McClelland’s Theory of Needs

(Power, Achievement and

Affiliation)
Mc Clelland’s theory of needs is one such theory that explains this process of
motivation by breaking down what and how needs are and how they have to be
approached. David McClelland was an American Psychologist who developed his
theory of needs or Achievement Theory of Motivation which revolves around three
important aspects, namely, Achievement, Power And Affiliation. This theory was
developed in the 1960’s and McClelland’s points out that regardless of our age, sex,
race or culture, all of us possess one of these needs and are driven by it. This theory is
also known as the Acquired Needs as McClelland put forth that the specific needs of
an individual are acquired and shaped over time through the experiences he has had in
life.
Psychologist David McClelland advocated Need theory, also popular as Three
Needs Theory. This motivational theory states that the needs for achievement, power,
and affiliation significantly influence the behavior of an individual, which is useful to
understand from a managerial context.

This theory can be considered an extension to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Per McClelland,
every individual has these three types of motivational needs irrespective of their demography, culture
or wealth. These motivation types are driven from real life experiences and the views of their ethos.

Need for Achievement:

The need for achievement as the name itself suggests is the urge to achieve
something in what you do. If you are a lawyer it is the need to win cases and be
recognized, if you are a painter it is the need to paint a famous painting. It is the need
that drives a person to work and even struggle for the objective that he wants to
achieve. People who possess high achievement needs are people who always work to
excel by particularly avoiding low reward low risk situations and difficult to achieve
high risk situations.
Such people avoid low risk situations because of the lack of a real challenge and
their understanding that such achievement is not genuine. They also avoid high risk
situations because they perceive and understand it to be more about luck and chance
and not about one’s own effort. The more the achievements they make the higher their
performance because of higher levels of motivation. These people find innovative
clever ways to achieve goals and consider their achievement a better reward than
financial ones. They take calculated decision and always appreciate feedback and
usually works alone.
The individuals motivated by needs for achievement usually have a strong desire
of setting up difficult objectives and accomplishing them. Their preference is to work
in the result oriented work environment and always appreciate any feedback on their
work. Achievement based individuals take calculated risks to reach their goals and
may circumvent both high-risk and low-risk situations. They often prefer working
alone. This personality type believes in a hierarchical structure derived primarily by
work based achievements.

Need for power:

The need for power is the desire within a person to hold control and authority
over another person and influence and change their decision in accordance with his
own needs or desires. The need to enhance their self esteem and reputation drives
these people and they desire their views and ideas to be accepted and implemented
over the views and ideas over others. These people are strong leaders and can be best
suited to leading positions. They either belong to Personal or Institutional power
motivator groups. If they are a personal power motivator they would have the need to
control others and a institutional power motivator seeks to lead and coordinate a team
towards an end.
The individuals motivated by needs for power have a desire to control and
influence others. Competition motivates them and they enjoy winning arguments.
Status and recognition is something they aspire for and do not like being on the losing
side. They are self-disciplined and expect the same from their peers and teams. The do
not mind playing a zero-sum game, where, for one person to win, another must lose
and collaboration is not an option. This motivational type is accompanied by needs for
personal prestige, and a better personal status.

Need for Affiliation:

 The need for affiliation is urge of a person to have interpersonal and social
relationships with others or a particular set of people. They seek to work in groups by
creating friendly and lasting relationships and has the urge to be liked by others. They
tend to like collaborating with others to competing with them and usually avoids high
risk situations and uncertainty
Herzberg's two-factor theory
Frederick Herzberg's two-factor theory concludes that certain factors in the
workplace result in job satisfaction, but if absent, they don't lead to dissatisfaction but
no satisfaction. The factors that motivate people can change over their lifetime, but
"respect for me as a person" is one of the top motivating factors at any stage of life.
 Motivators (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give positive satisfaction, and
 Hygiene factors (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) that do not motivate if
present, but, if absent, result in demotivation.
Herzberg concluded that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction were the products of
two separate factors: motivating factors (satisfiers) and hygiene factors (dissatisfiers).
Some motivating factors (satisfiers) were: Achievement, recognition, work itself,
responsibility, advancement, and growth.
Some hygiene factors (dissatisfiers) were: company policy, supervision, working
conditions, interpersonal relations, salary, status, job security, and personal life.[46]
The name hygiene factors is used because, like hygiene, the presence will not
improve health, but absence can cause health deterioration.
Herzberg's theory has found application in such occupational fields as
information systems and in studies of user satisfaction such as computer user
satisfaction.

