Motivation: Concepts & Application

Madiha Khalid

Motivation

• The processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.– Intensity: How hard a person tries.– Direction: Quality of effort.– Persistence: How long a person can maintain

effort.

Work Motivation (example)

Early Theories of Motivation

• Hierarchy of Needs Theory: A hierarchy of five needs – physiological, safety, social, esteem and self actualization, as each need is satisfied, the next need becomes dominant.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Alderfer’s ERG Needs Theory

• A theory that groups needs into three groups: existence, relatedness and growth.

Theory X & Theory Y

• Theory X: The assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike responsibility and must be coerced to perform.

• Theory Y: The assumption that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility and can exercise self direction.

Two-Factor Theory• Relates intrinsic factors to job satisfaction and

associates extrinsic factors with dissatisfaction. Also called motivation hygiene theory.

McClelland’s Theory of Needs

• A theory which states that there are three needs that help explain motivation: need for achievement, affiliation and power.

Contemporary Theories of Motivation

• Cognitive Evaluation Theory: Allocating extrinsic rewards for behavior that had been previously intrinsically rewarding tends to decrease the overall level of motivation.

• Self-Concordance: The degree to which a person’s reasons for pursuing a goal is consistent with the person’s interests and core values

Goal Setting Theory

• Specific and difficult goals, with feedback, lead of higher performance.

• Management by Objectives (MBO): A program that encompasses specific goals, participatively set, for an explicit time period, with feedback on goal progress.

Self-Efficacy Theory (AKA Social Learning Theory)

• An individual’s belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.

‘Goal setting theory & self-efficacy theory complement each other’

Pygmalion Effect: Self efficacy is increased by communicating to a person’s supervisor.

Galatea Effect: High performance expectations are communicated directly to an employee.

Four Ways Self-Efficacy can be increased

• Enactive Mastery• Vicarious Modeling• Verbal Persuasion• Arousal

Reinforcement Theory

• Behavior is a function of consequences.

Equity Theory

• Individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes with those of others and then respond to eliminate any inequities.

• Organizational Justice: An overall perception of what is fair in the workplace, composed of distributive, procedural and interactional justice.

• Distributive Justice: Perceived fairness of the amount and allocation of rewards among individuals.

Equity Theory (cont…)

• Procedural Justice: The perceived fairness of the process used to determine the distribution of rewards.

• Interactional Justice: The perceived degree to which an individual is treated with dignity, concern, and respect.

Expectancy Theory

• Strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of the outcome to the individual.

Expectancy Theory (cont…)

Assignment # 1Introduction: As emphasized throughout this chapter, people have a wide array of needs, and

organizations may attempt to help meet these needs with numerous kinds of rewards. This exercise will help you better understand the kinds of rewards and other incentives that might be available for use by an organization.

Internet Assignment: Using a search engine, locate web sites on the Internet for words and phrases such as: incentives, rewards, bonuses, and employee incentives. From among the sites you find, pick out a small number (i.e., 3-5) that appear to be for firms that are trying to sell or otherwise promote rewards and incentives that they will supply. You might also search for information on the Incentive Federation, which represents incentive providers.

Follow-up: Using the web site information you have found, make a list of the five most unusual or unique incentives that you identified. Finally, respond to the following instructions and questions: Relate each incentive to one or more employee needs.

Evaluate the likely effectiveness of each incentive. What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of each of the incentives? Did learning about any of these incentives trigger ideas for other incentives that you had not thought of before?