticized widely for generalization of work and human behavior. Frederick Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory :

Frederick has tried to modify Maslow’s need Hierarchy theory. His theory is also known as two-factor theory or Hygiene theory. He stated that there are certain satisfiers and dissatisfiers for employees at work. In- trinsic factors are related to job satisfaction, while extrinsic factors are associated with dissatisfaction. He devised his theory on the question : “ What do people want from their jobs ?” He asked people to describe in detail, such situations when they felt exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. From the responses that he received, he concluded that opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction. Removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job does not necessarily make the job satisfying. He states that presence of certain factors in the organization is natural and the presence of the same does not lead to motivation. However, their nonpresence leads to demotivation. In similar manner there are certain factors, the absence of which causes no dissatisfaction, but their presence has motivational impact. Examples of Hygiene factors are :

Security, status, relationship with subordinates, personal life, salary, work conditions, relationship with supervisor.

and company policy and administration.
Examples of Motivational factors are :
Growth prospectus job advancement, responsibility, challenges, recognition and achievements. Contemporary theories of motivation:
The theories and approaches we are going to look at in this section represent current explanation of employees motivation. We are going to look at six theories :
Three needs theory.
Equity theory.
Goal setting theory.
Reinforcement theory .
Expectancy theory .
Designing motivation job.

McClelland’s Theory of Needs :
David McClelland has developed a theory on three types of motivating needs : 1. Need for Power
2. Need for Affiliation
3. Need for Achievement
Basically people for high need for power are inclined towards influence and control. They like to be at the center and are good orators. They are demanding in nature, forceful in manners and ambitious in life. They can be motivated to perform if they are given key positions or power positions. In the second category are the people who are social in nature. They try to affiliate themselves with individuals and groups. They are driven by love and faith. They like to build a friendly environment around themselves. Social recognition and affiliation with others provides them motivation. People in the third area are driven by the challenge of success and the fear of failure. Their need for achievement is moderate and they set for themselves moderately difficult tasks. They are analytical in nature and take calculated risks. Such people are motivated to perform when they see atleast some chances of success. McClelland observed that with the advancement in hierarchy the need for power and achievement increased rather than Affiliation. He also observed that people who were at the top, later ceased to be motivated by this drives. Equity Theory :

As per the equity theory of J. Stacey Adams, people are motivated by their beliefs about the reward structure as being fair or unfair, relative to the inputs. People have a tendency to use subjective judgment to balance the outcomes and inputs in the relationship for comparisons between different individuals. Accordingly :

If

people feel that they are not equally rewarded they either reduce the quantity or quality of work or migrate to some other organization. However, if people perceive that they are rewarded higher, they may be motivated to work, harder. Goal Setting Theory of Edwin Locke :

Instead of giving vague tasks to people, specific and pronounced objectives, help in achieving them faster. As the clearity is high, a goal orientation also avoids any misunderstandings in the work of the employees. The goal setting theory states that when the goals to be achieved are set at a higher standard than in that case employees are motivated to perform better and put in maximum effort. It revolves around the concept of “ Self-efficacy” i. e. individual’s belief that he or she is capable of performing a hard task. Reinforcement Theory :

B. F. Skinner, who propounded the reinforcement theory, holds that by designing the environment properly, individuals can be motivated. Instead of considering internal factors like impressions, feelings, attitudes and other cognitive behavior, individuals are directed by what happens in the environment external to them. Skinner states that work environment should be made suitable to the individuals and that punishments actually leads to frustration and de-motivation. Hence, the only way to motivate is to keep on making positive changes in the external environment of the organization. Vroom’s Valence x Expectancy theory :

The most widely accepted explanations of motivation has been propounded by Victor Vroom. His theory is commonly known as expectancy theory. The theory argues that the strength of a tendency to act in a specific way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual to make this simple, expectancy theory says that an employee can be motivated to perform better when their is a belief that the better performance will lead to good performance appraisal and that this shall result into realization of personal goal in form of some reward.

Therefore an employee is :

Motivation = Valence x Expectancy.
The theory focuses on three things :
Efforts and performance relationship

Performance and reward relationship
Rewards and personal goal relationship
This leads us to a conclusion that :

Designing motivation jobs:
Managers are primarily interested in how to motivate individuals on the job, we need to look at way to design motivating jobs. If we look closely at what an organization is and how my works , we will find that its composed of thousands of tasks. These tasks are combined to form complete jobs. the jobs that people perform in an organization should not evolve by chance. Manager should design jobs deliberately and thoughtfully to reflect the demand of
changing environment , organization ‘ s technology , its employees skill, ability and preferences.: when jobs are design with these thing in mind employees are motivate to work hard. Integration Contemporary theories of motivation:

Many theories are complementary.
Its basic foundation is the expectancy model.

Recommendations :
Recommendation for motivating the employees:
Link reward to performance:
Manager need to make rewards contingent on performance. rewarding factors other than performance will only reinforce those other factors. Important reward such as pay increases and promotion should be given for best performance. Individualize reward:

Because employees have different needs, what act as a reinforce for one may not for another. manager should use their knowledge of employees differences to individuals the rewards they control , such as pay , promotions, recognition and participation.

Ensure that goals are Perceive as attainable:
Regardless of whether goals are actually attainable , employees who see golas as unattainable will reduce their effort they will bi thinking “ why bother”? . manager must be sure, therefore that employees feel confident that increased efforts can lead to achieving performance goals. Recognize individuals differences: