Chapter 3: Motivation Management

Introduction

Motivation is one of the most important psychological mechanisms that Organizational Behavior scholars deal with. Every person has different purposes and behaviors with different motivational sources. Understanding individuals’ behavior depending on their sources of motivation help organizations, managers and as well as subordinates can help to focus more humanistic initiatives and also to utilize human resources in most effective way.

Motivation is defined as “energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual’s being that influence the initiation, direction, intensity, and duration of action” (Pinder, 1998, p.11). Also, motivation is “the inner force that directs individuals in reaching a target with purposive actions” (Tevrüz et al., 1999, p. 57). When a person becomes thirsty, he or she looks for water (or other substitutes), or he works hard when wants to be successful are counted as examples of motivated behaviors. Based on these two definitions, motivated behavior is said to be a three-level process;

• Inner force which directs person towards the goal (intensity)
• Purposive actions to attain the goal (direction)
• Reaching the goal persistently

Primary Motives: Motives are classified as primary and secondary motives. Primary motives are unlearned arising physiologically. The most commonly recognized primary motives include hunger, sex, sleep, thirst and avoidance of pain. These needs are required for human survival.

Secondary Motives: Secondary motives are satisfied after a goal pursued. These motives are learned motives which arise dependent upon a situation. When there is a link between the goal and the environment or context in which the motive is satisfied, this environment or context is converted to the motive itself. It is about the learning principle of reinforcement. They are the most important motives for the study of organizational behavior. Some of the important ones are power, achievement, affiliation which are discussed later sections below.

Theories of Motivation

The well-known motivation theories have started to develop since 1950s. They are classified as content and process theories.

Content Theories

Motivation is about satisfying individual needs by purposive actions. Content theories emphasize these needs and try to predict the type of need in initiating the motivation process. Hierarchy of Needs Theory, X and Y Theory, ERG Theory, Two- Factor Theory and Theory of Needs are called as Content Theories.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory: it is the first motivation theory which is determined as the basis of later theories. According to Maslow, there are four significant characteristics of the theory which dominate human behavior (Maslow, 1943);

1. When a need in the bottom line is satisfied, this need no longer exists and higher order need is aroused.
2. Actions of the need satisfaction when it is first activated will be different from the next time it is aroused.
3. Most members of the world are partially satisfied and unsatisfied of their basic needs.
4. A motivational determinant of each behavior is determined by several or all of the basic needs.

Physiological needs are first level needs which are related with homeostasis and appetites. Homeostasis covers the automatic efforts to keep the blood pressure constant. It can be referred as the resources needed to survive.

Safety needs are the second level needs which are satisfied because of looking for a stable (free from danger) environment. Love needs are the needs related to affection and belongingness. Looking for friendship or a partner, building affectionate relationships, being loved or connected are the kinds of these needs. They cover both giving and taking love.

Esteem needs are classified into two; one is about feeling capable, confident, strong and successful over the demands of the world. Second is related with being respected, recognized and appreciated by others. The need for self-actualization refers to the desire for selffulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially.

X and Y Theory: Douglas McGregor (1960) proposed the theory based on two distinct groups of views as X and Y. Theory X is based on the assumptions as employees dislike work, and they do not like to take responsibility and must be directed or even forced to exhibit performance. They were motivated only by money or other material gains. On the other hand, Theory Y assumes that employees can enjoy working and see it as natural as fun. They like to take responsibility and try to do their best. Employees can be motivated by more humanistic initiatives like recognition and development.

Two-Factor Theory: Frederick Herzberg (1968) developed the theory by conducting a study with engineers and accountants’ examination of events in their lives. 1685 employees participated in the study with 16 investigations. The results of the study implied that;

• The factors causing satisfaction differ from the factors leading to dissatisfaction.
• The opposite of satisfaction is no satisfaction.
• There are two different group of individual needs; biological needs (avoiding pain) and growth.
• Factors causing dissatisfaction are the hygiene factors and leading to satisfaction are the motivators.
• When an employee is offered hygiene factors, the person is shifted to no dissatisfaction point after that the same person is provided motivators he/she moves to satisfaction level.

Theory of Needs: McClelland (1965) defined motives as “affectively toned associative networks” arranged in a hierarchy of strength or importance within a given individual” (p.322). He and his associates developed three groups of needs:

Need for Achievement (nAch): It is the drive to succeed and achieve the set of standards. People high in this need look for challenging work environment, like to receive concrete feedback about how well they are doing and look for taking responsibility to excel.

Need for Power (nPow): A person high in this need tries to make others in behave in a way they do not like to. This need is about the desire in exerting power over others.

