[Chapter 9: EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION]
that they are valuable and worthy people
Once an organization has selected and trained its
employees, it is important that employees be both
motivated by and satisfied with their jobs.
Motivation - internal force that drives a worker to action as
well as the external factors that encourage that action
- drives an employee to perform well
- person’s overall level of work motivation might
not change, but the effort spent on various tasks at
work might change
- increased worker motivation results in increased
job performance
[IS AN EMPLOYEE PREDISPOSED TO BEING
MOTIVATED?]
- some employees come to most jobs with a
tendency to be motivated, whereas others come
with the tendency to be unmotivated
Four individual differences that are most related to work
motivation:
PERSONALITY
- five main personality dimensions: Openness To
Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness, and Stability.
➔ Conscientiousness - best personality predictor of
work performance, organizational citizenship
behavior (OCB), and academic performance
➔ Stability - associated with salary and setting high
goals
➔ Extraversion - highly correlated with the number
of promotions received
➔ Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) -
behaviors that are not part of an employee’s job
but which make the organization a better place to
work (e.g., helping others, staying late)
SELF-ESTEEM
- extent to which a person views himself as valuable
and worthy
- employees high in self-esteem are more motivated
and will perform better than employees low in
self-esteem
➔ Consistency theory (Korman’s) - there is a positive
correlation between self-esteem and performance
- employees who feel good about
themselves are motivated to perform better
at work than employees who do not feel
- employees try to perform at levels
consistent with their self-esteem level
- employees with high self-esteem actually
desire to perform at high levels and
employees with low self-esteem desire to
perform at low levels
● Three types of self-esteem:
1. Chronic self-esteem is a person’s overall feeling
about himself.
2. Situational self-esteem (also called self-efficacy) is
a person’s feeling about himself in a particular
situation such as operating a machine or talking to
other people.
3. Socially influenced self-esteem is how a person
feels about himself on the basis of the expectations
of others.
Organizations can theoretically increase self-esteem in
three ways: self-esteem workshops, experience with
success, and supervisor behavior.
● Self-esteem Workshops - employees can attend
workshops in which they are given insights into
their strengths to increase self-esteem
➔ Outdoor experiential training (challenge
courses) is another approach to increasing
self-esteem.
➔ Outward Bound or the “ropes course” -
participants learn that they are emotionally
and physically strong enough to be
successful and to meet challenges
● Experience with Success
➔ Experience-with-success Approach - an
employee is given a task so easy that he
will almost certainly succeed
➔ Self-fulfilling prophecy - an individual
will perform as well or as poorly as he
expects to perform
■ behave in ways consistent with
their self-image
■ if an individual believes he is
intelligent, he should do well on
tests. If he thinks he is dumb, he
should do poorly
➔ Galatea effect - when high
self-expectations result in higher levels of
performance
 ■ relationship between self
expectations and performance
● Supervisor behavior - train supervisors to
communicate a feeling of confidence in an
employee to increase employee self-esteem
➔ Pygmalion effect - idea that if people
believe that something is true, they will
act in a manner consistent with that belief.
■ if an employee feels that a
manager has confidence in him,
his self-esteem will increase, as
will his performance
➔ Golem effect - occurs when negative
expectations of an individual cause a
decrease in that individual’s actual
performance
○ If employees do indeed respond to their
managers’ expectations, then it becomes
reasonable to predict that managers who
communicate positive and optimistic
feelings to their employees will lead
employees to perform at higher levels.
○ positive interview increased self-efficacy
levels, motivation, and job performance,
although the effect on performance went
away after three months
INTRINSIC MOTIVATION TENDENCY
● Intrinsic motivation - they will seek to perform
well because they either enjoy performing the
actual tasks or enjoy the challenge of successfully
completing the task
○ they don’t need external rewards such as
pay or praise
➔ Extrinsic motivation - they may not
necessarily enjoy the tasks but are
motivated to perform well to receive some
type of reward or to avoid negative
consequences
○ Individual orientations toward intrinsic
and extrinsic motivation can be measured
by the Work Preference Inventory (WPI)
➔ Work Preference Inventory (WPI) - yields
scores on two dimensions of intrinsic
motivation (enjoyment, challenge) and
two dimensions of extrinsic motivation
(compensation, outward orientation)
■ measure of an individual’s
orientation toward intrinsic versus
extrinsic motivation
NEEDS FOR ACHIEVEMENT AND POWER
- employees differ in the extent to which they are
motivated by the need for achievement, affiliation,
and power
➔ Need for achievement - employees who
have a strong need for achievement are
motivated by jobs that are challenging and
over which they have some control,
whereas employees who have minimal
achievement needs are more satisfied
when jobs involve little challenge and
have a high probability of success
■ person desires to be successful
➔ Need for affiliation - motivated by jobs in
which they can work with and help other
people
■ person desires to be around other
people
➔ Need for power - motivated by a desire to
influence others rather than simply to be
successful
■ person desires to be in control of
other people
[ARE EMPLOYEES EFFECTIVELY INVOLVED IN
SELF-REGULATING BEHAVIOR?]
