Theories of Motivation

and Application
Dr A Jagan Mohan Reddy
SIBM,SIU,Hyderabad
What Is Motivation?
 Derived from Latin word “MOVERE” means “to move”
 Processes accounting for an individual’s intensity,
direction & persistence of effort t/w attaining a goal.
 Effort – Magnitude/intensity of employee‟s work – related
behaviour.
 Direction - quality of an employee‟s work – sustained effort in a
direction that benefits the employer.
 Persistence -Sustained efforts employee manifested in their work-
related activities.
“ The process by which a persons efforts are energized, directed and
sustained toward attaining a goal”
“ A process of stimulating people to action to accomplish desired
goals” -----William G Scott
 Characteristic that helps you achieve to your goal.
 Drive that pushes you to work hard .
 Energy that gives you the strength to get up and keep
going - even when things are not going your way.
Major Types of Motivation Theories:
a)Content : What motivates us: Maslow, Alderfer, Herzberg,
Adams & McClelland.
b)Process :WHY & HOW motivation occurs .
Let’s look at first Content Theories of Motivation:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
 Hierarchy of needs that ranges from "lower" to "higher.“
 As lower needs are fulfilled there is a tendency for other higher needs to
emerge.
 A person does not feel a higher need until the needs of the current level
have been satisfied.
Application of Maslow’s Theory
 Physiological Needs :Breaks for lunch , salaries that allow workers
to buy life's essentials.
 Safety Needs : Work Environment, which is safe, relative job security,
and freedom from threats. [Gallup Study]
 Social Needs: Feeling of acceptance, belonging [Togetherness-More
creative].
 Esteem : Recognition, important projects, feel valued and
appreciated.
 Self-Actualization: Challenging and meaningful work assignments
which enable innovation, creativity and progress according to long-
term goals.
 Little evidence supports its strict hierarchy. In some social needs are
regarded higher than any others.
 Little evidence suggests that people satisfy exclusively one motivating
need at a time.
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory
 Studies to determine work environment that causes satisfaction or
dissatisfaction.
 1959 book” The Motivation to Work”.
 Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are created by different
factors.
 Hygiene Factors: extrinsic (environmental) factors that create
general satisfaction.
 Motivating Factors : intrinsic (psychological) factors that create
High satisfaction.
 Attempted to explain what motivates people to put their best
efforts.
 Tesco uses elements of Herzberg's theory to motivate its
employees. Attention to factors causing dissatisfaction as well as
those causing satisfaction.
Motivating Hygiene
factors factors
Achievement Company policy

Recognition Supervision
Relationship
Work itself
w/Boss
Responsibility Work conditions