Need for Affiliation (nAff): It is the need based on the desire to have close and friendly relationships. People high in this need likely to build quality social ties and social interaction.

ERG Theory: Alderfer (1972) is inspired by Maslow’s theory and tried to adopt it into work settings. He defined three needs which reflects the letter of the theory; existence (E), relatedness (R) and growth (G).

The assumptions of this theory are listed below:

1. There are not definite limits among these three needs.
2. The lesser satisfaction in one need, the more necessity for this need will be.
3. The higher satisfaction in one need is, the more desire for upper level needs will exist.
4. The lesser satisfaction in higher level needs is, the higher desire to satisfy lower level needs will exist.

Process Theories

Process theories answer the question of “How”. They are based on the process (instead of the need) that the motivated behavior occurs. Thus, each theory explains how the need is activated and turned into behavior. Expectancy, equity and attribution are the significant criteria of these theories.

Expectancy Theory: The model of theory is based on two variables; expectancy and outcome. Individuals are motivated by the value of the outcome which is called as valence. Valence implies how important the outcome for the person and is it worth reaching it or not? The more a person is likely to reach the outcome, the more effort he/she exerts. The theory is built upon three steps;

Effort (E) to Performance (P) (expectancy); is the perception of the person about his effort-performance relationship, that a level of effort will expect a level of performance. It is a kind of calculation made about a given effort is enough or not to reach the expected performance level.

Performance (P) to Outcome (O); is about the perceived probability that the performance will deliver the desired outcome. The person asks himself if the exhibited performance will lead to the outcome. Outcomes are grouped as primary and secondary. Primary is about job outcomes and secondary is about personal objectives. If there is a relationship between primary and secondary outcomes, it is called instrumentality. High instrumentality means primary outcome causes secondary outcome which makes the primary outcome significant for the person and has high valence.

Outcome valances; the valance ranges from negative to positive. An outcome valance indicates the level of perceived satisfaction with the outcome. Positive outcome valance reflects how well the outcome matches with person needs or values.

Equity Theory: Adams (1963) developed Equity theory based on perceived inequity that individuals experience. According to him, any exchange between two people includes comparison and possible feeling of inequity at least for one party.

Inputs are related with individual actions as the level of effort, the credentials and other qualifications. Employees provide their inputs for work and they expect outcomes in turn of these inputs. Outcomes in a work setting cover the things that the company provides like salary, benefits and status. The outcomes should have a marginal utility for the recipient.

Motivation of individuals depends on the solution of the inequity they perceive. They try to reduce the inequity in few ways subject to the magnitude of the inequity. The stronger the inequity a person experiences, the higher the motivation to equate it will be. Here, it should be noted that the calculation of outcome and input ratio are determined based on the perception of the individual not necessarily the actual inputs or outcomes.

Goal-Setting Theory: Locke and Latham developed the theory based on their research. Their research is built upon Ryan’s (1970) premise that ‘conscious goals predict action’ . They proposed that motivation is related with the intention of the individual to work towards the goal. Their findings of the research are;

• When the goals are agreed upon with the employee, difficult goals produce higher level of effort and performance.
• Instead of telling people “do your best”, specific goals can better predict performance.
• Feedback leads to higher performance than does no feedback.
• Goal commitment is a contingent factor between goal and performance especially for difficult goals.
• Goal commitment can be facilitated by assigning importance to the goal and high self-efficacy.
• Goal-setting theory is considered as an applicable theory in work settings.

Contemporary Theories

As stated above, early theories have poor evidence about their implementation into the work setting. Contemporary theories are called as like because they reflect current thinking and understanding of employee motivation.

Self-Determination Theory: The theory was first developed as “cognitive evaluation theory (CET)” which emphasizes the strength of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors on work motivation. Basic assumption of the theory is extrinsic rewards can diminish the magnitude of intrinsic motivation. When an employee feels competent, responsible and autonomous in holding a task (intrinsically motivated) and receives tangible (external) rewards for it, intrinsically motivated behavior is undermined by the external rewards.

Self-Determination theory (SDT) is based on the distinction between autonomous motivation and controlled motivation. Autonomous motivation is about exhibiting a behavior intrinsically, feeling of enjoyment and responsibility. When a person chooses a task because it is interesting and does it wholly volitionally, autonomous motivation is stimulated. In contrast, controlled motivation is related to the “have to do” sense and activities being done are contingent to extrinsic rewards. People act for the purpose of obtaining external rewards not because they are intrinsically motivated.

SDT offers three psychological needs-competence, autonomous and relatedness- as the nutriments of intrinsic motivation and internalized extrinsic motivation. Employees who feel what they do is within their control and a result of free choice, well competent to do the job and have connections at work are likely to be more motivated by their work and committed to their employers.