➔ Self-regulation - person’s ability to select, set, and
modify goals to adapt to changing conditions
- employees can be motivated by
monitoring their own progress toward the
goals they set and adjusting their behavior
to reach those goals
Self-regulation is a four-step process in which people:
1. Choose their goals and set levels for each goal
2. Plan how they will accomplish those goals
3. Take action toward accomplishing the goals
(goal striving)
4. Evaluate progress toward goal attainment and
either maintain, revise, or abandon a goal
- extent to which an employee will be successful
depends on the employee’s ability to wisely select
and set goals as well as his or her ability to
monitor and adjust goals
[HAVE THE EMPLOYEE'S VALUES AND
EXPECTATIONS BEEN MET?]
- extent to which we might select a work goal and
apply energy toward that goal is influenced by the
discrepancy between what we want, value, and
expect and what the job actually provides
 - Potential discrepancies between what employees
want and what the job gives them affect how
motivated and satisfied employees will be with
their jobs
JOB EXPECTATIONS - discrepancy between what an
employee expected a job to be like and the reality of the
job can affect motivation and satisfaction
- if expectations have not been met, the employee
will probably feel unmotivated
- It is important that applicants be given a realistic
job preview (RJP)
- applicants are told both the positive and
the negative aspects of a job
- Though being honest about the negative
aspects of a job may reduce the applicant
pool, it decreases the chances of hiring a
person who will later lose motivation or
become dissatisfied.
JOB CHARACTERISTICS - employees desire jobs that
are meaningful, provide them with the opportunity to be
personally responsible for the outcome of their work
(autonomy), and provide them with feedback of the results
of their efforts
- jobs will have motivation potential if they allow
employees to use a variety of skills (skill variety)
and to connect their efforts to an outcome (task
identification) that has meaning, is useful, or is
appreciated by coworkers as well as by others in
society (task significance)
- jobs with a high motivating potential score result
in higher levels of employee satisfaction and
performance, and lower levels of absenteeism
NEEDS, VALUES, AND WANTS
- discrepancy between an employee’s needs, values,
and wants and what a job offers can also lead to
low levels of motivation and satisfaction
Three (3) theories focus on employees’ needs and values:
1. Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
- employees would be motivated by and satisfied
with their jobs at any given point in time if certain
needs were met
- Five major types of needs:
(1) Basic biological needs - individual first seeks
to satisfy needs for food, air, water, and shelter
(2) Safety needs - concerning the need for security,
stability, and physical safety
- Safety needs have been expanded to
include psychological as well as physical
safety.
- Psychological safety - referred to as job
security that can certainly affect job
motivation
(3) Social needs - involve working with others,
developing friendships, and feeling needed
- need to interact with other people
(4) Ego needs - needs for recognition and success,
and an organization can help to satisfy them
through praise, awards, promotions, salary
increases, publicity, and many other ways
(5) Self-actualization needs - employee wants to
reach her potential in every task
- need to realize one’s potential
2. ERG Theory (existence, relatedness, and growth)
- higher-level need sometimes does not become
more important once a lower-level needs has been
satisfied
3. Two-factor Theory - job-related factors could be divided
into two categories—hygiene factors and motivators
➔ Hygiene factors - job-related elements that result
from but do not involve the job itself (ex. pay and
benefits)
- necessary but not sufficient for job
satisfaction and motivation
➔ Motivators - job elements that do concern actual
tasks and duties (ex. level of responsibility, the
amount of job control, and the interest that the
work holds for the employee)
- Only the presence of both motivators and hygiene
factors can bring job satis-faction and motivation.
[DO EMPLOYEES HAVE ACHIEVABLE GOALS?]
- To increase motivation, goal setting should be
used
- Goal setting - employees are given specific
performance goals to aim for
- given a goal such as increasing attendance,
selling more products, or reducing the
number of grammar errors in reports
For goal setting to be most successful, the goals
themselves should possess certain qualities represented by
the acronym SMART: specific, measurable, attainable,
relevant, and time-bound
SPECIFIC - properly set goals are concrete and specific
- the more specific the goal, the greater the
productivity
- it was difficult to set specific goals because the
goals would need constant adjustment
MEASURABLE - properly set goals are measurable
- if one’s goal is to improve performance or increase
customer service, can performance or customer
service be measured?
