Motivation

Introduction

An individual's intensity, direction and persistence in an effort to attain a goal is called motivation. 

Nature of Motivation

Motivation is a personal and internal feeling: 

• Motivation is a psychological phenomenon which generated within an individual.

Motivation produces goal-directed behaviour: 

• Motivation is a behavioural concept that directs human behaviour towards certain goals.

Motivation is a continuous process: 

• Human needs are unlimited. Therefore, motivation is an ongoing process.

Motivation is complex: 

• Individuals differ in their motivation. Different people seek different things or they work for different reasons.

Motivation can be either positive or negative: 

• Positive motivation implies the use of pay incentives, etc. to satisfy human needs whereas negative motivation emphasizes penalties, e.g., reprimands, the threat of demotion, etc.

Motivation is different from job satisfaction:

• Motivation is the process of inspiring people to work for the goals of the organisation by satisfying their personal goals.
• Job satisfaction is, on the other hand, the feeling of satisfaction from the job.

Process of Motivation

The process begins with a feeling of some need(s)

Needs are several and the same need may lead to different actions (behaviours) in different persons.

The feeling of a need creates tension and a person takes some action to fulfil his need and thereby remove tension.

If the action is successful the need is satisfied and the action is repeated in future.

On the other hand, if the action fails to satisfy the need the person either changes his action or has to abandon his need.

Thus, needs and incentives are the key elements in the process of motivation.

Importance of Motivation

Higher Efficiency: 

• A good motivational system releases the immense latent talent and abilities of employees. It converts the ability of work into a will to work.

Low absenteeism and turnover: 

• Motivation leads to job satisfaction and high morale due to which labour unrest, labour absenteeism and labour turnover are reduced.

Facilitates change: 

• Effective motivation helps to overcome resistance to change and negative attitudes on the part of employees.

Human relations: 

• A high level of motivation results in harmonious relations between employers and employees. Sound industrial relations ensure industrial harmony and peace.

Corporate Image: 

• A company that provides adequate opportunities to its employees for the satisfaction of physical and psychological needs has a better image in the public.

Approaches of Motivation

Cognitive Models

The models of motivation which focus on internal states and mental processes are known as the ‘cognitive model’.

There are two dimensions of cognitive models:

1. Content Theories
2. Process Theories 

Content Theories

These theories try to answer the question: what motivated people?

The focus is on human needs and desires that are internalised and give impetus to individual behaviour. 

• Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory
• ERG Theory
• Herzberg’s Two Factors Theory
• McClelland's Theory of Needs

Process Theories

Process theories of motivation provide an opportunity to understand the thought processes that influence behaviour.

They examine individual behaviour in terms of satisfaction related to perceived

rewards (or lack of rewards) that initiates behaviour. 

• Equity Theory
• Expectancy Theory
• Goal-Setting Theory
• Reinforcement Theory
• Vroom Expectancy Model
• Porter and Lawler Model

While content theories concentrate on ‘what’ motivates a person, process theories concentrate on ‘how’ motivation occurs. 

Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Model

The famous psychologist  Abraham Maslow propounded ‘Need hierarchy theory of motivation’.

• His theory was based on human needs.
• Maslow felt that within every human being, there exists a hierarchy of five needs.

1. Basic Physiological Needs: These needs are related to the survival and maintenance of human life.
2. Safety/Security Needs: These needs provide security and protection from physical and emotional harm.
3. Social and Belongingness Needs: These needs include affection, acceptance, friendship, sense of belongingness, etc.
4. Esteem Needs: Esteem needs refer to those needs satisfaction of which leads to self confidence and prestige.
5. Self-Actualisation Needs: These needs include growth and self￾fulfillment. They are concerned with becoming what a person can become. 

• It helps managers to realise that need level of employees should be identified to provide motivation to them. 
• Maslow’s need hierarchy has application to the lower level workers in a country like India where the basic needs of the workers are not satisfied fully. 

Maslow’s theory focuses on needs as the basis for motivation: It helps managers to realise that the need level of employees should be identified to provide motivation to them.

For example, a manager can use financial incentives (e.g., pay and allowances, bonuses, etc.) to satisfy the basic physiological needs of lower-level employees. But, to satisfy the social and esteem needs of higher-level employees, non-financial incentives (e.g., status, recognition, etc.) play an important role.

Appraisal of Need Hierarchy Model

• The need priority model, as proposed by Maslow, may not universally apply across different cultures.
• Surveys conducted in continental European countries and Japan suggest that managers in these regions do not align with the traditional hierarchy of needs.
• Cultural differences play a significant role in shaping individuals' perceptions of need satisfaction.

For instance, workers in Spain and Belgium felt their esteem needs were better fulfilled than their security and social needs, challenging Maslow's sequence.

