CHAPTER 16: MOTIVATION

WHAT IS MOTIVATION?
Motivation
Refers to the process by which a persons efforts are energized, directed, and
sustained toward attaining goal
Motivation has three elements:
1 Energy
It is the measure of intensity, drive, and vigor
The quality of effort must be considered as well as its intensity
2 Direction
High levels of effort lead to favorable job performance if the effort is channeled in a
direction that benefits the organization
3 Persistence
Employees need to persist in putting forth effort to achieve organization goals

EARLY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

Although more valid explanations of motivation have been developed, these early
theories are important because they represent the foundation from which contemporary
motivation theories were developed and because many practicing managers still use them.
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs Theory
This is the best-known theory motivation. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who proposed
that within every person is a hierarchy of five needs:
1 Physiological needs a persons basic needs
2 Safety needs a persons need for security and protection from physical and emotional
harm, as well as assurance that physical needs will continue to be met
3 Social needs a persons needs for affection, belongingness, acceptance, and
friendship
4 Esteem needs a persons needs for internal esteem factors such as self-respect
5 Self-actualization needs a persons need for growth, achieving ones potential, and
self-fulfillment; need to become what he or she is capable of becoming
Physiological and safety needs lower-order needs; predominantly satisfied externally
Social, esteem and self-actualization higher-order needs; predominantly satisfied internally
Maslow argued that each level in the needs hierarchy must be substantially satisfied before the
next need becomes dominant. An individual moves up the needs hierarchy from one level to
another. This theory also says that once a need is substantially satisfied, an individual is no
longer motivated to satisfy that need.
SelfActualizat
ion

Esteem
Social
Safety

 McGregors Theory X and Theory

Y
Physiological
Two Assumptions about Human Nature by Douglas McGregor:
1. Theory X is a negative view of people that assumes workers have little ambition,
dislike work, want to avoid responsibility, and need to be closely controlled to work
effectively
2. Theory Y is a positive view that assumes employees enjoy work, seek out and
accept responsibility, and exercise self-direction
Unfortunately, no evidence confirms that either set of assumptions is valid or that being a
Theory Y manager is the only way to motivate employees.

Herzbergs Two-Factor Theory

Frederick Herzbergs two-factor theory (also called motivation-hygiene theory)
proposes:
Intrinsic factors, which are also called motivators, are related to jobs satisfaction.
When people felt good about their work, they tended to cite intrinsic factors arising
from the job itself such as, achievement, recognition, and responsibility, while

Extrinsic factors that are associated with jobs dissatisfaction are also called
hygiene factors. When they were dissatisfied, they tended to cite extrinsic factors
arising from the job context such as company policy and administration, supervision,
interpersonal relationships, and working conditions.

Herzberg believed that the data suggested that the opposite of satisfaction was not
dissatisfaction, as traditionally had been believed. Removing dissatisfying characteristics from a
job would not necessarily make that job more satisfying (or motivating). Again, Herzberg
believed that the factors that led to job satisfaction were separate and distinct from those that
led to job dissatisfaction. Therefore, managers who sought to eliminate factors that created job
dissatisfaction could keep people from being dissatisfied but not necessarily motivate them.

Three-Needs Theory
David McClelland and his associates proposed the three-needs theory, which says
there are three acquired (not innate) needs that are major motives work. These three needs are:
1 Need for Achievement (nAch) the drive to succeed and excel in relation to a set of
standards. (among the three this need has been researched the most)
2 Need for Power (nPow) the need to make others behave in a way that they would not
have behaved otherwise.
3 Need for Affiliation (nAff) the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships.
People with a high need for achievement are striving for personal achievement rather
than for trappings and rewards of success. They have the desire to do something better or
more efficiently than its been before. High achievers focus on their own accomplishments,
while good managers emphasize helping others accomplish their goals. McCelland showed
that employees can be trained to stimulate their achievement need by being in situations where
they have personal responsibility, feedback, and moderate risks.
The other two needs in this theory havent been researched as extensively as the need
for achievement. However, we do know that the best managers tend to be high in the need of
power and low in the need for affiliation.

These three needs can be measured by using a projective test, known as the Thematic
Apperception Test or TAT, in which respondent react to a set of pictures.
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION
1. Goal Setting Theory
The proposition that specific goals increase performance and difficult goals, when
accepted, result in higher performance than do easy goals.
This theory tells us:
Working toward a goal is major source of job motivation. Specific and challenging
are superior motivating forces.

