DEFINING MOTIVATION

Motivation is defined as the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and
persistence of effort toward attaining a goal; we’ll narrow the focus to organizational goals in order to
reflect our singular interest in work-related behavior. The three key elements in our definition are
intensity, direction, and persistence. Intensity is concerned with how hard a person tries. This is the
element most of us focus on when we talk about motivation. However, high intensity is unlikely to
lead to favorable job-performance outcomes unless the effort is channeled in a direction that benefits
the organization. Therefore, we have to consider the quality of effort as well as its intensity. Efforts
that is directed toward, and consistent with, the organization’s goal is the kind of effort that we should
be seeking. Finally, motivation has a persistence dimension. This is a measure of how long a person
can maintain their effort. Motivation individuals stay with a task long enough to achieve their goal.
Motivation is one of the most researched topics. In spite of the facts that managers continue to search
for innovative ways to motivate their employees and that a significant proportion of today’s workers
seem to be unmotivated. They actually know a great deal about how to improve employee motivation.
Motivation is a problem and organizations keep looking for a solution.

EARLY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

Three specific theories were formulated during 1950s, which although heavily attacked and now
questionable in terms of validity, are probably still the best-known explanations for employee
motivation for the following reasons.
 They represent a foundation from which contemporary theories have grown,
 Practicing managers still regularly use these theories and their technology in explaining
employee motivation.

HIERARCHY OF NEEDS THEORY

The most well-known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He hypothesized
that within every human being there exists a hierarchy of five needs. These neds are:
1. Physiological: Includes hunger, thirst, shelter and other bodily needs.
2. Safety: Includes security and protection from physical and emotional harm.
3. Social: Includes affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship.
4. Esteem: Includes internal esteem factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement and
external esteem factors such as status, recognition, and attention.
5. Self-actualization: The drive to become what one is capable of becoming includes growth,
achieving one’s potential, and self-fulfillment.
As each of these needs becomes substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. In terms
of the above diagram, the individual moves up the steps of the hierarchy. Maslow separated the 5
needs into higher and lower orders. Physiological and Safety needs were described as lower order
needs and Social, Esteem, and self-actualization as higher order needs. The higher order needs are
satisfied internally, whereas lower order needs are predominantly satisfied externally.

Self
actualization

Esteem
Social

Safety

Physiological
 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. Unfortunately, however,
research does not generally validate the Theory Maslow provided no empirical substantiation and
several studies that sought to validate the theory found no support for it.

THEORY X AND THEORY Y

Douglas McGregor proposed two distinct views of human beings: one basically negative, labeled
Theory X, and the other basically positive, labeled Theory Y. Under Theory X, the four assumptions
held by managers are:
 Employees inherently dislike work and, whenever possible, will attempt to avoid it.
 Since Employees dislike work, they must be coerced, controlled, or threatened with punishment to
achieve goals.
 Employees will avoid responsibilities and seek formal direction whenever possible.
 Most workers place security above all other factors associated with work and will display little
ambition.

In contrast to these negative views about the nature of human beings, McGregor listed the four
positive assumptions that he called Theory Y:
 Employees can view work as being as natural as rest to play.
 People will exercise self-direction and self-control if they are committed to the objectives.
 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.

Theory X assumes that lower-order needs dominate individuals. Theory Y assumes that higher-order
needs dominate individuals. McGregor himself held to the belief that Theory Y assumptions were
more valid than Theory X. Therefore, he proposed such ideas as participative decision making,
responsible and challenging jobs, and good group relations as approaches that would maximize an
employee’s job motivation.

TWO-FACTOR THEORY
The Two-factor Theory sometimes also called Motivation-Hygiene Theory was proposed by
psychologist Frederick Herzberg. He investigated the question, “What do people want from their job?”
He asked people to describe, in detail, situations in which they felt exceptionally good or bad about
their jobs. From the categorized responses, Herzberg concluded that the replies people gave when they
felt good about their jobs were significantly different from the replies given when they felt bad.
Certain characteristics tend to be consistently related to job satisfaction and others to job
dissatisfaction. Intrinsic factors, such as advancement, recognition, responsibility, and achievement
seem to be related to job satisfaction. Respondents who felt good about their work tended to attribute
these factors to them. On the other hand, dissatisfied respondents tended to cite extrinsic factors, such
as supervision, pay, company policy, and working conditions. The data suggest, said Herzberg, that the
opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction, as was traditionally believed.

According to Herzberg, the factors leading to job satisfaction are separated and distinct from those that
lead to job dissatisfaction. Therefore, managers who seek to eliminate factors that can create job
dissatisfaction may bring about peace but not necessarily motivation. As a result, such characteristics
as company policy and administration and supervision, interpersonal relations, working conditions and
salary have been characterized as hyegine factors. When they are adequate, people will not be
dissatisfied; neither will they be satisfied. If we want to motivate people on their jobs, Herzberg
suggested emphasizing achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility and personal growth.
These are the characteristics that people find intrinsically rewarding.
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION
These theories are developed recently and they represent the current state of the art in explaining
employee motivation.