• In some contexts, such as lower-level workers in countries like India, Maslow's hierarchy appears more applicable, as basic needs remain unmet.
• The theory highlights that people are driven by unmet needs and that as lower-level needs are satisfied, higher-level needs emerge, reflecting a simplistic view of human motivation. 

Limitations of Need Hierarchy Model

• Every individual may have a different need hierarchy which may not follow the sequence suggested by Maslow.
• It is wrong to presume that only one need is satisfied at one time. A person’s behaviour at any time is mostly guided by a multiplicity of motives. 
• Money can act as a motivator only for physiological and security needs, not for satisfying higher-level needs. 
• Individuals may prioritize self-esteem or creativity over the need for love, reflecting diverse motivations and priorities.
• Satisfaction of needs may not necessarily diminish their motivating force, nor does it always trigger the activation of the next need in Maslow's hierarchy as proposed.

Alderfer’s Existence - Related Growth Model

Clayton Paul Alderfer is an American psychologist who developed Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into a theory of his own.

He recategorized Maslow’s hierarchy of needs into three simpler and broader classes of needs

• Existence (E)
• Relatedness (R)
• Growth (G)

He also found some level of overlapping in the physiological, security and social needs of Maslow’s theory

Also, lines between esteem, social and self actualization are not entirely clear. 

1. Existence needs: These include all forms of physiological and safety needs i.e., Maslow’s first two levels of needs.
2. Relatedness needs: These include all needs that involve relationships with other people we care about.
3. Growth needs: These needs involve persons making creative efforts to achieve their full potential in the existing environment.

Herzberg’s Motivation - Hygiene Model

Herzberg tried to answer the question – “what do people want from their job?”

• According to him, maintenance or hygiene factors are necessary to maintain a reasonable level of satisfaction among employees. These factors do not provide satisfaction to the employees, but their absence will dissatisfy them. Therefore, these are called dissatisfiers.
• Motivational factors are intrinsic part of the job. Any increase in these factor will satisfy the employees and help to improve performance. But a decrease in these factors will not cause dissatisfaction.

Maintenance Factors 

• Company policy and administration 
• Technical supervision 
• Salary 
• Job security 
• Working conditions

Motivating Factors

• Achievement
• Recognition
• Advancement
• Opportunity for growth
• Responsibility

One striking conclusion of Herzberg’s theory is that one cannot achieve higher performance simply by improving wages and working conditions.

Herzberg stressed the job as an intrinsic motivating factor. The key to job satisfaction and high performance lies in job enrichment.

Criticism of Herzberg’s Model

• Herzberg drew conclusions from a limited experiment covering engineers and accounts.
• In Herzberg’s study, the interviewees were asked to report exceptionally good or exceptionally bad moments. This methodology is defective because there is a common bias among human-being to take more credit for good things and put the blame on others for bad things.
• Herzberg gave too much emphasis on job enrichment. But job enrichment is not the only answer. Off-the-job satisfaction of the workers is also very important.
• The theory focuses too much attention on satisfaction rather than performance level.
• The distinction between maintenance factors and motivating factors is not fixed. What is maintenance factors (e.g., pay) for a worker in the United States may very much be a motivating factor for an Indian worker

Comparison between Maslow and Herzberg Model

McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

Prof. Douglas McGregor has developed a theory of motivation based on hypotheses relating to human behavior.

McGregor proposed two distinct views of human beings – one negative, labeled as Theory X and other positive, labeled as Theory Y.

WHERE IS IT APPLICABLE?

Theory X is more applicable to unskilled and uneducated low -  level workers.

Theory Y is more applicable to skilled and educated employees who are mature 

enough and understand the responsibility.

Ouchi’s Theory Z

William Ouchi developed Theory Z after making a comparative study of Japanese and American management practices.

Theory Z suggests that large complex organizations are human system, and their effectiveness depends on the quality of humanism used.

Features

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory

His expectancy theory views motivation as a governing choice.

According to Vroom, people will be motivated to do things to the extent that they expect their certain will help them to achieve the goals.

Vroom’s theory is built around the concepts of Valence, instrumentality and Expectancy.   

These three concepts are explained below:

Valence

Valence means the value an individual attaches to work outcomes such as pay increase, promotion, etc.

• Have preference for an outcome – Valence (positive)
• Do not have preference for an outcome – Valence (negative)

Instrumentality

Instrumentality is the association or correlation between job performance and desired outcome.

• Employees are motivated when they believe performance is instrumental in achieving the desired rewards.

Expectancy

Expectancy means the probability that a particular action will lead to the outcome.