DIFFICULT BUT ATTAINABLE - if employee will
quickly realize that he cannot meet the goal, he will quit
trying
- Though setting higher goals generally leads to
better performance than does set-ting lower goals,
the level of goal difficulty will most affect the
performance when employees are committed to
reaching the goal.
- setting goals that are too difficult to be
accomplished can result not only in decreased
performance, but in an increase in unethical
behavior as well (attempts to reach the goal or to
“cook the books” to make it look as if the goals
have been met)
- people scoring high in conscientiousness,
extraversion, and openness and low in
agreeableness and neuroticism also tend to set high
goals
RELEVANT - setting goals should be relevant to the work
TIME-BOUND - Goals work best when there is a time
frame for their completion.
Employee Participation
- goal would lead to the greatest increase in
productivity if it was set at least in part by the
employee
- performance would increase if the supervisor set
the employee’s goal, itwould increase even more if
the employee participated
- employee participation in goal setting increases
the commitment to reaching a goal
[ARE EMPLOYEES RECEIVING FEEDBACK ON
THEIR GOAL PROGRESS?]
- To increase the effectiveness of goal setting,
feedback should be provided to employees on their
progress in reaching their goals.
- effective feedback would make them less likely to
leave their organization
➔ Feedback - increases performance when it is
positive and informational rather than negative and
controlling
- include verbally telling employees how
they are doing, placing a chart on a wall,
or using non-verbal communication such
as smiles, glares, and pats on the back
- is constructive when it is given positively
with the goal of encouraging and
reinforcing positive behavior
- must be given when employees do things
properly, not just when they make
mistakes
[ARE EMPLOYEES REWARDED FOR ACHIEVING
GOALS?]
- to motivate: provide an incentive for employees to
accomplish the goals set by an organization (e.g.
working overtime on weekends, making
suggestions, referring applicants, staying with the
company (length-of-service awards), coming to
work (attendance bonuses), not getting into
accidents, and performing at a high level)
- Operant conditioning - employees will engage in
behaviors for which they are rewarded and avoid
behaviors for which they are pun-ished
Six Factors must be considered in determining the
effectiveness of incentive programs:
1. Timing of the Incentive - a reinforcer or a punisher is
most effective if it occurs soon after the performance of
the behavior (ex. Tip)
2. Contingency of Consequences - If it is not possible to
immediately reward or punish a behavior, it should at least
be made clear that the employee understands the behaviors
that brought reward or pun-ishment.
- reward and punishment must be made contingent
upon performance, and this contingency of
consequence must be clear to employees if we
want them to be motivated
- If the reward or punishment cannot be
administered immediately, the employee must be
told the purpose of the consequence so that the
link between behavior and outcome is clear.
3. Type of Incentive Used - some employees can be
rewarded with praise, others with awards, others with
interesting work, and still others with money
- financial, nonfinancial, and social rewards all
resulted in increased levels of performance
 - The need for variety in rewards is also true of
punishment.
- Premack Principle - reinforcement is relative and
that a supervisor can reinforce an employee with
something that on the surface does not appear to
be a reinforcer
- rewarding performance of a very boring
task by allowing us to perform a less
boring task
- Reinforcement hierarchy - employee lists his
preferences for a variety of reinforcers
- Financial Rewards - Financial incentives can be
used to motivate better worker performance either
by making variable pay an integral part of an
employee’s compensation package or by using
financial rewards as a “bonus” for accomplishing
certain goals.
- bonuses or prizes are also used to motivate
employees
- Recognition - rather than providing financial
incentives, many organizations reward employee
behavior through recognition programs.
- are given by peers
- Social recognition - Informal recognition
programs; can prove to be tremendous sources of
employee motivation (personal attention, signs of
approval, and expressions of appreciation)
- Travel - Many organizations are offering travel
awards rather than financial rewards.
4. Individual Versus Group Incentives
● Individual Incentive Plans - designed to make high
levels of individual performance financially
worthwhile, and monetary incentives increase
performance over the use of a guaranteed hourly
salary
- Two most common individual incentive plans are
pay for performance and merit pay.
