CHAPTER IV BASIC MOTIVATION CONCEPTS What is motivation? Early theories of motivation Contemporary theories of motivation.

The term motivation represents the forces acting on or within a person that cause the person to behave in a specific goal directed manner. In organizational behavior, the term motivation is defined as willingness to exert high levels of effort toward organizational goals. In other words, motivation is the willingness to do something and is conditioned by this actions ability to satisfy some need for the individual. A need means physiological or psychological deficiency that makes certain outcomes appear attractive. The motivation process is shown below:

An unsatisfied need creates tension, which stimulates drives within the individual. These drives generate a search to find particular goal that, if attained, will satisfy the need and lead to the reduction of tension. Motivated employees are in a state of tension. In order to relieve this tension, they engage in activity. The greater the tension, the more activity will be needed to bring about relief. Therefore, when we see employees working hard at some activity, we can conclude they are driven by a desire to achieve some goal they value. Essentials of Motivation According to motivational principle, an individuals performance is a function of both ability and motivation. Mathematically, we may state this principle as: Performance = f (ability X motivation) According to this principle, without ability a person cannot work successfully. Ability is the persons talent for performing specific tasks. This talent might include intellectual competencies, (such as verbal, abstract, and spatial skills) and manual competencies (such as

physical strength and dexterity). How ever, ability alone does not ensure a high level of performance. The person must also want to achieve that level. THEORIES OF MOTIVATION EARLY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION During 1950s, three specific theories of motivation were formulated. These are the hierarchy of needs theory, theory X and theory Y, and the two factor theory. These theories are relevant at present because: 1. They represent a foundation from which contemporary theories have grown, and 2. Practicing managers regularly use these theories and their terminology in explaining employee motivation. Need Hierarchy theory The most widely accepted theory of motivation is the needs hierarchy theory of Abraham Maslow. Maslow hypothesized that within every human being there exists a hierarchy of five needs. These needs are:

needs.

Physiological needs: Include hunger, thirst, shelter, sex, and other bodily

harm.

Safety needs: Include security and protection from physical and emotional

Social needs: Include affection, a sense of belonging, acceptance, and

friendship.

Esteem Needs: Include internal factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and

achievement and external factors such as status, recognition, and attention.

Self-actualization need: The drive to become what one is capable of

becoming; includes growth, achieving ones potential, and self-fulfillment. As each of these needs becomes substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. The theory says that a substantially satisfied need no longer motivates. Maslow separated the five needs into higher and lower orders. Physiological and safety needs were described as lower order; social, esteem and self-actualization was categorized as higher-order needs. The difference between these two category is that higher-order needs are

satisfied internally, whereas lower-order needs are predominantly satisfied externally (wages, union contracts, and tenure). According to Maslow, if managers want to motivate employees, they need to understand what level of the hierarchy that employees are currently on and focus on satisfying those needs at or above that level.

Theory X and Theory Y (Douglas McGregor) Douglas McGregor proposed two different motivational theories. Managers tend to believe one or the other and treat their employees accordingly. Theory X states that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike responsibility and try to avoid work, and they must be coerced to perform. Most workers lack ambition and value job security more than anything else. The four assumptions of this theory held by managers are: 1. Employees inherently dislike work and whenever possible, will attempt to avoid it. 2. Since employees dislike work, they must be coerced, controlled or threatened

with punishment to achieve goals. 3. possible. 4. Most workers place security above, all other factors associated with work and Employees will avoid responsibilities and seek formal direction whenever

will display little ambition. Theory Y is the assumption that employees like work, are creative, self-motivated, and seek responsibility, and can exercise self-direction. The four assumptions of theory Y are the following. 1. 2. Employees can view work as being as natural as rest or play. People will exercise self-direction and self-control if they are committed to the

objectives. 3. 4. The average person can learn to accept, even seek responsibility. The ability to make innovative decisions is widely dispersed throughout the

population and is not necessarily the sole province of those in management positions. The motivational implications of McGregors theory are best expressed in Maslows theory. Theory X assumes that lower order needs dominate individuals. Theory Y assumes that higher order needs dominate individuals. McGregor has the belief that the theory Y

assumptions were more valid than theory X. Therefore, he proposed such ideas as participation in decision making, responsible and challenging jobs, and good group relations as approaches that would maximize an employees job motivation.

III. Two-factor Theory of Frederick Herzberg (Motivation-Hygiene Theory)

Herzberg states that there are two different categories of needs:

a. b.