Goal-setting theory deals with people in general, whereas the conclusions on

achievement motivation are based on people who have a high nAch.

The conclusions of goal-setting theory apply to those who accept and are
committed to the goals. Difficult goals will lead to higher performance only if they
are accepted.

Employees do not always try harder if they have the opportunity to participate in
the setting of goals. In some cases, participatively set goals elicit superior
performance; in other cases, individuals performed best when their manager
assigned goals. However, participation is probably preferable to assigning goals
when employees might resist accepting difficult challenges.

Contingences That Influence Goal-Performance Relationship

a. Feedback helps identify discrepancies between what the people have done
and what they want to do. Self-generated feedback (where employees monitors
his/her own progress) has been shown to be more powerful motivator than
feedback coming from someone else.
b. Goal commitment
c. Adequate Self-efficacy self-efficacy refers to an individuals belief that he/she
is capable of performing a task
d. National culture the value of goal setting depends on the national culture.
2. Reinforcement Theory
This theory says that behavior is a function of its own consequences. It ignores factors
such as goals, expectations, and needs. Instead, it focuses solely on what happens to a
person when he/she does something.
Reinforcers consequences that immediately follow a behavior and increase
the probability that the behavior will be repeated.

Designing Motivating Jobs

An organization is composed of thousands of tasks and these tasks are integrated into jobs.
Because managers want to motivate individuals on the job, it is important to look at ways to
design motivating jobs.

Job Design refers to the way tasks are combined to form complete jobs.
Job Enlargement it involves horizontally expanding a job through increasing job
scope.
- Job Scope the number of different tasks required in a job and the frequency
with which these tasks are repeated.

Job Enrichment the vertical expansion of a job by adding planning and evaluating
responsibilities; increases job depth.
- Job Depth the degree of control employees have over their work.
Job Characteristics Model a framework for analyzing and designing jobs that
identifies five primary core job dimensions, their interrelationships, and their impact on
outcomes
These five core job dimensions are:
1. Skill variety- the degree to which a job requires a variety of activities so that an
employee can use a number of different skills and talents
2. Task identity- the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and
identifiable piece of work
3. Task significance- the degree to which a job has a substantial impact on the lives
or work of other people
4. Autonomy- the degree to which a job provides substantial freedom,
independence, and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and
determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out
5. Feedback- the degree to which doing work activities required by a job results in an
individual obtaining direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his or
her performance

Guidance to Managers for Job Design

1. Combine tasks- put fragmented tasks back together to form a new, larger work
module (job enlargement) to increase skill variety and task identity
2. Create natural work units- design tasks that form and identifiable and meaningful
whole to increase employee ownership of the work. Encourage employees to
view their work as meaningful and important rather than as irrelevant and boring
3. Establish client (external or internal) relationships- whenever possible,
establish direct relationships between workers and their clients to increase skill
variety, autonomy, and feedback
4. Expand jobs vertically- vertical expansion gives employees responsibilities and
controls that were formerly reserved for managers, which can increase employee
autonomy
5. Open feedback channels- direct feedback lets employees know how well theyre
performing their jobs and whether their performance is improving or not
Redesigning Job Design Approaches
1. Relational perspective of work design- first perspective; focuses on how
peoples tasks and jobs are increasingly based on social relationships
2. Proactive perspective of work design- second perspective; says that employees
are taking initiative to change how their work is performed
ii. High involvement work practices- where stream of research thats
relevant to proactive work design is on; work practices that designed to
elicit greater input or involvement

Equity Theory
Equity is related to the concept of fairness and equitable treatment compared with g
Equity theory, developed by J. Stacey Adams, proposes that an employee compares
his or her jobs input-outcomes ratio with that of relevant others and then corrects any inequity.
When inequities occur, employees tend to do something about it. The result might be:

a.
b.
c.
d.

lower or higher productivity;

improved or reduced quality of output
increased absenteeism
voluntary resignation

Referents, are the persons, systems, or selves against which individuals compare themselves
to assess equity.
a. persons category - other individuals with similar jobs, friends, neighbors, professional
associates
b. system category - organizational pay policies, procedures, allocation
c. self-category - inputs-outcomes ratios that are unique to the individual
Distributive justice is the perceived fairness of the amount and allocation of rewards among
individuals.
Procedural justice is the perceived fairness of the process used to determine the distribution of
rewards.

