Theoretical Framework

McClelland’s Achievement Motivation Theory

David McClelland agrees with Herzberg that higher-level needs are most important at work. He
identified three main socially developed motives: actualization. Esteem, and love needs. The
relative intensity of these motives varies between individuals. They also tend to vary between
different occupations. Managers appear to be higher in achievement motivation than in
affiliation motivation. The psychodynamic perspective focuses on biological factors and
unconscious motivations. Freud argued that drives are the key motivators of human behavior,
in particular sex and aggression, which includes control and mastery (McClelland, 1985).
Drives, expressed directly and indirectly, build tension to achieve a state of satisfaction. The
psychodynamic approach has evolved over time, and theorists now focus on motives and
needs, including Freud’s two basic drives but adding needs focused on self-esteem and
relatedness to others (Mitchell, 1988; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2005). Experimental research has
revealed that there is a strong unconscious element in motivation (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2005).
McClelland (1985) argued that conscious motivation is explicit and often focused on concrete,
relatively immediate goals whereas unconscious motivation is implicit and is the primary driver
of behavior over time. While explicit motivations do often override implicit motivations in the
short term, unconscious motivations predicate the long-term behavior.
The humanistic perspective focuses on the need people have to grow and achieve a sense of
personal identity and fulfillment. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is the dominant theory within
this perspective. The theory argues that unfilled needs, organized in a hierarchy, drive
motivation (Neher, 1991). The hierarchy progresses from lower-level needs to higher-level
needs along the continuum: physiological, safety, love, and self-esteem. Each level of need
must be satisfied to some extent before the next level becomes relevant. Thus, many people
may feel stranded, and do not succeed in achieving their potential, forever driven and
motivated by needs lower down in the hierarchy.
The cognitive perspective has come to dominate psychology in the last few decades, and it also
leads research into motivation across many disciplines, not least of all education (Trautwein et
al., 2012). The cognitive approach views the human mind as analogous to a computer and
focuses on information processing as well as decision making (Trautwein et al., 2012). One of
the dominant theories within this perspective is expectancy theory, which argues that
perceived ability and perceived linkages between effort and achievement are central to
motivation. Bandura (2000, 2004) points out that goals are at the core of cognitive,
motivational theories, arguing that goals are outcomes desired by the individual that have their
roots in social learning.
The goal-setting theory emerged from this focus on goals and had organizational contexts’
research extensively focused on the theory (Locke, 1991). The emphasis here is on goals as
outcomes that are desirable and deviate from the status quo. Locke (1991) argues that a
specific set of conditions must exist before goals can motivate performance. In his argument,
Locke mentioned that goals must be specific and relate to a gap between the current situation
and the desired situation. He added that there must be a belief that the goal is attainable and
regular feedback on progress is essential; goals must be at least moderately challenging, and
the individual must be relatively committed to achievement. This theory is directly related to
expectancy theory and has found significant support in educational contexts (Latham & Brown,
2006). The goal theory of motivation assumes that once someone decides to pursue a goal, the
person regulates his or her behavior to try to reach the goal. Locke and his colleagues contend
that goals provide the mechanism through which unsatisfied needs are translated into action.
In other words, unsatisfied needs prompt the person to seek ways to satisfy those needs, and
the person then formulates goals that prompt action. The combination of goal difficulty and the
extent of the level of effort expended. People with specific quantitative goals, such as a defined
level of performance, or a given deadline for completion of a task, will perform better than
people with no set goal or only an unclear goal. People who have difficult goals will perform
better than people with easier goals. Locke pointed out that goal setting is more appropriately
viewed as a motivational technique rather than as a formal theory of motivation. The theory of
goal setting provides a useful approach to work motivation and performance.
Deci, Koestner and Ryan, (1999) challenged the focus of the behaviorists on rewards and
punishments. They argued that rewards and punishments may act as extrinsic motivators and
result in positive short-term outcomes, even to the extent of motivating people to develop
competencies. Nevertheless, the most powerful motivators are those that are intrinsic, where
people do things because they wish to do them. Deci et al. (1999) argue that rewards could, in
fact, act as deterrents to the performance where people feel that rewards compromise their
autonomy. They proposed self-determination theory which posits that motivation thrives in an
environment that supports three innate needs– competence, autonomy, and relatedness. The
correspondence to current thinking within the psychodynamic perspective is notable, with a
direct link to relatedness and indirect links between self-esteem, competence and autonomy.
New developments in self-determination theory further develop the link to the psychodynamic
perspective with their focus on implicit motives, or motives that operate almost automatically
at a level below that of consciousness.
Alderfer’s Modified Need Hierarchy Model
Alderfer has presented a modified need hierarchy model. Existence needs are concerned with
sustaining human existence and survival, and cover physiological and safety needs of a material
nature. Relatedness needs are concerned with relationships to the social environment, and
cover love or belonging, affiliation, and meaningful interpersonal relationships of a safety or
esteem nature. Growth needs are concerned with the development of potential, and cover self-
esteem and self-actualization. ERG theory states that an individual is motivated to satisfy one or
more basic sets of needs.
Expectancy-based Models
Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory of work motivation. The underlying basis of expectancy
theory is that people are influenced by the expected results of their actions. Expectancy theory
is a generic theory of motivation and cannot be linked to a single individual writer. There are a
number of different versions and some of the models are rather complex. Vroom’s Expectancy
Theory seeks to answer this basic question: What determines the willingness of an individual to
exert personal effort to work at tasks that contribute to the performance of the work unit and
the organization. The answer, according to the expectancy theory, is found in the individual
beliefs regarding effort-performance relationships and the desirability of various work
outcomes that are associated with different performance levels. Simply, the theory is based on
this logic: People will do what they can do when they want to. This means, if a person wants a
promotion and sees that high performance can lead to that promotion and believes that if
he/she works hard he/she can achieve high performance, then he/she will be motivated to
work hard.
Attribution Theory. Unlike the other motivation theories, attribution theory is more a theory of
the relationship between personal perception and interpersonal behavior than a theory of
individual motivation. There are an increasing variety of attribution theories. Well-known
theorist Harold Kelley stresses that attribution theory is concerned mainly with the cognitive
processes by which an individual interprets behavior as being caused by certain parts of the
relevant environment. It is concerned with the why questions of motivation and behavior.
Since most causes, attributes, and whys are not directly observable, the theory says that people
must depend upon cognitions, particularly perception. The attribution theorist assumes that
humans are rational and are motivated to identify and understand the causal structure of their
relevant environment. Heider believed that both internal forces, which are personal attributes
such as ability, effort, and fatigue, and external forces, which are environmental attributes such
as rules and the weather, combine additively to determine behavior. He stressed that it is the
perceived, not the actual, determinants that are important to behavior. People will behave
differently if they perceive internal attributes than they will if they perceive external attributes.
Behavior at work may be explained by the locus of control, that is whether the individual
perceives outcomes as controlled by themselves, or by external factors. Judgments made about
other people will also be influenced strongly by whether the cause is seen as internal or
external.