Self-Efficacy Theory: Self-efficacy theory refers to the belief of an individual about being capable of performing a task. Bandura (1995) explains that it “refers to beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations”. Perceived self-efficacy determines the level of effort a person exerts, which behavioral actions are preferred and how long he/ she will persist in the face of obstacles and negative experiences. The stronger the efficacy beliefs in specific task are, the higher the motivation in engaging this task will be. There are four sources that increase self efficacy;

Enactive (Personal) Mastery: Gaining relevant experiences in specific task. If an employee was successful with a job in the past, the probability of being confident about receiving success will be increased.

Vicarious Modeling: Becoming more confident by seeing someone else doing the task. A person watches the other person and then compares his competencies with the other person’s competencies. If the comparison person succeeds, self-efficacy of the individual will increase.

Social Persuasion: If the employee is convinced by others that he/she has the necessary skills to perform the job successfully, his/her self-efficacy increases.

Arousal (Physiological Feedback): Arousal leads energized state and specific emotions which make individual alert and perform better. It is the emotional arousal that determines people’s perceived efficacy beliefs.

From Concepts To Applications

Up to this part, we focused on motivation theories. This section will discuss the way motivation theories can be applied through practices such as Job Characteristics Model, Job Rotation, Job Enrichment, Job Enlargement, Alternative Work Arrangements, Employee Involvement Programs and Use of Rewards.

The Job Characteristics Model: Hackman and Oldham (1976) developed the job characteristics model (JCM) that includes five core job dimensions in designing jobs: Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback.

The first three dimensions skill variety, task identity and task significance together create experienced meaningfulness of the work, which makes the job valuable and important. Highly autonomous jobs give employees responsibility for the outcomes of the work. When the jobs provide feedback to the employees, they will understand how well they are doing and have chance to improve themselves. From a motivational approach the model asserts that an individual holding a job with high responsibility, knowledge of results and meaningfulness will have high internal motivation, high quality work performance, high satisfaction with the work and low absenteeism and turnover. The model also offers employee growth-need strength as a contingency factor (interacts with three critical psychological states) which reinforces the relationship between these psychological states (meaningfulness, responsibility and knowledge of results) and job related outcomes.

To be high on motivating potential, among three dimensions (skill variety, task identity and task significance) at least one should be provided with high autonomous and knowledge about results (feedback).

MPS = (Skill variety + Task identity + Task significance) 3 *Autonomy * Feedback

Job Rotation: Job rotation is periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another (Robbins and Judge, 2012). The shifted task requires the similar skill requirements in the same level of the organization.

Job rotation also has some drawbacks. When an employee is rotated to another task, he/she might not be able to focus on the new task because of its temporary nature. On the other side, training cost can occur to make the person more efficient. And supervisors may also have to spend more time in orienting and controlling the work of recently rotated employees.

Job Enrichment: Job enrichment is adding tasks vertically to the job description of the employees. Vertically expanding the job adds supervision authority covering planning, execution and controlling of the work. An enriched job enables individuals to control the whole process of their work, responsibility and ultimately feedback about their results.

Alternative Work Arrangements: Alternative work arrangements provide employees to balance their worklife balance. They offer flexibility in scheduling their time based on personal life issues and demands. Additionally, to increase the number of diverse workforce and satisfy their needs are the other benefits of them. Some possible arrangements are flextime, telecommuting and job sharing.

Flextime: Flextime opportunities are frequently used and effective for especially working women with children and diverse groups. They decrease absenteeism, hostility about management, increase motivation and performance because individuals can arrange time periods according to their most productive times.

Job Sharing: Job sharing is a method enabling employees to split a full-day work (40 hours a week). They can share the day (morning to noon and 1pm to 5 pm) or week (Monday-Wednesday and Thursday- Saturday). Individuals can arrange their time schedules based on their availability.

On the other hand, job sharing allows companies to use different skills (point of views) of two individuals for the same job by paying one. Also, it provides job opportunity for women with children who are not able to work full time.

Telecommuting: Telecommuting is an arrangement aiming to decrease office spaces. Employees do their job outside the organization whether at home or other possible places at least 2 working days. It diminishes the requirements which the formal organizations impose for their employees such as start-end time, dress codes, break and lunch time etc. The employee must connect the organization with a computer to follow the job processes and provide information.

One possible benefit of telecommuting is having the potential in reaching larger labor pool. From the employee side, it let them flexibility in managing their work-life balance and increase their satisfaction and motivation. One disadvantage for the individuals is the feeling of isolation.