An Understanding of Various Motivation Theories

Without going into the fine details and depth of all the motivational theory, we will use

Mitchell (1982, p.82) describes motivation as “the degree to which an individual wants and chooses to engage in certain specified behaviours”. Hence, in general, behaviour is determined by certain motives, thus, Vroom and Deci (1992, p.33) considered motivation “as the causes of our behaviour”. Moreover, according to Mullins (2013, p.245) motivation is concerned with question “why do people do what they do?”, because motivation is an inner driving force which leads to particular action to achieve some aim and fulfil some need. In other words, Chartered Management Institute (cited in Mullins, 2013, p.246) observes that, “the aim of management is to give people what they really want most from work”.

Salaries play an important role especially in the first two stages of the hierarchy; we all need money to survive. Another theory is the Alderfer's ERG Theory; Alderfer has modified Maslow's hierarchy and has shortened the five needs into three, existence, needs, relatedness needs and growth needs, existence needs: refer to basic survival needs that everyone needs to satisfy. Relatedness needs: relate to interpersonal contact, social and emotional acceptance, status and caring. Growth needs: are development and sense of self worth. Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation Herzberg's theory of motivation is quite different than the other motivational theories. Herzberg stated that there were only to kinds of factors in any job, hygiene and motivation, the motivation hygiene model is based on the idea that one set determines dissatisfaction (hygiene) and the other set determines positive satisfaction (motivational theory). The hygiene set contains the company policy, administration, working conditions and job security. According to Herzberg’s findings he suggests that if these conditions were unsatisfactory they would most certainly be heading towards physiological or psychological withdrawal from the job. These conditions must be met for an individual to be motivated in work, however, other conditions and factors must be met, this proves that in order for an employee to perform his or her work in an

What is motivation? Process that accounts for an individuals intensity, direction & persistence of effort towards attaining a goal.

A theory that says that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual.”

This essay will begin first of all by defining “Motivation” as a business concept and then go on to present one process and content theory each before finally comparing them both.

Motivation is a key element in the workplace and it is very important to know the basic theory methods and application because it is something that is unavoidable for all of us and will come up in any workplace environment. It is a necessary skill for a future manager or leader to know how to motivate other people in order to work more efficient. Though this project I have become familiar with the subject and realize the importance of motivation.

Using an example of your choice apply the expectation theory of motivation. You should consider both its strengths and weaknesses as a theory.

The three theories that will be applied and explained to the situation are Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Alderfer’s ERG Theory and Satisfaction-Performance Theory.

and Manap, M. (2012). A critical assessment of Herzberg’s theory of motivation. [online] BorneoPost Online. Available at: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/10/23/a-critical-assessment-of-herzbergs-theory-of-motivation/ [Accessed 4 Sep. 2014].

The subject of motivation has been an important component in both theoretical and applied literature. There are many reasons why the motivational theories have generated so much discussion. In an organization motivation has been considered an important factor because employee motivation is considered essential for an organization 's status within the business environment and the community. The two motivation theories selected for this paper is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg hygiene factors.

‘Motivation’ is derived from the Latin term ‘movere’ that means ‘to move’. Thus, motivation is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activates a behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or incentive (Luthans). Broadly speaking, motivation is willingness to exert high levels of efforts towards organizational goals, conditioned by the efforts’ ability to satisfy some individual needs (Robbins). Need means some internal state that make certain outcomes appear attractive. An unsatisfied need creates tension that stimulates drives within the individual. These drives generate a search behaviour to find particular goals, that if attained,

4. 3 Major Types of Motivation Theories  Content Theories of Motivation WHAT motivates us  Process

In terms of looking at Dr Vroom’s expectancy theory, the main critic is that his model only indicates the conceptual determinants of motivation.

According to Luthans (2011), process theories revolve around the cognitive centred concept of expectancy. Lunenburg (2011) explained this in terms of an individual being motivated to complete something if they believe that their effort will lead to good performance and in turn lead to the desired rewards.