Chapter 7: Basics of Motivation

Motivation
• processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and
persistence of effort toward attaining a goal
o Intensity – how hard a person tries
o Direction –
o Persistence – measures how long a person can maintain effort.

Early Theories of Motivation

1. Hierarchy of needs theory
o best-known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs
o hierarchy of five needs:
i. Physiological – hunger, thirst, shelter, sex, and other
bodily needs
ii. Safety – Security and protection from physical and
emotional harm
iii. Social – Affection, belongingness, acceptance, and
friendship
iv. Esteem – Internal factors such as self-respect,
autonomy, and achievement, and ex- ternal factors
such as status, recognition, and attention
v. Self-actualization – Drive to become what we are
capable of becoming; includes growth, achieving our
potential, and self-fulfillment

o each need becomes substantially satisfied, the next one becomes

dominant
2. Theory X and Theory Y
• Theory X

o employees inherently dislike work and must therefore be

directed or even coerced into performing it

• Theory Y

o employees can view work as being as natural as rest or play,

and therefore the average person can learn to accept, and
even seek, responsibility
o more valid, and thus proposed motivating through
participative decision making, challenging work, and good
group relations

3. Two-Factor Theory

• also called motivation-hygiene theory

• intrinsic factors such as advancement, recognition, responsibility,
and achievement seem related to job satisfaction
• extrinsic factors such as supervision, pay, company policies, and
working conditions
• opposite of “satisfaction” is “no satisfaction,” and the opposite of
“dissatisfaction” is “no dissatisfaction.”

4. McClelland’s Theory of Needs

• developed by David McClelland and his associates
• looks at three needs:
a. Need for achievement
o drive to excel, to achieve in relationship to a set of
standards
b. Need for power

o need to make others behave in a way they would

not have otherwise
 c. Need for affiliation

o desire for friendly and close interpersonal

relationships

Contemporary Theories of Motivation

1. Self-Determination Theory
• people prefer to feel they have control over their actions, so
anything that makes a previously enjoyed task feel more like an
obligation than a freely chosen activity will undermine motivation
• focused on cognitive evaluation theory

i. a complementary theory that hypothesizes that extrinsic

rewards will reduce intrinsic interest in a task

• in addition to being driven by a need for autonomy, people seek

ways to achieve competence and positive connections to others

• is self-concordance, which considers how strongly people’s

reasons for pursuing goals are consistent with their interests and
core values

2. Goal-Setting Theory

• assumes an individual is committed to the goal and determined not

to lower or abandon it.
• reveals impressive effects of goal specificity, challenge, and feedback
on performance.
• three other factors influence the goals–performance relationship:
o goal commitment
o task characteristics
o national culture.
• Two categories:
o Promotion focus – strive for advancement and accomplishment
 o Prevention focus – strive to fulfill duties and obligations and
avoid conditions that pull them away from desired goals
3. Self-efficacy theory
• also known as social cognitive theory or social learning theory,
• individual’s belief that he is capable of performing a task
• four was self-efficacy can be increased:
i. Enactive mastery – gaining relevant experience with the task
or job.
ii. Vicarious modeling – becoming more confident because you
see someone else doing the task.
iii. Verbal persuasion – becoming more confident because
someone convinces you that you have the skills necessary to
be successful
iv. Arousal – leads to an energized state, so the person gets
“psyched up” and performs better

4. Equity Theory or Organizational Justice

• employees compare what they get from their job (their “outcomes,”
such as pay, promotions, recognition, or having the corner office) to what
they put into it (their “inputs,” such as effort, experience, and education)
o Distributive justice – perceived fairness of outcome
o Procedural Justice – perceived fairness of process used to
determine outcome
o Informational Justice – degree to which employees are provided
explanations for decisions and kept informed
o Interpersonal Justice – perceived degree to which one is treated
with dignity and respect

5. Expectancy theory
• most widely accepted explanations of motivation
• by Victor Vroom
• focuses on three relationships
 i. Effort–performance relationship – The probability
perceived by the individual that exerting a given amount of
effort will lead to performance.
ii. Performance–reward relationship – The degree to which
the individual believes performing at a particular level will
lead to the attainment of a desired outcome.
iii. Rewards–personal goals relationship – The degree to
which organizational rewards satisfy an individual’s
personal goals or needs and the attractiveness of those
potential rewards for the individual.