Alderfer's ERG theory

Alderfer, expanding on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, created the ERG theory.
This theory posits that there are three groups of core needs — existence, relatedness,
and growth, hence the label: ERG theory. The existence group is concerned with
providing our basic material existence requirements. They include the items that
Maslow considered to be physiological and safety needs. The second group of needs
are those of relatedness- the desire we have for maintaining important personal
relationships. These social and status desires require interaction with others if they are
to be satisfied, and they align with Maslow's social need and the external component
of Maslow's esteem classification. Finally, Alderfer isolates growth needs as an
intrinsic desire for personal development. Maslow's categories are broken down into
many different parts and there are a lot of needs. The ERG categories are more broad
and covers more than just certain areas. As a person grows, the existence, relatedness,
and growth for all desires continue to grow. All these needs should be fulfilled to
greater wholeness as a human being.[47] These include the intrinsic component from
Maslow's esteem category and the characteristics included under self-actualization.
Self-determination theory
Since the early 1970s Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan[48] have conducted
research that eventually led to the proposition of the self-determination theory (SDT).
This theory focuses on the degree to which an individual's behaviour is self-motivated
and self-determined. SDT identifies three innate needs that, if satisfied, allow optimal
function and growth: competence,[49][50] relatedness,[51] and autonomy.
These three psychological needs motivate the self to initiate specific behaviour
and mental nutriments that are essential for psychological health and well-being.
When these needs are satisfied, there are positive consequences, such as well-being
and growth, leading people to be motivated, productive and happy. When they are
thwarted, people's motivation, productivity and happiness plummet.
There are three essential elements to the theory:
 Humans are inherently proactive with their potential and mastering their inner forces (such as
drive and emotions).
 Humans have an inherent tendency towards growth, development and integrated functioning.
 Optimal development and actions are inherent in humans but they do not happen automatically.

Intrinsic motivation and the 16 basic desires theory

Starting from studies involving more than 6,000 people, Professor Steven
Reiss has proposed a theory that found 16 basic desires that guide nearly all human
behavior.[76][77]Intrinsic motivation is the tendency to find challenges, to push to
find out for more, explore, and learn as much as possible. It is about reaching the most
possible potential as a human being.[20] The 16 basic desires that motivate our
actions and define our personalities are:
 Acceptance, the need for approval
 Curiosity, the need to learn
 Eating, the need for food
 Family, the need to raise children
 Honor, the need to be loyal to the traditional values of one's clan/ethnic group
 Idealism, the need for social justice
 Independence, the need for individuality
 Order, the need for organized, stable, predictable environments
 Physical activity, the need for exercise
 Power, the need for influence of will
 Romance, the need for sex and for beauty
 Saving, the need to collect
 Social contact, the need for friends (peer relationships)
 Social status, the need for social standing/importance
 Tranquility, the need to be safe
 Vengeance, the need to strike back and to compete

Practical applications:
The control of motivation is only understood to a limited extent. There are many
different approaches of motivation training, but many of these are
considered pseudoscientific by critics. To understand how to control motivation it is
first necessary to understand why many people lack motivation.
Implementations of Natural theories:
Natural theories of motivation such as Theory Y argue that individuals are
naturally willing to work and prefer jobs with high responsibility, creativity and
ingenuity.[5] Holistically, the implementation in the workplace based on natural
theories of motivation requires creating a comfortable and open work environment
because it is through this climate that the individuals’ goals are most likely to be
aligned with the organization’s goals. Based on the assumptions of natural theorists,
individuals are motivated to work for an organization when they feel fulfillment from
the work and organization. Therefore, hiring should focus on matching the goals of
the individual with the goals of the organization rather than solely on the candidate’s
proficiency at completing a task, as rational theorists would argue. Logistically, there
are several ways that firms can implement the assumptions of natural theories of
motivation, including delegation of responsibilities, participation in management by
employees, job enlargement, and membership within the firm.
Delegation of responsibilities
 McGregor’s Theory Y makes the assumption that the average person not only
accepts, but also seeks out responsibility.[6] Thus, as a firm gives individuals’ greater
responsibilities, they will feel a greater sense of satisfaction and, subsequently, more
commitment to the organization. Additionally, Malone argues that the delegation of
responsibility encourages motivation because employees have creative control over
their work and increases productivity as many people can work collaboratively to
solve a problem rather than just one manager tackling it alone.[81]
Participative management
Participative management styles involve consulting employees through the
decision making process. Markowitz argues that this boosts employees’ morale and
commitment to the organization, subsequently increasing productivity.
[82] Furthermore, Denison provides empirical evidence demonstrating that employee
participation is correlated with better organizational performance.[83] It is important
to note that this stands in contract to Graham’s rationalist view that kaizen, a
participative management style used in Japan, does not engage employees’ minds in
the decision making process.[84] Graham, however, only examines one specific and
flawed participative management style that only allows limited input from employees.
[84] With a properly implemented process that actively engages employees,
participative management will create a welcoming and productive environment.
Job enlargement
Job enlargement refers to increasing the responsibilities of a job by adding to the
scope of the tasks. This provides more variety and prevents a job from getting boring.
Additionally, this prevents the problem of alienation brought on by the rational
theorists of Fordism.[5] In assembly lines, the employee feels disconnected from the
final product because he or she only performs one task repeatedly. Job enlargement
instead keeps employees engaged in the organization and creates a more welcoming
environment. It stems on the assumption that employees enjoy doing work and,
therefore, are more satisfied when they have a wider range of work to do.
Firm membership
As Mayo details, based on observations of the Hawthorn Western Electric
Company, an additional facet of motivation stems from creating a culture of teams
and membership within the firm.[7] For employees, a large part of job satisfaction is
feeling as though one is a member of a larger team. For example, Mayo writes about a
young girl worker who refused a transfer to a higher paid position in order to stay
with a group that she felt a connection to.[7] This example demonstrates that workers
are not necessarily rational and only working for higher monetary compensation;
instead, the social aspects of a firm can provide incentives to work. It is important,
therefore, to create an inclusive environment that welcomes each worker or employee
as a member of that organization.
Employee motivation
Job characteristics model:
The Job characteristics Model (JCM), as designed by Hackman[85] and Oldham
attempts to use job design to improve employee motivation. They show that any job
can be described in terms of five key job characteristics:[86][87]
1. Skill variety – the degree to which the job requires the use of different skills and talents
2. Task identity – the degree to which the job has contributed to a clearly identifiable larger
project

