1. What are the three key elements of motivation?

ANS: The three key elements of motivation are intensity, direction and persistence.
Intensity: intensity refers to how hard a person is trying to achieve its goals.
Direction: Direction refers to the area to which an individual focuses his efforts for
organization benefit.
Persistence: Persistence refers to amount of time an individual can maintain the effort to
achieve the goals.
2. What are some early theories of motivation? How applicable are they today?
ANS: The early theories of motivation are following Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Theory
X, Theory Y, Two-Factor Theory, and McClelland’s Theory of Needs.
Maslow’s theory: This theory focuses on the needs that are categorized into five levels,
starting from the lower and moving to higher order needs. Individual must work in order to
satisfy lower level needs, like physiological food, safety, and social after which move on to
more complex needs involving self-esteem and self-actualization.
Theory X: states that people generally do not like to work, responsibility and therefore they
must be forced to do it. They are involved in negative behavior
Theory Y: states that people like work, responsibility, and self-direction desire and
therefore they accept it. They are involved in positive behavior.
Two-Factor Theory: The theory is based on motivation hygiene factor. Motivator factor
states that opposite of satisfaction isn’t dissatisfaction and hygiene factor states opposite of
no dissatisfaction isn’t dissatisfaction which means removing dissatisfying characteristics
doesn’t make a job satisfying. To motivate people management needs to focus on motivator
factors like achievements, personal growth, recognition and responsibility.
McClelland’s theory: theory focuses on three basic needs
need for achievement: drive to excel and succeed.
need for power: influence the behavior of others
need for affiliation: desire for interpersonal relations
Many organization focuses on achieving, need for power and need for affiliation because
they are more influencing towards manager motivation.
3. How do the predictions of self-determination theory apply to intrinsic and extrinsic
rewards?
ANS: Self-determination theory states that employees prefer to have control on their own
actions within the organization, but when they are forced to do work motivation eventually
decreases. The theory has beneficial effects on intrinsic motivation because when
organization reward employee intrinsically, the employee usually achieve high results as
there are no controlling factors in it. Whereas harmful effect on extrinsic motivation because
offering money, compensation or rewarding employee extrinsically are of limited time and
also controlling due to which they can lose self-confidence. So If goals are based on intrinsic
values and interests, the employee is more likely to be successful rather than if they are
focused on extrinsic goals.
4. What are the implications of employee engagement for management?
ANS: Employee engagement increases performance, motivation, productivity which can be
achieved by giving more challenging goals to employees and making them work harder to
find solutions to the problem. The best example is of MBO, where employees are involved in
setting overall goals at every level, and then working hard to achieve them which results in
higher employee performance.
5. What are the similarities and differences between goal setting theory and
management by objectives?
ANS: Management by objectives refers to hierarchical division of goals at every level, for
efficient organization system. Whereas goal setting theory does not link goals at every level
nor it involve any employees in setting goal. The common ingredients in MBO and goal
setting theory are goal specificity, explicit time and performance feedback which results in
motivation of employees.
6. What are the similarities and differences between reinforcement theory and goal-
setting theory?
ANS: The difference is Goal-setting refers to cognitive approach in which the goal direct
employee actions, which meaning that specific goals will make them achieve more goal and
will influence the task performance. Reinforcement theory on the other hand is more of
individual behavioral approach in which reinforcement consequence the employee drive
behavior. The goal setting theory focuses on intrinsic motivations whereas reinforcement
theory focuses on influencing behaviors adapted through rewards. The similarities are
proposed time period, goal specificity, and performance feedback.
7. How is organizational justice a refinement of equity theory?
ANS: Equity theory is what an employee input in job against what they get from it. And then
comparing the outputs with friends, co-workers, to see whether the organization justice was
served or not. Organizational justice is how employees perceive their organization as just or
unjust when they receive rewards and the way they are distributed are fair or not. Moreover,
if organizational justice is unfair due to low distributive, procedural, interactional,
informational components can cause dissatisfaction and increased employee turnover.
8. What are the key tenets of expectancy theory?
ANS: The expectancy theory focuses on three key relationships.
 Effort performance: exerting a given amount of effort will lead to performance. If they try,
they can perform it.
Performance reward: successful performance will lead to desired outcome. If they perform
they will be rewarded.
Reward personal goals: attractiveness of organization reward to employee, which means
reward must be satisfactory.
9. What are some contemporary theories of motivation and how do they compare to one
another?
ANS: The contemporary theories of motivation are goal-setting theory, self-efficacy theory,
reinforcement theory, equity theory, and expectancy theory. The expectancy theory (effort
performance) level is related to equity theory because it describes the relationship between input
(work) and output (reward, payoff). Reinforcement theory and goal setting theory also relates
with each other because rewards influence the employees and drive them to work harder. The
self-efficacy theory also relates to goal setting theory because both theories influence employees
by engaging them to work.