1. What Motivates People to Work?
Chapter Six
What Motivates People to Work?

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Motivation
Motivation can be defined as the process of arousing, directing, and maintaining behavior toward a goal
Arousal: the energy behind our actions
Direction: the choice of behavior made
Maintenance: an individual’s willingness to continue to exert effort until a goal is met
Motivation is not the same as performance, but it is an important contributing factor
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3. Needs-Goal Model of Motivation
Drive Reduction Theories
Needs: Physiological or Psychological deficiencies
Drive: action toward the goal (incentive)
Incentive: reduces drive of need
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Motive Types
Primary Motives:
Unlearned: everyone has these
Physiological: hunger, thirst
General (Stimulus) Motives:
NOT Physiological: curiosity, activity, affection
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Motive Types
Secondary Motives:
Learned
NOT Physiological
Examples:
Need for power
Need for achievement
Need for affiliation
Need for security
Need for status
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Work Motivation
Content Theories (closely related to needs model – what motivates)
Scientific Management: wage incentives
Human Relations: working conditions
Maslow: hierarchy of needs
Hertberg: two factor theory (used critical incident methodology)
Alderfer: ERG needs (existence, relatedness, growth)
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Need Hierarchy Theory (popularized by McGregor – Human side of the Enterprise)
Physiological needs: The lowest-order needs, which involve satisfying fundamental biological drives, such as the needs for air, food, water, and shelter (extrinsic)
Safety needs: The need to operate in an environment that is physically and psychologically safe and secure, free from threats of harm
Social needs: The need to be affiliative -- that is, to be liked and accepted by others
Esteem needs: The need to achieve success and have others recognize our accomplishments
Self-actualization needs: The need to perform at one’s maximum level of creativity and become a valuable asset to one’s organization (intrinsic)
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Need Hierarchy Theory
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Process Theories
Lewin and Tolman: expectancy theory
Vroom (VIE): valence/expectancy theory
Porter/Lawler: extension of VIE model (performance leads to satisfaction)
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10. Expectancy Theory (VIE – Vroom,1964)
Expectancy theory claims that people will be motivated to exert effort on the job when they believe that doing so will help them achieve the things they want
Components of motivation:
Expectancy: The belief that one’s effort will affect performance
Instrumentality: The belief that one’s performance will be rewarded
Valence: The perceived value of the expected rewards
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11. Expectancy Theory (Porter/Lawler,1968)
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12. Expectancy Theory and Mood
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13. Contemporary Theories
Adams: equity theory
Homans: exchange theory
Kelley: attribution/balance theory
Rotter: locus of control
Brehm: reactance theory
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Equity Theory
Equity theory proposes that people are motivated to maintain fair, or equitable, relationships between themselves and others, and to avoid those relationships that are unfair, or inequitable
To make judgments of equity, people compare themselves to others by focusing on two variables:
Outcomes: What they get out of their jobs
Pay, fringe benefits, prestige
Inputs: The contributions they make to their jobs
Time worked, effort exerted, units produced
People make equity judgments by comparing their own outcome/input ratios to the outcome/input ratios of others
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Equity Theory
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Reactions to Inequity
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17. Goal-Setting Theory (Locke, 1968)
The theory according to which a goal serves as a motivator because it causes people to compare their present capacity to perform with that required to succeed at the goal.
We attain goals to satisfy emotions and desires
There is an inherent purposefulness of behavior (Tolman)
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18. Goal-Setting Theory (Locke, 1968)
Related Concepts:
Goal Setting: The process of setting goals in a manner that motivates workers to raise their performance
Self-Efficacy: One’s belief about being able to perform the task in question
Goal Commitment: The extent to which people invest themselves in meeting a goal and determination to reach a goal strengthened by choice, publicness, explicitness
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19. The Goal-Setting Process
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20. Effects of Commitment and Difficulty
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21. Setting Effective Goals
Assign specific goals: People perform at higher levels when asked to meet a specific high-performance goal than when simply asked to “do their best,” or when no goal at all is assigned
Assign difficult but acceptable goals
Provide feedback concerning goal attainment
Accepted goals or ‘owned’ goals
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Goal-Setting Effects
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Job Design
Taylor: task design is most important element in Scientific Management (now called job engineering: specialization and standardization)
1950’s: Tom Watson, IBM, popularizes job enlargement and job rotation
1960’s and 1970’s: AT&T utilizes job enrichment with more job autonomy and more job responsibility
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Job Design
Job design is the process of creating jobs that people desire to perform because they are so inherently appealing
Job enlargement is the practice of giving employees more tasks to perform at the same level of responsibility and skill
Job enrichment is the practice of giving employees more tasks to perform that require higher levels of responsibility and skill
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Job Design (cont.)
The Job Characteristics Model (JCM) identifies how jobs can be designed to help people feel that they are doing meaningful and valuable work
The Social Information Processing Approach (SIPA) social information influences jobholder’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors (satisfaction leads to performance)
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26. Job Enlargement and Enrichment
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27. Job Characteristics Model Core Job Dimensions (Hackman & Oldham, 1976)
Skill variety is the extent to which a job requires using different skills and talents
Task identity is the degree to which a job requires doing a whole task from beginning to end
Task significance is the amount of impact a job is believed to have on others
Autonomy is the extent to which employees have the freedom and discretion to plan, schedule, and carry out their jobs as desired
Feedback is the extent to which the job allows people to have information about the effectiveness of their performance
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28. Job Characteristics Model Other Components
Experienced meaningfulness of the work: the extent to which a job is considered to be highly important, valuable, and worthwhile
Experienced responsibility: the extent to which employees feel as if they have control over their work efforts
Knowledge of results: the extent to which employees understand how effectively they have performed
Growth need strength: an individual’s need for personal growth and development (moderating variable)
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29. The Job Characteristics Model
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30. Socialtechnical Design
Interface among personal, social, and technological functioning
QWL: Quality of work life determined by overall climate: ‘the way things are done around here’
Volvo project: autonomous work group’s
General Food pet food plant: small work groups
Today: Self-managed work teams
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