(1) Pay for performance (earnings-at-risk) - pay
employees according to how much they
individually produce; objective performance
measures as sales and productivity
- 1st step: determine the average or standard
amount of production
- 2nd step: determine the desired average
amount of pay
(2) Merit Pay - base their incentives on
performance appraisal scores rather than on such
objective performance measures as sales and
productivity
- employees are most satisfied with merit
pay if they help develop the system
- (biggest problems) increases are based on
subjective performance appraisals; its
availability or amount often changes with
each fiscal year
● Group Incentive Plans (organization-based) - get
employees to participate in the success or failure
of the organization
- reward employees for reaching group
goals
- The problems with group incentive plans
are that they can encourage social loafing
and can get so complicated that they
become difficult to explain to employees.
- result in better performance (d=1.40) than
do individual-based programs (d=.55)
- Profit sharing - provide employees with a
percentage of profits above a certain amount
- will motivate employees only if they
understand the link between performance
and profits and believe that the company
has a reasonable chance of making a profit
- results in greater employee commitment
- Gainsharing - ties groupwide financial incentives
to improvements (gains) in organizational
performance
- Gainsharing programs consist of three
important elements: a cooperative/
participative management philosophy,
incentives based on improvement, and a
group-based bonus formula
- first, the company monitors performance
measures over some period of time to
derive a baseline
- then, productivity goals above the baseline
are set, and the employees are told that
they will receive bonuses for each period
that the goal is reached
- most effective when employees are
formally involved in the design and
operation and when there is not a long
delay between performance and the
financial payoff
- Stock options - employees are given the
opportunity to purchase stock in the future,
typically at the market price on the day the options
were granted
- allow employees to share in the long-term
success of an organization
5. Expectancy Theory - influential theory of worker
motivation that integrates many of the factors
This theory has three components:
➔ Expectancy (E): The perceived relationship
between the amount of effort an employee puts in
and the resulting outcome.
- an employee believes that no matter how
hard he works he will never reach the
necessary level of performance, then his
motivation will probably be low
➔ Instrumentality (I): The extent to which the
outcome of a worker’s perfor-mance, if noticed,
results in a particular consequence.
- employee will be motivated only if his
behavior results in some specific
consequence
➔ Valence (V): The extent to which an employee
values a particular consequence.
- if an employee is rewarded, the reward
must be something he values
- Formula: Motivation = E (I x V)
- can also be used to suggest ways to change
employee motiva-tion
➔ Internal locus of control - people believe that they
are responsible for and in control of their success
or failure in life.
6. Reward Versus Punishment - Rather than rewarding
desired behaviors, we can change employee performance
by punishing undesired behaviors.
- punishment not only reduces undesired behaviors
in a particular employee but also sets an example
for other employees
- For punishment to be effective, an employee must
understand why he is being punished and be
shown alternative ways of behaving that will result
in some type of desired reinforcement.
- The punishment must also “fit the crime” in that
too severe a punishment will cause resentment and
too lenient a punishment will not motivate a
change in behavior.
[ARE REWARDS AND RESOURCES GIVEN
EQUITABLY?]
- Another factor related to motivation and job
satisfaction is the extent to which employ-ees
perceive that they are being treated fairly
➔ Equity theory - our levels of motivation and job
satisfaction are related to how fairly we believe we
are treated in comparison with others
Three components are involved in this perception of
fairness: inputs, outputs, and input/output ratio.
● Inputs are those personal elements that we put into
our jobs.
○ Obvious elements: time, effort, education,
andexperience.
○ Less obvious elements: money spent on
child care and distance driven to work.
● Outputs - elements that we receive from our jobs.
○ Obvious outputs: pay, benefits, challenge,
and responsibility.
○ Less obvious outputs: benefits such as
friends and office furnishings.
● Input/output ratio - how much employees believe
they put into their jobs to how much they believe
they get from their jobs
○ dividing output value by input value
- First, employees can seek greater outputs by such
means as asking for a raise or for more
responsibility. Second, employees can make the
ratio more equal by reducing their inputs. Thus
they might not work as hard or might reduce their
attendance.
➔ Organizational justice - if employees are treated
fairly, they will be more satisfied and motivated
- focused on the fair-ness of many aspects
of work such as the process of how
decisions are made (procedural justice),
the outcomes of the decisions (distributive
justice), and the ways in which decisions
and other information are communicated
to employees (interactional justice)
[ARE OTHER EMPLOYEES MOTIVATED?]
- Employees observe the levels of motivation and
satisfaction of other employees and then model
those levels.
- if an organization’s older employees work hard
and talk positively about their jobs and their
employer; new employees will model this
behavior and be both productive and satisfied