The Theories And Content Theories

Motivation is derived from an internal force that provides an individual the opportunity to achieve their needs or goals. People are motivated by a variety of things and often have different motivating factors. Employers should be mindful of individual motivating factors when attempting to motivate staff to increase performance. While some people may be motivated by money, many are motivated by things like: recognition, promotion, and increased responsibility. Once an employer has identified motivating factors they are able to analyze a variety of motivational theories to design and implement a program that will motivate employees to go above and beyond what is expected of them.

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”.

Employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment, and creativity that an organization’s workers apply to their jobs. The needs, perspectives, and viewpoints of employees are instrumental.

Motivation is the force that makes us do things, whether accomplishing personal goals or completing tasks at work. Most people are motivated as a result of their individual needs being satisfied, which gives them the inspiration to perform specific behaviors for which they receive rewards (Kinicki & Williams, 2011). These needs vary from person to person, as everybody has specific needs to be satisfied. When we consider factors that determine the motivation of employees, many of us think of a high salary. This answer is correct for the reason that some employees will be motivated by money, but mostly wrong for the reason that it does not satisfy other needs to a lasting degree (Bizhelp24, 2010). This supports the idea that human

Motivation is: “the psychological process that gives behaviour purpose and direction (Kreitner, 1995); a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific, unmet needs (Buford, Bedeian, & Lindner, 1995); an internal drive to satisfy an unsatisfied need (Higgins, 1994); and the will to achieve” (Bedeian, 1993). Due to the difference in the definitions for motivation, I will use the definition – Motivation is the inner drive that allows individuals to achieve company and personal goals.

McGregor (1960) described two views on human motivation: Theory X and Y. Theory X, the more conventional one, holds the view that people are in themselves not intrinsically motivated to work and even attempt to avoid it, that people have no ambition, are resistant to change, are not particularly intelligent and that people only work for money and security. Management’s objective is to direct employees efforts, motivating them, controlling them and modifying their behavior to ensure that they behave in line with the organization’s needs and goals.

To begin with, Business Dictionary defines Motivation as the “internal and external factor that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a job or to make an effort to attain a goal”. There are different theories of motivation e.g. Maslow’s Theory, Two factor Theory and so on, but my main focus is the Reinforcement Theory.

Motivation according to Kelley (2014) is the ‘process through which managers build the desire to be productive and effective in their employees’. If an employee is motivated, they are more likely to be productive and generally staff turnover is low. The problem of worker motivation is that workers are not seen as humans, they have a lack of freedom at the workplace and lack of job fulfilment. Taylor and McGregor Theory X argue that there is not a problem with worker motivation, workers will be obedient because of fear of losing their job motivates them to do well. Whereas Maslow and McGregor’s Theory Y argues that there is a problem with worker motivation because of class conflict between the worker and the manager. The

“Motivation is the will and desire that a person has to engage in a particular behaviour or perform a particular task” (Lawley & King, P269). In life motivation will be needed to enhance the workforce in various ways, many organisations will use motivation to increase the percentage yield of an individual or to make an individual feel a part of the business or organisation. Incentives have a huge influence on behaviourist & extrinsic approach. In addition other aspects; humanist theorist, intrinsic approach, Taylorism and Fordism have a part in perception of motivation.

Motivation is a word used quite often in many different scenarios, at work, home, the gym as well as other places. In order to explore employee motivation, let us first define the term. According to Spector (2012), “motivation is generally defined as an internal state that induces a person to engage in particular behaviors” (p.194). This seems to be some sort of internal pressure that helps propel us forward in whatever endeavor we might be undertaking at the time. As with any topic that has been repetitively researched over the years, the word motivation has been defined in many different ways. In 1981 Kleinginna and Kleinginna documented 140 different definitions of the word. For the purpose of this research we will be focusing on work or employee motivation. A very good definition of this concept was developed in 1981by a professor

Motivation is giving somebody a reason or incentive to do something. It can be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is focused by an awareness or satisfaction in the task itself and usually occurs within the person rather than relying on external force. Extrinsic motivation is from outside the individual. Some common extrinsic motivators are rewards or punishments like evaluations or money, pressure, and threat of reprimand. The key to an organization’s success is the motivation of the staff. It is clear

Motivation is the process of operating organizational conditions which will impel employees of any emotion or desire operation one’s will and prompting or driving at it to action.

For this assignment, I am going to describe and discuss several motivation theories. Then I will compare and contrast different aspects of the theories to each other and discuss how the different theories relate to my workplace.

What is motivation? Motivation is defined as “an individual’s willingness to respond to the organization’s requirements in short run.” (P.71 Dixon, 1998) For the purposes of this research paper, I find the most fitting definition of motivation is to define it as “the force that Energizes, Directs, and Sustains behavior.” (uri.com, 2014) Motivation is imperative to productivity. A highly motivated staff often leads to high productivity from the workforce.

Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology is devoted to the study of employee behavior in the workplace and understanding the issues facing organizations and employees in today’s complex and ever changing environment. Motivation refers to the set of forces that influence people to choose various behaviors among several alternatives available to them. An organization depends on the ability of management to provide a positive, fostering and motivating environment for its employees in order to increase profits, productivity and lower turnover rates of its employees. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and compare six academic journal articles and explore the behavior, job, and need based theories of motivation that can aid management in motivating and understanding their employees. Finding that delicate balance to can sometimes be elusive so effectively learning how to motivate by understanding, controlling and influencing factors to manipulate behavior and choices that are available to employees can produce the desired outcome.