Advancement Salary
Relationship
Growth w/Peers
Application of Two Factor Theory
 Sufficient challenge to utilize full ability of employee.
 Increasing levels of ability -increasing levels of responsibility.
 If a job cannot be designed to use an employee's full abilities, then
the firm should consider automating the task or replacing the
employee with one who has a lower level of skill.
 If a person cannot be fully utilized, then there will be a motivation
problem- Millennials.
Limitation and Criticism
 Too simplistic - what motivates me may be a dissatisfier for
someone else.
 It’s for individuals, not as a homogeneous group with one set of
wants and needs .
 Some factors may be within your control, some may not .
True Motivation from within.
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
 Taught psychology at MIT. Found his classroom teaching of HR’s did
not always work in practice.
 Led him to recognize the influence of assumptions we make about
people and our managerial style.
1.Theory X : Negative Attitude
 Workers have little ambition, dislike work, avoid responsibility,
and require close supervision.
2.Theory Y : Positive Attitude
 Workers can exercise self- direction, desire responsibility, and
like to work.
 Motivation is maximized by participative decision making,
interesting jobs, and good group relations.
 Theory X & Theory Y
 Work is inherently distasteful to most  Work is as natural as play, if the
conditions are favorable.
 Most people are not ambitious.
 Have little desire for responsibility and
 Self-control is often indispensable
prefer to be directed. in achieving organizational goals.
 Most people have little capacity for
 The capacity for creativity in
creativity in solving organizational solving organizational problems is
problems. widely distributed in the
 Motivation occurs only at the population.
physiological and safety levels.  Motivation occurs at the social,
 Most people must be closely controlled esteem, and self- actualization
and often coerced to achieve levels, as well as physiological and
organizational objectives security levels.
 People can be self-directed and
creative at work if properly
motivated.
David McClelland’s Learned Needs Theory
 People acquire or learn certain needs from their Culture, Family,
Personal & occupational experiences ,Type of organization for
which a person works.
There are three Major Acquired Needs that are major motives in
work: –
a)Need for Achievement (nAch)-Drive to excel and succeed.
b)Need for Power (nPow)-Need to influence the behavior of others
c)Need of Affiliation (nAff) - Desire for interpersonal relationships.
 McClelland's Human Motivation Theory states that every person has
one of three main driving motivators: the needs for achievement,
affiliation, or power.
 These motivators are not inherent; we develop them through our
culture and life experiences. Achievers like to solve problems and
achieve goals.
a.Need for Achievement ( nAch)
 Accomplish reasonably challenging but attainable goals through their
own effort.
 Prefer working alone rather than in teams.
 Choose tasks with a moderate degree of difficulty
b.Need for Power( nPow)
 Want to influence others, take control & change people /or
situations.
 Rely on persuasive communication and make suggestions in meetings
c. Need for Affiliation (N-Affil)-
 Sense of involvement and "belonging" within a social group.
Two steps to apply McClelland's theory:
 Identify the Motivational Needs of the Team- which one important?
 Approaching Team According to To Their Need type.
Alderfer’s ERG Theory:
 An improvement over Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory-Based on
empirical evidence
There are Three Types Of Needs:
 Existence -Concern for basic material requirements; what Maslow
called physiological and safety needs.
 Relatedness -Desire we have for maintaining interpersonal
relationships; similar to Maslow's social/love need, and the external
component of his esteem need.
 Growth refers to an intrinsic desire for personal development; the
intrinsic component of Maslow's esteem need, and self-actualization .
 The ERG Theory of Motivation is a simplified but more flexible version
of Maslow's hierarchy of Needs.
 It proposes three needs that must all be satisfied in order for an
individual to be motivated: existence, relatedness, and growth
Mayo’s Theory of Motivation
 Based on analyzing the data of the Hawthorn Studies, Mayo
proposed that employees aren’t that motivated by pay and
environmental factors.
 Instead, positive relational factors play a bigger role in
productivity.
 The importance of group working cannot be overstressed.
 It is the group that determines productivity, not pay and not
processes.
 For example, if someone is working too fast they will be
ostracised from the group.
 Likewise, if someone is working too slow the same thing will
happen.
1.Adam’s Equity Theory of Motivation:
“An employee compares his or her job’s input: outcomes ratio
with that of relevant others and then corrects any inequality”
Equity theory consists of two variables:
 Inputs - What does a person offer to the organization
 Outputs – What does the organization offer to a person.
 Equity theory developed in the 1960s by J. Stacy Adams, a
workplace and behavioral psychologist.
 Employees seek to maintain equity between the inputs that they
bring to a job and the outcomes that they receive from it against
the perceived inputs and output.
 People value fair treatment which causes them to
be motivated to keep the fairness maintained within the
relationships of their co-workers and the organization.
Process Theories
1.Locke’s Goal Setting Theory:
Clear goals and appropriate feedback motivate employees.
Working toward a goal is also a major source of motivation –
which, in turn, improves performance.
More difficult and specific a goal is, the harder people tend to
work to achieve it.
There are Five Goal Setting Principles that can improve our
chances of success:
Clarity.
Challenge.
Commitment.
Feedback.
Task complexity.
Goal Setting Theory
2.Vroom’s Expectancy Theory:
“ 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”
Involves three variables: Expectancy;Instrumentality;Valence
1.Expectancy or Effort-Performance Linkage:
 Probability perceived by an individual that exerting a given
amount of effort will lead to a certain level of performance.
2.Instrumentality or Performance-Reward linkage:
 is the degree to which an individual believes that performing at a
particular level is instrumental in attaining the desired outcome
3.Valence or attractiveness of reward:
 is the importance that an individual places on the potential
outcome or reward that can be achieved on the job.
Porter and Lawler:
 Used Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory Model as a foundation to
develop their expectancy model.
“individual’s motivation to complete a task is affected by the
reward they expect to receive for completing the task. “
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards
 Intrinsic rewards are the positive feelings that the individual
experiences from completing the task e.g. satisfaction, sense of
achievement.
 Extrinsic rewards are rewards emanating from outside the
individual such as bonus, commission and pay increases.
 Individual’s view regarding the attractiveness and fairness of
the rewards will affect motivation.
BF Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory Of Motivation
 BF Skinner and his associates.
 Individual’s behaviour is a function of its consequences.
“individual’s behaviour with positive consequences tends to be repeated,
but individual’s behaviour with negative consequences tends not to be
repeated.
 Overlooks the internal state of individual.
 Focuses totally on what happens to an individual when he takes some
action.
 A strong tool for analyzing controlling mechanism for individual’s
behaviour.
 Does not focus on the causes of individual’s behaviour.
 It is based on the concept of “Law of Effect”.
 Behavior of individual t/w positive consequences tends to repeat, but
the behavior of individual t/w negative consequences doesn’t.
Methods for controlling Behaviour Of Employees:
Positive Reinforcement-
 Immediately praising an employee for coming early for job.
 Stimulates occurrence of behaviour.
Negative Reinforcement-
 Eliminate that night's homework if kids study hard .
 Both positive and negative reinforcement can be used.
Punishment: Applying undesirable consequence for showing
undesirable behaviour, e.g., suspending an employee for breaking
the org. rules.
Extinction: Lowering the probability of undesired behaviour by
removing reward for that kind of behaviour, e.g., Not receiving
praise & admiration for his good work-his behaviour is generating
no fruitful consequence.
Taylor's theory, also called Scientific Management
 Also be called the Money as A Motivator Theory.
 Taylor stressed money as a motivation in the workplace.
 Indeed, workers were motivated only by money, Taylor said.
 That's why his theory is often referred to as the money as a
motivator theory.
Social Learning Theory, by Albert Bandura
 People learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and
modeling.
 Bridge between behaviorist & cognitive learning theories because it
encompasses attention, memory, and motivation.
 Students do not only imitate each other but also the teacher.
 Being a good role model, open to all the students, and holding the
students to a level of responsibility will be imitated by the students
according to Bandura
Suggestions for Motivating Employees
i. Recognize Individual Differences
ii. Match People to Jobs
iii. Use Goals
iv. Ensure that Goals are Perceived as Attainable
v. Link Rewards to Performance
vi. Check the System for Equity
vii. Use Recognition
viii. Show Care and Concern to your Employees
ix. Don’t Ignore Money