ERG THEORY
Alderfer’s ERG Theory is basically a modification of Maslow’s Theory of human motivation. Alderfer
amalgamated Maslow’s five levels of need and named them as Existence, Relatedness, and Growth
needs. And this resulted in his theory being named as ERG Theory.

According to him existence needs include all forms of physiological and material desires (i.e.Maslow’s
first two levels). Relatedness includes relationships with other people and covers Maslow’s third level
(social needs) and that part of fourth level (esteem needs) that are derived from other people. Growth
needs like Maslow’s notion of self-actualization are concerned with the desire to be creative and
achieve one’s full potential in the existing environment. Alderfer not only regrouped Maslow’s needs
into three groups but also rejected Maslow’s contention that the five levels of needs are hierarchical.
Alderfer proposed that different types of neds can co-exist faction of a need is blocked the individual
will persist along that path and at the same time move towards more easily satisfied needs.

McCLELLAND’S THEORY OF NEEDS

It was developed by David McClelland and his associates. The theory focuses on three needs:
 Need for achievement (nAch): The drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, to
strive to succeed. 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, in which they can receive rapid feedback on their performance so they can determine
easily whether they are improving or not.
 Need for power (nPow): The need to make others behave in a way that they would not have
behaved otherwise. Individuals high in nPow enjoy being “in charge”, strive for influence over
others, prefer to be placed into competitive and status oriented situations, and tend to be more
concerned with prestige and gaining influence over others.
 Need for affiliation (nAff): the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships. High
affiliation motive strive for friendship, prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones,
and desire relationships that involve a high degree of mutual understanding.

McClelland’s Theory and research is of considerable significance to us. It needs of employees can be
accurately measured organization can improve selection and placement process. This could result in
improved performance because of the fit of need intention and job characteristics.

EXPECTANCY THEORY

One of the most widely accepted explanations of motivations is Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory it
says that an employee will be motivated to exert a high level of effort when he or she believes that
effort will lead to a good performance appraisal; that a good appraisal will lead to organizational
rewards such as a bonus, a salary increase or a promotion; and that the rewards will satisfy the
employee’s personal goals. The Theory, therefore, focuses on three relationships.

 Effort-performance relationship: The probability perceived by the individual that exerting a

given amount of effort will lead to performance.
 Performance-Reward relationship: The degree to which the individual believes that performing
at a particular level will lead to the attainment of a desired outcome.
  Reward-Personal goals relationship: The degree to which organizational rewards satisfy an
individual’s personal goals or needs and the attractiveness of those potential rewards for the
individual.

For major decisions, like accepting or resigning from a job, expectancy theory works well because
people don’t rush into decisions of this nature. They are more prone to take the time to carefully
consider the costs and benefits of all the alternatives. However, expectancy theory is not a very good
explanation for more typical types of work behavior, especially for individuals in lower level jobs,
because such jobs come with considerable limitations imposed by work methods, supervisors, and
company policies. We would conclude, therefore, that expectancy theory’s power in explaining
employee productivity increases when the jobs being performed are more complex and higher in the
organization.

MOTIVATION AND PERFORMANCE

The individual in groups within an organization should share the overall objectives .The goals of
subsystems and objectives of the total system can not be in opposite directions, they should be in the
same direction .The individual goals and the organizational objectives should not be divergent but
should be convergent. Divergent will keep the group or organizational sub optional in performance,
stagnant in results or even pull it down in effectiveness. Convergence only will improve its
performance and impel towards achieving excellence. Broadly speaking, psychologists view
productivity, performance or output of an individual as a result, product of as individual’s ability or
motivation.

In simple equation form, one could express as P=A X M

Where P – Performance
A – Ability
M – Motivation

If either A or M equals zero, the performance or productivity will be zero, especially at the minimal or
low values of either A or M. A rough multiplicative relationship between A and M is generally
accepted as reflecting a true state of affairs. If an individual has all the abilities that are needed to do a
job but is the least inclined or motivated to do so, one can, reasonably expect the individual to perform
at a very low level. When one speaks about ability as component contributing to performance it
includes such characteristics as intelligence, skill, learning, education, know how, experience etc. This
is called the “can do” component of performance. The motivation factor referred to as the “will do”
component and under it, one can include needs, desires, ambition, interest, dedication, involvement,
etc. All of us are very much aware, sometimes painfully, so that many individuals, especially in India,
are capable of performing the tasks or jobs entrusted to them but do not care to perform i.e., they lack
an adequate “WILL DO” component. It is common experience to have to wait for several months to
get one’s requirements fulfilled. It is not that the individuals working in these organizations are not
capable or do not have the ability to effectively deal with, or accomplish the task expeditiously. Thus,
the problem is not that of abilities but that of motivation.