• helps explain why a lot of workers aren’t motivated on their jobs

and do only the minimum necessary to get by

Job Engagement

• investment of an employee’s physi- cal, cognitive, and emotional

energies into job performance.
 Chapter 8: Applied Motivation

Job Characteristic Model

• Developed by J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham
• has five core dimensions
a. Skill variety
o degree to which a job requires different activities using
specialized skills and talents
b. Task identity

o degree to which a job requires completion of a whole

and identifiable piece of work
c. Task significance

o degree to which a job affects the lives or work of other

people
d. Autonomy

o degree to which a job provides the worker freedom,

independence, and discretion in scheduling work and
determining the procedures for carrying it out
e. Feedback

o degree to which carrying out work activities generates

direct and clear information about your own
performance

Redesigning of Jobs
1. Job rotation
 • periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another with similar
skill requirements at the same organizational level
• also called cross-training

2. Job enrichment
• expands jobs by increasing the degree to which the worker controls the
planning, execution, and evaluation of the work
• allows worker to do a complete activity, increases the employee’s
freedom and independence, increases responsibility, and provides
feedback so individuals can assess and correct their own performance.

3. Relational Job Design

• shifts the spotlight from the employee to those whose lives are affected
by the job that employee performs

Alternative Work Arrangements

1. Flextime
• short for “flexible work time”
• employees must work a specific number of hours per week but may
vary their hours of work within limits
• Claimed benefits are reduced absenteeism, increased productivity,
reduced overtime expenses, reduced hostility toward management,
reduced traffic congestion around work sites on commute paths,
elimination of tardiness, and increased autonomy and responsibility for
employees

2. Job sharing
• allows two or more individuals to split a traditional forty-hour-a-week
job
• decision is sometimes based on economics and national policy
 3. Telecommuting
• working at home at least two days a week on a computer linked to the
employer’s office

Employee Involvement
• a participative process that uses employees’ input to in- crease their
commitment to organizational success
• examples
a. Participative management

o joint decision making, in which subordinates share a

significant degree of decision- making power with
their immediate superior
o been considered a panacea for poor morale and low
productivity
o followers must have trust and confidence in their
leaders. Leaders should refrain from coercive
techniques and instead stress the organizational
consequences of decisions to their followers

b. Representative participation

o redistributes power within an organization, putting labor

on a more equal footing with the interests of management
and stockholders by letting workers be represented by a
small group of employees who participate in decision
making

o two most common forms:

§ work councils
§ board representatives
Using Pay to Motivate Employees
• process of initially setting pay levels entails balancing:
o internal equity – worth of the job to the organization
o external equity – competitiveness of an organization’s
pay relative to pay in its industry

Variable-Pay Programs

1. Piece-rate pay plan

• provides no base salary and pays the employee only for what he or she
produces

2. Merit-based pay plan

• pays for individual performance based on performance appraisal
ratings
• let individuals perceive a strong relationship between their performance
and their rewards

3. Bonuses
• significant component of total compensation for many jobs
• reward recent performance

4. Skill-based pay
• also called competency-based or knowledge-based pay
• an alternative to job-based pay that centers pay levels on how many
skills employees have or how many jobs they can do

5. Profit-Sharing Plans
• distributes compensation based on some established formula designed
around a company’s profitability
• compensation can be direct cash outlays or, particularly for top
managers, allocations of stock options
 6. Gainsharing
• a formula-based group incentive plan that uses improvements in group
productivity from one period to another to determine the total amount of
money allocated.

7. Employee Stock Ownership Plans

• a company-established benefit plan in which employees acquire stock,
often at below- market prices, as part of their benefits
• have the potential to increase employee job satisfaction and work
motivation, but employees need to psychologically experience
ownership

Flexible Benefits
• individualize rewards by allowing individuals to choose the
compensation package that best satisfies his current needs and situation
• replace the “one-benefit-plan-fits-all”