For this assignment, I am going to describe and discuss several motivation theories. Then I will compare and contrast different aspects of the theories to each other and discuss how the different theories relate to my workplace. Why is motivation important in an organization? According to Grensing-Pophal (2002), motivation is giving employees a reason to perform something. Motivated employees are more likely to miss less work, perform at a higher level, and be more likely to stay at their current company. For a business owner, all these effects will result in a more successful business. Over the years, there have been a number of psychological theories that attempt to define the concept of motivation. The first set of theories I am going to discuss is need theories. According to Jones and George (2011), need theories of motivation center around the idea that employees are motivated to perform at work in order to fulfill some need. The first need theory is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory. Grensing-Pophal (2002) stated that Maslow developed five levels that describe the needs of a person. The first level is physiological comforts. These are the basic survival needs of a person, such as food, water and shelter. The second level is safety needs. Ramlall (2004) further described these safety needs in three areas: economic (such as wages and benefits), psychological (such as work stability), and physical (such as physical work environment and breaks). The third level is social fulfillment needs (Grensing-Pophal 2002). These needs deal with friendship and interacting with other people. The fourth level is satisfaction of the ego. These needs focus on being respected, self-esteem, and recognition. The final le... ... middle of paper ... ...mpany encounters. Works Cited Grensing-Pophal, Lin. (2002). Motivating today’s employees (2nd ed.). Bellingham, WA: Self-Counsel Press. Gupta, Ashim. (2011). Employee motivation. Retrieved from http://www.practical-management.com/Organization-Development/Employee-Motivation.html Jones, Gareth R. and George, Jennifer M. (2011). Contemporary management (7th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Marston, Cam. (2007). Motivating the “what’s in it for me?” workforce. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. McGregor, Douglas (2012). Human relations contributors. Retrieved from http://www.accel-team.com/human_relations/hrels_03_mcgregor.html Ramlall, Sunil. (2004). A review of employee motivation theories and their implications for employee retention within organizations. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, 5(1/2), 52-63.
While motivational and job satisfaction theories can help employers or leaders to gauge what motivates their employees, it is impossible for them to be used to explain all motivating factors. By analyzing these theories, it is possible to understand their basic concepts, and see how they can be an advantage in motivating their employees to the best possible outcome for the
Carpenter, M., Bauer, T., Erodogan, B., & Short, J. (2013). Principles of management. (2nd ed.).
Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is "the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person's effort expended at work." They go on to say that "motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe." Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following three types of employees: salespeople, production workers, and administrative staff. We will discuss which of these theories would or would not be most effective to motivate these employee groups and try to explain why. The motivation theories that will be discussed are: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, ERG (Aldefer), Two-Factor Theory (Herzberg), Equity Theory (Adams), and the Expectancy Theory (Vroom). Let's start with salespeople.
Steers, T. M., Mowday, R. T., & Shapiro, D. L. (2004). Introduction to Special Topic Forum: The Future of Work Motivation Theory. The Academy of Management Review, 29 (3), 379-387.
The theory makes sense even though research only suggests some support because managers say this theory holds true in the workplace. Employees need the motivators such as, recognition, interesting work and responsibility to feel satisfied and motivated in the workforce while the hygiene’s such as, reasonable salary and working conditions prevent dissatisfaction. These two factors work together to meet the needs of an employee both at a basic and higher level of needs. When you take into account the difficulty of measuring needs, the flawed studies are more understandable and relying on what managers say is easy to side with. After learning about the next need-motive-value theory, I warped my original thoughts to match this theory of Job
Motivation in the workplace is affected by several factors as each employee has his or her own individuality, such as desire for money, success,
Motivation is an important concept which is critical for understanding of and improvement in organizational behaviour and performance. It is therefore important for the managers to understand motivation. It is an important tool which they can use to get more out of their employees and increase organizational performance. Motivation can be defined as the factors, both internal as well as external which arouse in individuals the desire and commitment for a job (Mele, 2005, p. 15). Organizational performance on the other hand refers to the degree to which the organizational objectives have been achieved.
Motivation - psychological processes that arouse and direct goal – directed behavior. Researchers have proposed two general categories of motivation theories to explain psychological processes underlying employee motivation : Content theories and Process theories. Conten...
majority of employees need motivation to feel good about their jobs and perform optimally. Some employees are money oriented while others find acknowledgment and accolades personally motivating. Motivation levels within the workplace have a point-blank impact on employee effciency. Workers who are driven and excited about their jobs carry out their obligations/duties to the best of their capacity and generation numbers increment therefore. An impetus is an inspiring impact that is intended to drive
When we need to explore the extent to which motivation theory is useful in understanding what motivates people at work, we need to understand the meaning of motivation. motivation is a state arising in processes that are internal and external to the individual, in which the person perceives that it is appropriate to pursue a certain course of action directed at achieving a specified outcome and in which the person chooses to pursue those outcomes with a degree of vigour and persistence. (Rollinson, D., 2008.) However, during this process, motivation will be defined into different ways, motivation is an internal state or condition that serves to activate or energize behavior and give it direction which is internal state or condition that activates behavior and gives it direction; desire or want that energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior; influence of needs and desires on the intensity and direction of behavior. (Huitt, W. 2011) So that scholars begun to create different theories to explain this process. There are two motivation theories which comes from content theory and process theory. There are Alderfer’s ERG theory and Adam’s equity theory. The task for this essay is to explore the extent to which motivation theory is useful in understanding what motivates people at work.
Pardee, R. L. (1990). Motivation Theories of Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor & McClelland. A Literature Review of Selected Theories Dealing with Job Satisfaction and Motivation.
Leidecker, J. K., & Hall, J. J. (1984). Motivation: Good Theory- Poor Application. Training and Development Journal. June. , 3-7.
In our modern culture success is often determined by ones measure of motivation to succeed. Without motivation there would be no ends to meet, no goals to accomplish, no movement from vision to reality. Society today recognizes the term “motivation” as a single reason to take action, but what they do not know is that there are many variations of it. (Cadwallader, Bitner, & Ostrom, 2010, Pg. 220) Motivation affects us in every aspect of our everyday lives, it is what causes change. In this literature review my purpose is to research correlations between motivation and how to improve it in the workplace.
Motivation is the force that transforms and uplifts people to be productive and perform in their jobs. Maximizing employee’s motivation is a necessary and vital to successfully accomplish the organization’s targets and objectives. However, this is a considerable challenge to any organizations managers, due to the complexity of motivation and the fact that, there is no ready made solution or an answer to what motivates people to work well (Mullins,2002).
Motivation is the concept of stimulating or arousing a person to achieve a goal. Motivation has much to do with desire and ambition, and if they are absent, motivation is absent too (What is Motivation and How to Strengthen It, para. 1). Motivation theories are unique to each organization. Some organizations have come up with motivation theories such as setting work goals, job performance evaluations, and fair treatment policies within the work environment to keep employees motivated. The impact that individuals, groups and structures have on behavior within organizations is Organizational Behavior. Motivation is affected by organizational behaviors, which is why different organizations apply motivation theories to motivate employees.