3. Task significance – the degree to which the job affects the lives or work of other people
4. Autonomy – the degree to which the worker has independence, freedom and discretion in
carrying out the job

5. Task feedback – the degree to which the worker is provided with clear, specific,
detailed, actionable information about the effectiveness of his or her job performance
The JCM links the core job dimensions listed above to critical psychological
states which results in desired personal and work outcomes. This forms the basis of
this 'employee growth-need strength." The core dimensions listed above can be
combined into a single predictive index, called the motivating potential score.

Alternative theories of work design

Scientific management:
Taylor’s[23] theory of scientific management
emphasized efficiency and productivity through the simplification of tasks and
division of labor.
Motivator–hygiene theory:
Herzberg et al.’s[21] Motivator–Hygiene Theory, aka Two-factor Theory, an
influence on Job Characteristics Theory, sought to increase motivation and
satisfaction through enriching jobs.The theory predicts changes in “motivators”,
which are intrinsic to the work, (such as recognition, advancement, and achievement)
will lead to higher levels of employee motivation and satisfaction; while “hygiene
factors”, which are extrinsic to the work itself, (such as company policies and salary)
can lead to lower levels of dissatisfaction, but will not actually effect satisfaction or
motivation.
Sociotechnical systems theory:
Sociotechnical systems theory[24] predicts an increase in satisfaction and
productivity through designing work that optimized person-technology interactions.
Quality improvement theory
Quality improvement theory[25][26][27] is based on the idea that jobs can be
improved through the analysis and optimized of work processes.
Adaptive structuration theory
Adaptive structuration theory[28] provides a way to look at the interaction
between technology’s intended and actual use in an organization, and how it can
influence different work-related outcomes.

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Job characteristics theory
Job characteristics theory is a theory of work design. It provides “a set of
implementing principles for enriching jobs in organizational settings”.[1] The original version of job
characteristics theory proposed a model of five “core” job characteristics (i.e. skill variety, task
identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback) that affect five work-
related outcomes (i.e. motivation, satisfaction, performance, and absenteeism and turnover) through
three psychological states (i.e. experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility, and
knowledge of results).[2]

Important variables
According to the final version of the theory, five core job characteristics should
prompt three critical psychological states, which lead to many favorable personal and
work outcomes. The moderators Growth Need Strength, Knowledge and Skill, and
Context Satisfaction should moderate the links between the job characteristics and the
psychological states, and the psychological states and the outcomes.[10]
Core job characteristics
 Skill Variety: The degree to which a job requires various activities, requiring the worker to develop
a variety of skills and talents. Jobholders can experience more meaningfulness in jobs that require
several different skills and abilities than when the jobs are elementary and routine.[2]
 Task Identity: The degree to which the job requires the jobholders to identify and complete a
workpiece with a visible outcome. Workers experience more meaningfulness in a job when they
are involved in the entire process rather than just being responsible for a part of the work.[2]
 Task Significance: The degree to which the job affects other people’s lives. The influence can be
either in the immediate organization or in the external environment. Employees feel more
meaningfulness in a job that substantially improves either psychological or physical well-being of
others than a job that has limited effect on anyone else.[2]
 Autonomy: The degree to which the job provides the employee with significant freedom,
independence, and discretion to plan out the work and determine the procedures in the job. For
jobs with a high level of autonomy, the outcomes of the work depend on the workers’ own
efforts, initiatives, and decisions; rather than on the instructions from a manager or a manual of
job procedures. In such cases, the jobholders experience greater personal responsibility for their
own successes and failures at work.[2]
 Feedback: The degree to which the worker has knowledge of results. This is clear, specific,
detailed, actionable information about the effectiveness of his or her job performance. When
workers receive clear, actionable information about their work performance, they have better
overall knowledge of the effect of their work activities, and what specific actions they need to
take (if any) to improve their productivity.[2][11]