Expectancy Theory
Expectancy theory, developed by Victor Vroom, is a theory that an individual tends to
act in a certain way based on the expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome
and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual.
It includes three variables or relationships:
1. Expectancy or effort-performance linkage. It is the probability perceived by the
individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to a certain level of performance.
2. Instrumentality or performance-reward linkage. It is the degree to which the individual
believes that performing at a particular level is instrumental in attaining the desired
outcome.
3. Valence or attractiveness of reward. It is the importance that the individual places on
the potential outcome or reward that can be achieved on the job. It considers both the
goals and needs of the individual.

Integrating Contemporary Theories of Motivation

CURRENT ISSUES IN MOTIVATION

Understanding and predicting employee motivation is one of the most popular areas in
management research. Nonetheless, even the contemporary theories of employee motivation
are influenced by some significant workplace issuesmotivating in tough economic
circumstances, managing cross-cultural challenges, motivating unique groups of workers, and
designing appropriate rewards programs. Managers must cope with 4 current motivation issues,
to wit:

Motivating in Tough Economic Circumstances

Managers must look for creative ways to keep employees efforts energized, directed,
and sustained toward achieving goals.

Managing Cross-Cultural Motivational Challenges

Most current innovation theories were developed in the U.S. by Americans and about
Americans strong emphasis on individualism and achievement perhaps being the most blatant
pro-American characteristic.
Maslows Need Hierarchy argues that people start at the physiological level and then
move progressively up the hierarchy in order.
Achievement Need the view that a high achievement need acts as an internal
motivator presupposes 2 cultural characteristics:
1. A willingness to accept a moderate degree of risk (which excludes countries with
strong uncertainty avoidance characteristics)
2. A concern with performance (which applies almost singularly to countries with strong
achievement characteristics)
Equity Theory has a relatively strong following in the U.S., which is not surprising
given that U.S.-style reward systems are based on the assumption that workers are
highly sensitive to equity in reward allocations.

Another research study of more than 50,000 employees around the world examined 2
cultural characteristics from the GLOBE framework Individualism and Masculinity.
Individual Initiative, Individual Freedom, and Individual Achievement are highly
valued in individualistic cultures such as U.S. and Canada.
In more collective cultures such as Iran, Peru, and China, however, employees may be
less interested in receiving individual praise but place a greater emphasis on harmony,
belonging, and consensus.
They also found that in masculine (achievement/assertive) cultures such as Japan and
Slovakia, the focus is on material success.
In more feminine (nurturing) cultures such as Sweden and the Netherlands, smaller
wage gaps among employees are common, and they are likely to have extensive
quality-of-life benefits.
Despite these cross-cultural differences in motivation, some cross-cultural consistencies
are evident.

Motivating Unique Groups of Workers

Managers can effectively motivate the unique groups of employees by understanding the
motivational requirements of such groups including disparate employees, professionals,
contingent workers, and low-skilled minimum-wage employees.
Motivating a Diverse Workforce
- Flexible work arrangements

Motivating Professionals
- Job challenges do; they like to tackle problems and find solutions (their chief
reward is the work itself). They value support. They want others to think that
what they are working on is important (they tend to be focused on their work as
their central life interest).

Motivating Contingent Workers

- Opportunity to become a permanent employee and opportunity for training.
Motivation also increases if an employee sees that the job he/she is doing can
help develop marketable skills.

Motivating Low-Skilled, Minimum-Wage Employees

- Managers might look at employee recognition programs; many managers also
recognize the power of praise although these pats on the back must be sincere
and given for the right reasons.

Designing Appropriate Rewards Programs

Open-Book Management share financial statements and information so that

employees will be motivated to make a better decisions about their work and better able
to understand the implications of what they do, how they do it, and the ultimate impact
on the bottom line.
The goal of this type of management is to get employees to think like an owner by seeing
the impact their decisions have on financial results.
By sharing this information, employees begin to see the link between their efforts, level of
performance, and operational results.

Employee Recognition Programs

Consist of personal attention and expressing interest, approval, and appreciation for
a job well done. They can take numerous forms.
- Recognition doesnt have to come only from managers.
- Workers spontaneously rewarded fellow workers.
- The most powerful workplace motivator is Recognition.
- Rewarding a behavior with recognition immediately following that behavior is likely to
encourage its repetition.
- Recognition can take many forms :
o personally congratulate in private.
o send a handwritten note or e-mail message
o publicly recognize accomplishments
To enhance group cohesiveness and motivation, you can celebrate team success.
Managers can show employees that no matter what his or her role may be, their
contributions matter. Some of these things may seem simple, but they can go a long way in
showing employees theyre valued.