McClelland’s Three Need Model

David C. McClelland gave a model of motivation which is based on three types of needs, namely:

• Need for achievement
• Need for power
• Need for affiliation

These characteristics are as follows

Achievement

• Has a strong need to set and accomplish challenging goals
• Takes calculated risks to accomplish their goals
• Likes to achieve regular feedback on their progress and achievements
• Often likes to work alone

Affiliation

• Wants to belong to the group
• Wants to be liked and will often go along with whether the rest of the group wants to do
• Favors collaboration over competition

Power

• Wants to control and influence others
• Likes to win arguments
• Enjoys competition and winning
• Enjoys status and recognition

McClelland's research revealed that managers generally score higher in the need for achievement.

Porter & Lawler Expectancy Model

The Porter and Lawler theory of motivation is an improvement over Vroom's theory. 

It says that effort is affected by 1. Value given to the reward and 2. Effort-reward probability.

An individual is motivated when the rewards expected are equal to rewards attained on completion of a task. 

The theory proposed two types of reward:

• Intrinsic Reward

Intrinsic rewards are the positive feelings that the individual experiences from completing the task for instance, satisfaction and sense of achievement

• Extrinsic Rewards

Extrinsic rewards are rewards emanating from outside the individual such as bonus, commission and pay increases.

Porter and Lawyer said that motivation is also affected by:

• the individual’s ability to perform the task 
• their perception of the task

Equity Theory

Equity theory of motivation was developed in 1963 by John Adams.

Equity theory assumes that members of an organization experience strong expectation of justice, balance and fairness in treatment by an organization.

When a person feels that he is being treated unfairly by the organization, it can have adverse effects on the person’s motivation 

Two variables are important to study Equity : 1. Input 2. Outcome

Inputs are efforts put by an individual in his job and outcomes are rewards, which the member receives from the organization.

• Inputs and outcomes are compared to find out the state of equity or inequity among the individuals.
• Individuals compare their outcome-input ratio with relevant others.

There are four referent groups people compare themselves with:

1. Self Inside 

• An employee may compare his present position to a different position inside the same organization.

2. Self Outside

• An employee may compare his present situation to a situation or position outside the employee’s organization.

3. Other Inside 

• Comparison with another individual inside the organization

4. Other Outside 

• Comparison with another individual outside the organization

Based on equity theory, employees who perceive inequity will make one of six choices:

• Change Input: The employee may choose to increase or decrease his inputs to the organization.
• Change Outcome: The employee may change his outcome by requesting a salary raise or asking for a bigger office.
• Distort Perception of self: Rather than changing inputs and outcomes, a person may change his perceptions of his own effort
• Distort perception of others: A person can try to restore equity by attempting to change perception of the comparison group.
• Choose a different referent for comparison i.e., find out another person as a comparison.
• Leave the field (quit the job)

These corrective actions bring back the employee to a state of equity and provides him motivation to contribute to the organization.

Reinforcement Theory

Developed by BF Skinner, reinforcement theory argues that behavior of people is largely determined by its consequences.

Managers should try to structure rewards and punishment in such a way that consequences of effective job behavior are positive while consequences of ineffective work behavior are negative or unpleasant.

The focus of this approach is upon changing or modifying behavior of people on the job.

In order to reinforce desirable behavior, 4 strategies can be followed:

Social Learning Theory

Psychologist Albert Bandura developed the social learning theory.

This theory suggests that employees gain substantial information about how to perform by observing and imitating others in the organization.

Social learning theory is grounded by several key assumptions:

• People learn through observation – Learners can acquire new behavior and knowledge by merely observing a model
• Reinforcement and punishment have indirect effects on behavior and learning – People form expectations about the potential consequences of future responses based on how current responses are reinforced or punished
• Mediational processes influence our behavior – Cognitive factors that contribute to whether a behavior is acquired or not
• Learning does not necessarily lead to change – Just because a person learns something does not mean they will have a change in behavior

Goal Setting Theory

Edwin Locke put forward the Goal-setting theory of motivation.

Goal-setting theory is a theory based on the idea that specific and measurable goals is more effective than setting unclear goals.

In addition to setting clear goals, emphasis should also be given on challenging roles.

Self Determination Theory

Self-determination is a theory of motivation developed by  psychologist Edward Deci and Richard Ryan.

SMART Goal Technique

1. Specific: Well-defined, clear and ambiguous
2. Measurable: With specific criteria that measure your progress toward the accomplishment of the goal
3. Achievable: Attainable and impossible to achieve
4. Realistic: Within reach, realistic, and relevant to your life purpose
5. Timely: With a clearly defined timeline, including a starting date and a target date. The purpose is to create urgency.

Job Enrichment vs Job Enlargement

Job enrichment is also called vertical loading. 

• It implies increasing contents of the job, upgrading of responsibility, scope and challenge in work. 
• The purpose is to make the work challenging.

Job enlargement is also called horizontal loading. 

• It attempts to make the job more varied by removing dullness associated with performing repetitive operations. 
• The purpose is to reduce monotony from work.