Critical psychological states

 Experienced Meaningfulness of the Work: The degree to which the jobholder experiences the
work as intrinsically meaningful and can present his or her value to other people and/or the
external environment.[2]
 Experienced Responsibility for Outcome of the Work: The degree to which the worker feels he or
she is accountable and responsible for the results of the work.[2]
 Knowledge of Results of the Work Activities: The degree to which the jobholder knows how well
he or she is performing.[2]

Outcomes[edit]
Adopted from earlier work[12][13][14] the personal and work outcomes of the initial
theory were: Internal Work Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Absenteeism and Turnover,
and Performance Quality. However, the 1980 revisions to the original model included
removing absenteeism and turnover, and breaking performance into Quality of
Work and Quantity of Work.
Moderators
 Growth Need Strength (GNS): GNS is the strength of a person's need for
personal accomplishment, learning, and development”.[1] The theory posits that Growth Need
Strength moderates both the relationship of core job characteristics and psychological states, and
the relationship between psychological states and outcomes.[2]
 Knowledge and Skill: The level of knowledge and skill the worker possesses can moderate the
relationship between the mediators and the job characteristics and outcomes. For motivating
jobs, adequate knowledge and skill lead to experiencing the critical psychological states and
better outcomes, while insufficient knowledge and skill discourage the psychological states and
result in more negative outcomes. Unmotivating jobs don’t allow the worker to experience the
psychological states at all, thus knowledge and skill have no effect.[15]
 Context Satisfaction: The context of the job also affects employees’ experience. The authors
suggest that when workers are satisfied with things like their managers, pay, co-workers, and job
security they respond more positively to highly motivating jobs and less positively when they are
not satisfied. The reason being that they must use attentional resources to handle the undesirable
work context, which distracts from the richness otherwise inherent in the job.[15]

-----------------------
Motivating potential score
When a job has a high score on the five core characteristics, it is likely to
generate three psychological states, which can lead to positive work outcomes, such
as high internal work motivation, high satisfaction with the work, high quality work
performance, and low absenteeism and turnover. This tendency for high levels of job
characteristics to lead to positive outcomes can be formulated by the motivating
potential score (MPS). Hackman and Oldham explained that the MPS is an index of
the “degree to which a job has an overall high standing on the person's degree of
motivation...and, therefore, is likely to prompt favorable personal and work
outcomes”:
The motivating potential score (MPS) can be calculated, using the core dimensions
discussed above, as follows:

Jobs that are high in motivating potential must be also high on at least one of the three
factors that lead to experienced meaningfulness, and also must be high on both
Autonomy and Feedback.[20] If a job has a high MPS, the job characteristics model
predicts that motivation, performance and job satisfaction will be positively affected
and the likelihood of negative outcomes, such as absenteeism and turnover, will be
reduced.[20]
According to the equation above, a low standing on either autonomy or feedback will
substantially compromise a job's MPS, because autonomy and feedback are the only
job characteristics expected to foster experienced responsibility and knowledge of
results, respectively. On the contrary, a low score on one of the three job
characteristics that lead to experienced meaningfulness may not necessarily reduce a
job's MPS, because a strong presence of one of those three attributes can offset the
absence of the others.[1]
Individual difference factor[edit]
In response to one of the disadvantages of Motivator–Hygiene Theory,[21] Job
Characteristics Theory added an individual difference factor into the model. While
Herzberg et al. took into account the importance of intrinsically and extrinsically
motivating job characteristics there was no consideration of individual differences.
[19] The importance of individual differences had been demonstrated by previous
work showing that some individuals are more likely to positively respond to an
enriched job environment than others.[22] Thus, the original version of the theory
posits an individual difference characteristic, Growth Need Strength (GNS), that
moderates the effect of the core job characteristics on outcomes. Jobholders with high
Growth Need Strength should respond more positively to the opportunities provided
by jobs with high levels of the five core characteristics compared to low GNS
jobholders.[2]

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