Motivators (Intrinsic Factors) and Hygiene maintenance factors (Extrinsic Factors)

a) Motivators: The first set of factors includes the work itself, promotional opportunities, opportunities for personal growth, recognition, responsibility and achievement. These factors are related to job satisfaction. These positive feelings, in turn reflect the individuals experiences of achievement, recognition, and responsibility. b) Hygiene Factors: Hygiene factors include quality of supervision, pay, company policies, working conditions, interpersonal relationships, and job security. These extrinsic factors serve as rewards for high performance only if the organization recognizes high performance.

According to Herzberg, job satisfaction and dissatisfaction do not exist on the same continuum, but on dual scales. In other words, certain things, which Herzberg called hygiene

factors, such as pay, supervision, company policies, working conditions, job security, and physical work environment, could cause a person to become unhappy with their job. Motivating factors, such as promotional opportunities, opportunities for personal growth, recognition, responsibility, and achievement on the other hand, can increase job satisfaction. CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION The contemporary theories that explain employee motivation are: 1. Mc Clellands theory of needs 2. Goal setting theory 3. Reinforcement theory 4. Job design theory a. Job characteristics model b. Social Information Processing model 5. Equity theory 6. Expectancy theory I. McClellands Theory of Needs: According to McClelland, there are three motives or needs in workplace: achievement, power, and affiliation. a) Need for Achievement (nAch): The drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, to strive to succeed. b) Need for Power (nPow): The need to control or influence the behavior of others. c) Need for Affiliation (nAff): The desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships. Some people have a compelling drive to succeed, but they are striving for personal achievement rather than the rewards of success. They have the desire to do something better or more efficiently than it has been done before. This drive is need for achievement. McClelland found that high achievers differentiate themselves from others by their desire to do things better. They seek situations in which they can attain personal responsibility for finding solutions to problems, receive rapid and unambiguous feedback on their performance, and set moderately challenging goals. They prefer working at a challenging problem and accepting the personal responsibility for success or failure rater than leaving the outcome to chance or the actions of others. They like to set realistic but difficult goals that require stretching themselves a little. When there is an approximately equal chance of success or

failure, there is a optimal opportunity to experience feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction from their efforts. The need for power is the desire to have an impact, to be influential, and to control others. Individuals high in nPow enjoy being in charge, strive for influence over others, prefer competitive and status-oriented situations, and tend to be more concerned with gaining prestige and influence over others than with effective performance. Individuals high in nAff strive for friendship, prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones, and desire relationships involving a high degree of mutual understanding. Studies based on the relationship between achievement need and job performance, the following predictions can be made. 1. Individuals with a high need to achieve prefer job situations with personal responsibility, feedback, and an intermediate degree of risk. 2. A high need to achieve does not necessarily lead to being a good manager, especially in large organizations. People with a high achievement need are interested in how well they do personally and not in influencing others to do well. (High nAch sales people do not necessarily make good sales managers, and the good general manager in a large organization does not typically have a high need to achieve). 3. The needs for affiliation and power tend to be closely related to managerial success. The best managers are high in their need for power and low in their need for affiliation. Employees have been successfully trained to stimulate their achievement need. If the job calls for a high achiever, management can select a person with a high nAch or develop its own candidate through achievement training. II. Goal Setting Theory: Edwin Locke proposed that intentions to work toward a goal are a major source of work motivation. Specific goals lead to increased performance; that difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance than do easy goals; and that feedback leads to higher performance than does no feedback. When employees are given the opportunity to participate in the setting of their own goals, there may be an increased acceptance of the goal itself as a desirable one to work toward. People who participate in goal setting are more likely to accept even a difficult goal than one that s arbitrarily assigned to them, because individuals are more committed to choices in which they have a voice.

In addition to these factors, two others factors have been found to influence the goal performance relationship: goal commitment and adequate self-efficacy. Goal setting theory presupposes that an individual is committed to the goal. This occurs when goals are made public, when the individual has an internal locus of control, and when the goals are self-set rather than assigned. Self efficacy refers to an individuals belief that he is capable of performing a task. The higher your self-efficacy, the more confidence you have in your ability to succeed in a task. III. Reinforcement Theory: According to this theory, reinforcement conditions behavior. Reinforcement theorists see behavior as being environmentally caused. They believe that behaviors that are followed by positive outcomes are likely to be repeated. Researchers believe that the behaviors one engage in at work and the amount of effort one allocate to each task are affected by the consequences that follow from ones behavior. IV. Job Design Theory: According to this theory, the way the elements in a job are organized can increase or decrease effort. These elements are explained below: a. The job characteristics model, and b. Social information-processing model. a. Job characteristics model (JCM): The job characteristics model of Hackman and Oldham proposes that any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions.