Pay-For-Performance
-

a variable compensation plans that pay employees on the basis of some

performance measure.
- probably most compatible with expectancy theory.
- when performance declines, so does rewards.
Examples :
o piece-pay rate plans
o wage incentive plans
o profit- sharing
o lump-sum bonuses
- The difference of this from more traditional compensation plans is that instead of paying
a person for time on the job, pay is adjusted to reflect some performance measure.
- These performance measures might include :
o individual productivity
o team or work group productivity
o departmental productivity
o overall organizations profit performance.
- Nonperformance factors :
o seniority
o job title
o across-the-board pay raises
These can make the employees reduce their efforts.
Making some or all an employees pay conditional on some performance measures focuses his
or her attention and effort toward that measure then reinforces the continuation of the effort with
a reward.
Companies that used pay-for-performance programs performed better financially than those that
did not. Pay-for-performance programs with outcome- based incentives had a positive impact on
sales, customer satisfaction, and profits.
If organizations use work teams, managers should consider group-based performance
incentives that will reinforce team effort and commitment.
Managers need to ensure theyre specific about the relationship between an individuals pay
and his or her expected level of appropriate performance.

Employees must clearly understand exactly how their and the organizations performance
translates into dollars on their paychecks
TRUE OR FALSE:
1. Motivation refers to the process by which a persons efforts are energized, directed, and sustained
toward attaining a goal. (TRUE)
2. Abraham Maslow is one who originated the Hierarchy Needs of Theory where it is composed of
only four needs. (FALSE)
3. Physiological needs refers to a persons need for affection, belongingness, acceptance and
friendship. (FALSE)
4. Esteem needs is the most important among all the needs under Maslows hierarchy of needs.
(FALSE)
5. Two-way factor theory proposes that intrinsic factors are related to job satisfaction, while extrinsic
factors are associated with job dissatisfaction. (TRUE)
6. Douglas McGregor is best known for proposing four assumptions about human nature: Theory W,
Theory X, Theory Y and Theory Z. (FALSE)
7. Theory X is the negative view of people that assumes workers have great ambition, like work,
does not want to avoid responsibility, and need to be close controlled to work effectively.
(FALSE)
8. David McClelland and his associates proposed the three-need theory, which says there are three
acquired (not innate) need that are major motives in work. (TRUE)
9. Goal-setting theory says that specific goals increase performance and that difficult goals, when
accepted, result in higher performance that do easy goals. (TRUE)
10. Self-efficacy refers to an individuals belief that he or she is not capable of performing a task.
(FALSE)

MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. What is said to probably be the best known theory of motivation?
a. Hierarchy of Needs
b. Theories X and Y
c. Two-Factor Theory
d. Three Needs Theory
2. When a dental hygienist not only cleans teeth but handles patients
files while sanitizing ang storing instruments as well, it show an example
of:
a. Job Enlargement
b. Job Scope
c. Job Depth
d. Job Enrichment
3. Which is not a core dimension of Job Characteristics Model?
a. Autonomy
b. job Depth
c. Task Identity
d. Skill Variety
4. The approach of involving employees by sharing financial statements
a. Pay-For-Performance
b. Employee Recognition Programs
c. Open-Book Management
d. None of the above

5. Related to the concept of fairness and equitable treatment compared

with others who behave in similar ways.
a. Referents
b. Equity Theory
c. Equity
d. Distributive Justice
6. The theory that shows the two assumptions about human nature
a. Expectancy Theory
b. Two-Factor Theory
c. Reinforcement Theory
d. Theory X and Y
7. The drive to succeed and excel in relation to a set of standards
a. Esteem Needs
b. Need for Achievement (nAch)
c. Self-Actualization Needs
d. Need for Power (nPow)
8. The vertical expansion of a job by adding planning and evaluating
responsibilities; increases job depth.
a. Job Enlargement
b. Job Design
c. Job Enrichment
d. Job Scope

9. It is the measure of intensity, drive, and vigor

a. Energy
b. Persistence
c. Motivation
d. Direction
10. In which individuals compare themselves by organizational pay
policies, procedures, and allocation to assess equity
a. Persons Category
b. Distributive Justice
c. Self-Category
d. Systems Category
Answers :
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

A
A
B
C
C
D
B
C
A
D