Motivation Theories

Prof. Sandeep Hegde

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The Organization as an Iceberg

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 Abilities and Behavior
• Performance = Ability x Motivation
• Types of abilities
– Mental, cognitive, or thinking abilities
– Mechanical ability
– Psychomotor abilities
– Visual skills
– Specific learned abilities
(training, experience, or education)
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 Motivation
• Motivation
– The intensity of a person’s desire to engage in an
activity.
• The Law of Individual Differences
– A psychological term representing the fact that people
differ in their personalities, abilities, self-concept,
values, and needs.
• Three main approaches to motivation
– Need-based approach
– Process-based approach
– Learning/reinforcement-based approach.
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 Self-Concept and Behavior
• Self-Concept
– The perceptions people have of themselves
and their relationships to people and other
aspects of life.
• Self-Efficacy
– Being able to influence important aspects of
one’s world; the belief that one can
accomplish what one sets out to do.

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 Perception and Behavior
• Perceptions
– How our personalities and experiences cause us to
interpret stimuli.
– Perceptions are influenced by:
• Personality and needs (self-efficacy)
• Values (strong personal code of ethics)
• Stress (health and environment)
• Position in society or an organization
• Stereotyping
– Associating certain characteristics with certain
socioeconomic classes but not with others.
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 Attitudes and Behavior
• Attitude
– A predisposition to respond to objects, people, or
events in either a positive or negative way.
– Attitudes are important because they can influence
how people behave on the job.
– Good (or bad) performance is not necessarily
associated with good (or bad) attitudes.
• Job Satisfaction
– The measure of an employee’s
attitude about his or her job.

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 Need-based Approaches To
Motivation
• Motive
– Something that incites a person to action or
that sustains and gives direction to action.
• Motivational Dispositions or Needs
– Motives that lie dormant until the proper
conditions arise bring them forth or make them
active.
• Aroused Motive
– A motive that expresses itself in behavior.
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 What is Motivation?
• Motivation
– The processes that account for an individual’s
intensity, direction, and persistence of effort
toward attaining a goal

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 Douglas McGregor’s
Theory X and Theory Y

Assumptions: Carrot v/s Stick approach

People are classified into 2 types

X = "Lazy" by nature
Y = "Hardworking" by nature

How to bring employees from X to Y?

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 Need-based Approaches To
Motivation (cont’d)
• Maslow’s Needs-Hierarchy Theory
– People have a hierarchy of five increasingly
higher-level needs:
• Physiological, security, social, self-esteem, and
self-actualization.
– Prepotency Process Principle
• People are motivated first to satisfy the lower-order
needs and then, in sequence, each of the higher-
order needs.
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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Self-
actualization
Esteem

Social

Safety

Physiological

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

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 Need-based Approaches To
Motivation (cont’d)
• Existence – Relatedness - Growth (ERG) Theory
– Alderfer’s theory of human needs focuses on three
needs: existence, relatedness, and growth.
• Existence needs are similar to Maslow’s physiological and
security needs.
• Relatedness needs are those that require interpersonal
interaction to satisfy (prestige and esteem from others).
• Growth needs are similar to Maslow’s needs for self-esteem
and self-actualization.

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 Need-based Approaches To
Motivation (cont’d)
• Herzberg’s Hygiene-Motivator (Two-Factor)
Approach
– Reduces Maslow’s hierarchy to:
• Hygienes: lower-level (physiological, safety, social)
• Motivators: higher-level (ego, self-actualization) needs.
– Posits that the best way to motivate is to arrange the
job (job enrichment) so that it provides intrinsic
satisfaction of higher-level needs, since these needs
are constantly recurring and relatively insatiable.

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 Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

Hygiene Factors Motivational Factors

• Quality of supervision • Career Advancement
• Rate of pay • Personal growth
• Company policies
• Working conditions • Recognition
• Relations with others • Responsibility
• Job security • Achievement

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 McClelland’s Theory of Needs
• Need for Achievement
• Need for Power
• Need for Affiliation

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 Need-based Approaches To
Motivation (cont’d)
• Needs for Achievement, Power, and Affiliation
– The Need for Achievement
• A predisposition to strive for success and the satisfaction of
accomplishing a challenging task or goal.
– The Need for Power
• A desire to influence others directly by making suggestions,
giving opinions and evaluations, and trying to talk others into
things.
– The Need for Affiliation
• The motivation to maintain strong, warm relationships with
friends and relatives.
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Process Approaches To Motivation
• Adams’s Equity Theory
– People have a need for, and therefore value and
seek, fairness in employer–employee relationships.
– If a person perceives an inequity, a tension or drive
will develop in the person’s mind, and the person will
be motivated to reduce or eliminate the tension and
the perceived inequity.
• Employees can do this by reducing what they put into the
job, or by boosting the magnitude of the rewards they take
out (or both).
• It matters less what the reality is than how the person
perceives his or her inputs and outputs as compared with
the other (referent) person’s.

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 Goal-Setting Theory
• The theory that specific and difficult goals
lead to higher performance.
– Goals tell an employee what needs
to be done and how much effort will
need to be expended.
– Specific hard goals produce a
higher level of output than does the
generalized goal of “do your best.”
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 “SMART”
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Results oriented
• Time bound

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 Process Approaches To
Motivation (cont’d)
• Locke’s Goal Theory of Motivation
– People regulate their behavior in such a way
as achieve their goals.
• A person’s goals provide the mechanism through
which unsatisfied needs are translated into
actions.
• Unsatisfied needs prompt the person to seek
ways to satisfy those needs; the person then
formulates goals that prompt action.

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 Process Approaches To
Motivation (cont’d)
• Goal Theory of Motivation Findings
– Specific, challenging goals lead to higher task
performance than specific, unchallenging goals, or
vague goals or no goals, when:
• Feedback showing progress towards the goals is provided.
• Appropriate task strategies are used when tasks are
complex.
• Individuals have adequate abilities.
• There is a commitment to accomplishing the goals.

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 Process Approaches To
Motivation (cont’d)
• Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
– People are conscious agents who are continually
sizing up situations in terms of their perceived needs
and then acting in accordance with these perceptions.
• Motivation = E x I x V
– E represents expectancy (probability of success)
– I is instrumentality (correlation)
– V is valence (value of a particular reward)

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 Learning/Reinforcement
Approaches To Motivation
• Learning
– A relatively permanent change in a person
that occurs as a result of experience.
– Motivation based on experience tends to be
instinctive rather than a product of a
deliberate thought process (as is process-
based motivation).

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 Learning/Reinforcement Approaches
To Motivation (cont’d)
• B. F. Skinner and Operant Behavior
– Operant behavior
• Behavior that appears to operate on or have an
influence on the subject’s environment.
– Contingent reward
• A reward that is contingent or dependent on
performance of a particular behavior.

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 Learning/Reinforcement Approaches
To Motivation (cont’d)
• Behavior Modification
– The technique of changing or modifying behavior
through the use of contingent rewards or
punishments.
– Behavior modification has two basic principles:
• Behavior that leads to a reward tends to be repeated,
whereas behavior that leads to punishment tends not to be
repeated.
• It is possible to get a person to learn to change his or her
behavior by providing the properly scheduled rewards.

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 Motivation In Action: Ten Methods
For Motivating Employees
1. Set Goals 6. Use Behavior
2. Use Pay for Management
Performance 7. Empower Employees
3. Improve Merit Pay 8. Enrich the Jobs
4. Use Recognition 9. Use Skill-Based Pay
5. Use Positive 10.Provide Lifelong
Reinforcement Learning

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