1. Skill variety: The degree to which the job requires a variety of different activities so
the worker can use different skills and talent.

2. Task Identity: The degree to which the job requires completion of a whole and
identifiable piece of work.

3. Task significance: The degree to which the job has a substantial impact on the
lives or work of other people.

4. Autonomy: The degree to which the job provides substantial freedom,

independence, and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out.

5. Feedback: The degree to which the individual obtaining direct and clear
information about the effectiveness of his performance.

The core dimensions can be combined into a single predictive index, called the motivating potential score (MPS). Its computation is as follows:

b. Social Information Processing Model (SIP Model): The SIP model argues that employees adopt attitudes and behavior towards their job in response to the social cues provided by others with whom they have contact. These others can be co-workers, supervisors, friends, family members or customers. The theory states that managers should give as more attention to employees perceptions of their jobs as to the actual characteristics of those jobs. 5. Equity theory (Stacy Adams): According to this theory, individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes with those of others and then respond so as to eliminate any inequities. The theory says that employees weigh what they put into a job situation (input) against what they get from it (outcome) and then compare their input-outcome ratio with the inputoutcome ratio of relevant others. If they perceive their ratio to be equal to that of the relevant others with whom they compare themselves, a state of equity is said to exist. They feel that their situation is fair, that justice prevails. If the ratios are unequal, inequity exists; that is, the employees tend to view themselves as under rewarded or over rewarded. When inequities occur, employees will attempt to correct them.

The referent against which people choose to compare themselves is an important variable in equity theory. The three referent categories have been classified as other, system, and self. The other category includes other individuals with similar jobs in the same organization and also includes friends, neighbors, or professional associates. On the basis of information that employees receive through word of mouth, newspapers, and magazines, on issues such as executive salaries or a recent union contract, employees can compare their pay with that of others. The system category considers organizational pay policies and procedures as well as the administration of this system. It considers organization-wide pay policies, both implied and explicit. Precedents set by the organization in terms of allocation of pay would be a major determinant in this category. The self category refers to input-outcome ratios that are unique to the individual. This category is influenced by criteria such as past jobs or family commitments. Equity theory purports that when employees envision an inequity, they may make one or more of five choices. 1. Distort either their own or others inputs of outcomes. 2. Behave in some way so as to induce others to change their inputs or outcomes. 3. Behave in some way so as to change their own inputs or outcomes. 4. Choose a different comparison referent.

5. Quit their job.

Equity theory recognizes that individuals are not only concerned with the rewards that they receive for their efforts, but also with the relationship of their rewards with the rewards received by others. They make judgements of equity or inequity between their input and outcomes and the inputs and outcomes of others. Based on ones inputs, such as effort, experience, education and competence, one compares outcomes such as salary levels, raises, recognition, and other factors. When people perceive an imbalance in their outcome input ratio relative to others, tension is created. This tension provides the basis for motivation, as people strive for what they perceive as equity and fairness. The theory established four propositions relating to inequitable pay:

1.

Given payment by time (e.g. salaried employees), over rewarded employees will produce more than equitably paid employees.

2.

Given payment by quantity of production (e.g., employees working in piece rate basis), over rewarded employees swill produce fewer but higher quality units than equitably paid employees.

3.

Given payment by time, under rewarded employees will produce less or a poorer quality of output.

4.

Given payment by quantity of production, under rewarded employees will a produce a large number of low quality units in comparison with equitably paid employees.

Employee motivation is influenced by relative reward as well as by absolute rewards. When employees perceive inequity, they will act to correct the situation. The result might be lower or higher productivity, improved or reduced quality of output, increased absenteeism, or voluntary resignation.

VI. VICTOR VROOMs EXPECTANCY THEORY This theory explains motivation in terms of the expectations (expectancies) that people have about their ability to perform effectively on the job and about the kinds of rewards they expect to obtain, if they do perform effectively. It includes three variables or relationships.

1.
needs of the individual.

Attractiveness: the importance the individual places on the

potential outcome or reward that can be achieved on the job. This considers the unsatisfied

2. Performance-reward linkage: the degree to which the individual believes that

performing at a particular level will lead to the attainment of a desired outcome.

3. Effort-performance linkage: the probability perceived by the individual that

exerting a given amount of effort will lead to performance. The simplified expectancy theory is given below:

According to this theory, the strength of a persons motivation to perform (effort) depends on how strongly he believes that he can achieve attempted tasks.

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The key to expectancy theory is the understanding of an individuals goals and the linkage between effort and performance, between performance and rewards, and finally, between the rewards and individual goal satisfaction.

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