Evaluation and Explanation of Theories on Motivation

Motivation is the urge to achieve goals, the drive to excel. Motivation is a process that arouses, sustains and regulates behaviour towards a specific goal. Many theorists’ try to explain motivation in different way. Like according to Huzczynski and Buchanan, ”Motivation is a decision-making process through which the individual choose desired outcomes and sets in motion the behaviour appropriate to acquiring them.” In other words motivation is a kind of internal energy which drives a person to do something in order to achieve something. Motivation is influenced by, values, beliefs, attitudes, needs and goals.

There are two types of motivation. One is intrinsic motivation and the other is extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation are kind of motivation that come naturally or people do from their own interest without any external pressure. They are therefore psychological rather than material and relate to the concept of job satisfaction. Intrinsic motivation include the satisfaction that comes from completing a piece of work, the status that certain jobs convey and the feeling of achievement that comes from doing a difficult job well.

On the other hand, Extrinsic motivation are kind of motivation that comes outside of the individual. Common extrinsic motivations are reward like money and grade, threats of punishment etc. For example, cheering from crowd to a player to win something is extrinsic motivation.

Many theories try to explain motivation and why and how people can be motivated. These theories can be classified in two categories: 1. Content theories and 2. Process theories.

Content theories is about ”what are the things that motivate people??”. It suggests that the best way to motivate an employee is to find out what his/her needs are and offer him/her rewards that will satisfy those needs. Maslow’s ”hierarchy of needs” and Herzberg’s ”two-factor theory” are two of the most important theories of these kinds.

On the other hand, Process theories is about ”How can people be motivated”. These theories explore the process through which outcomes become desirable and are pursued by individuals. This approach assumes that people are able to select their goals and choose the paths towards them, by a conscious or unconscious process of calculation. Expectancy theory and McGregor’s theory X and theory Y are these types of theory.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Abraham Maslow described five innate human needs. And put forward certain propositions about the motivating power of each need.

self – actualisation

Esteem needs

Love/social needs

Safety needs

Physciological needs

It can be summarized as follows:

Human beings have wants and desires which influence their behaviour. Only unsatisfied needs influence behaviour, satisfied needs don’t.

An Individual’s needs can be arranged in hierarchy according to their importance from basic to complex. Each level of need is dominant until satisfied.

The person advances to the next level of needs only after the lower level need is satisfied.

A need which has been satisfied no longer motivates an individual’s behaviour

The need for self-actualization can rarely be satisfied.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory have some major limitation:

An individual’s behaviour may be in response to several needs, and the same need may cause different behaviour in different individuals, so it is difficult to use the model to explain or predict individual’s behaviour in response to rewards.

The hierarchy ignores the concept of deferred gratification and altruistic behaviour (by which people sacrifice their own needs for others)

Empirical verification of the hierarchy is hard to come by.

Research has revealed that the hierarchy reflects UK and US cultural values, which may not transfer to other context.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory:

Herzberg’s identified two basic need systems: the need to avoid unpleasantness and the need for personal growth. He suggested factors which could be offered by organizations to satisfy both types of need are hygiene and motivator factors.

According to this theory, the need to avoid unpleasantness is satisfied through hygiene factors. Hygiene factors are to do with the environment and condition of work including: company policy and administration, salary, the quality of supervision, interpersonal relation, working condition and job security. If inadequate, hygiene factors cause dissatisfaction with work.

The need for personal growth is satisfied by motivator factors. These activities create job satisfaction and are effective in motivating an individual to superior performance and effort. These factors are connected to the work itself, including: status, advancement, recognition, responsibility, challenging work, a sense of achievement, growth in the job. A lack of motivator factors will encourage employees to concentrate on the hygiene factors.

Major limitation of this theory is it was based on inadequately small sample size and it has a limited cultural context.

The application of these theories can be found in occupational field such as information systems and in studies of user satisfaction.

Process theories of motivation:

Vroom’s expectancy theory:

Expectancy theory basically states that the strength of an individual’s motivation to do something will depend on the extent which he expects the results of his efforts to contribute to his personal needs or goals.

For example, an employee may have a high expectation that increased productivity will result in promotion, but if he is negative towards the idea of promotion (because he dislike responsibility) he will not be motivated to increase his productivity. Like in the same way, if promotion is very important to him- but he does not believe higher productivity will get him promoted (because he has been passed over before, perhaps) his motivation will become low. That simply means that an individual should be rewarded with what he or she perceives as important rather than what the manager’s perceives.

McGregor: Theory X and Theory Y

Douglas McGregor suggested that managers tented to behave as though they subscribed to one of two sets of assumptions about people at work: Theory X and Theory Y.

Theory X suggests that most people dislike work and responsibility and will avoid both if possible. Because of this, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed and/or threatened with punishment to get them to man adequate effort.

Theory Y suggests that physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest. People value work as a source of satisfaction and welcome responsibility. They can achieve objectives by exercising self direction and self control.

So, why motivation is so important?

One of the main importance’s of motivation is to increase individual’s morale. For example, if a sports team is constantly losing their matches then this will have a negative effect on the morale of the whole team as no one likes to lose. Besides, this loss can affect the behaviour of the individual. Therefore, the manager of the team is responsible for motivating his players to help them stay focused on future matches. And need to develop their confidence. On this basis, motivation is important because it can help a person to forget about his past and help him to move on.

So, what motivate people or how can people be motivated?

This is a common question arise. People can be motivated by many means, mainly money such as salary, reward, incentives and non-monetary like threat, reorganisation etc

Although ”money” is considered as a best motivator for, however, sometimes just working for salary is not enough for employee to stay at an organization. Again, what motivate one person may not motivate other

Interestingly neither Herzberg nor Maslow cites money as a significant motivator. According to Maslow money is a lower level incentive. It has the motivational impact on staffs which lasts for a short period. At a higher level of hierarchy, praise, respect, reorganisation, empowerment and a sense of belonging are far more powerful motivator than money. Yet organizations persist using financial incentives as their chief motivational tools. Furthermore, research shows that manual workers are more likely to be motivated by money than are more professional or managerial groups.

There is threat and opportunity in most of the average work place. Motivation by threat is not an effective strategy, and naturally staffs are more attracted to the opportunity side of motivation than the threat side.

Other theories which expended those of Maslow and Herzberg like vroom’s expectancy theory express cultural differences and the fact that individuals tend to be motivated by different factors at different time.

According to the ”system of scientific management” developed by Fredric Winslow Taylor, a workers motivation is completely determined by pay, and therefore management don’t need to consider psychological or social accepts of work. On the other hand, David McClelland believed that worker could not motivated only by the need for money, infect, extrinsic motivation could eliminate intrinsic motivation such as achievement motivation. For McClelland, satisfaction sits in line with a person’s life with their fundamental motivations. Another theorist, Elton Mayo found that the social contacts a worker has at workplace are very important because boredom and repetition of tasks could lead to reduced motivation. Mayo believed that, workers could be motivated by recognising their social needs and making them feel important. As a result, employees were given freedom to make decision on the job and greater attention was paid to informal work groups.