 Learning Objectives
 Introduce you to the relationships among motivation,
satisfaction, and performance
 Present the different theories of motivation that
influence our behavior
 Gallup Poll estimates that if companies could get 3.7%
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more work out of each employee, the equivalent of 18
more minutes for each 8 hour shift, the gross domestic
product in the US would swell by $355 billion.
Motivation (Kanfer, 1990): anything that provides
direction, intensity, and persistence to behavior
Motivation is not directly observable; inferred from
behaviors
Performance: concerns those behaviors directed toward
the organization’s mission or goals, or the products and
services resulting from those behaviors
Performance is a function of ability, motivation, and
situational constraints/facilitating conditions
 Job satisfaction: affective feelings, attitudes
about the job itself, pay, promotion or
educational opportunities, supervision,
coworkers, workload
 Those who are more satisfied with their jobs
tend to engage in more organizational
citizenship behaviors,OCBs (Organ & Ryan,
1995)
 OCB examples: help another employee with
project, fill in for another employee, donate sick
time for employee who has sick child
 Need Theory
 Assume we share common set of basic needs
 Needs: internal states of tension or arousal people are
motivated to change
 Maslow
 Implications for Managers
 Research doesn't support all of Maslow's theory, but
people do recognize higher & lower order needs.
 Job-based approaches using Maslow would seek to add
esteem enhancers into an employee's job design, or
allow for more social interaction in the job.
 Leadership-based approaches would appeal to the
subordinate's need for esteem and fulfill it directly. The
leader becomes the reinforcer and the promoter to
satisfy esteem, actualization, or perhaps social needs of
the subordinate.
 Individual Differences in Motivation
 Need for Achievement
 Degree to which a person strives to accomplish socially
acceptable endeavors and activities
 Those with higher need tend to exert more effort to
accomplish work assignments, goals, objectives
(McClelland, 1975)
 Predicts success in school (Gough, 1987), military
(Curphy & Otsen, 1993) and in managers (Nilsen, 1995)
 Implications for Managers
 Studies have shown that entrepreneurs are typically only high on
the need for Achievement, while managers in bureaucratic
organizations are high in need for Power and low in need for
Affiliation.
 Like when we think about different personalities, the profiles of our
subordinates should lead us to a contingency approach to
leadership - one tailored somewhat to the individuals within our
span of control.
 Job-based approaches emphasize proper selection and
assignments so that the best match can be made between
individual differences and the jobs.
 Leadership-based approaches match special and expanded duties
to the work needed. Leaders can help the organization not to
overlook the needs for affiliation, power, and achievement within
the workforce.
 Intrinsic Motivation
 Behavior motivated for it own sake, for the personal
satisfaction and increased feelings of competence or
control one gets from doing it
 Implication: Provide rewards for intrinsically
motivating tasks. However, must be careful the
rewards are not perceived as controlling, but are
perceived as informational
 Cognitive Theories
 Goal Setting: Locke & Latham (1990)
posit that goals are one of the most
powerful determinants of behavior
 Difficult and specific goals consistently related to
higher effort and performance than “do your best”
 Goals must be attainable to be accepted
 Goal commitment: self-set equally effective as
assigned, as long as leader is perceived to have
legitimate authority, expressed confidence in
followers, and provided clear standards of excellence
 Feedback: Followers exert greatest effort when goals
are accompanied by feedback
 Expectancy Theory
 Assumptions
 Motivated performance is the result of conscious choice
 People will do what they believe will provide them the
higher (or surest) rewards
 Effort-to-performance probability (Expectancy)
 Performance-to-outcome probability
(Instrumentality)
 Valence, value of the reward
 Expectancy asks "If I make an effort am I likely to
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succeed at the performance?"
Instrumentality asks "If I perform as required,
will I receive the reward?"
Valence asks "If I receive the reward, is it a
valuable reward in my eyes?"
IF the answers are all "yes" then I'm motivated to
perform. If "no" then I'm not. Clearly the answers
may be not so certain, and so researchers will
compute percentages at each question and multiply
to find an overall motivation number.
Implication: Greater motivation will result when:
 Person can perform task adequately if they put forth the
effort
 Person will be rewarded if they do it
 Person values the reward
 Implications for Managers
 Expectancy theory is perhaps the most useful tool in helping to
make the workplace attain higher performance.
 It is perhaps most useful in Job-based approaches.
 Pay for performance plans seek to strengthen the instrumentality (the
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connection between the performance and the reward).
Most pay systems don't, so what connection do they strengthen?.
Perhaps seniority/service.
Promotion and recognition programs are focused upon being
instrumental.
Training programs and successful prior job experiences strengthen
expectancy.
 Leadership-based approaches emphasize the value of rewards,
particularly when rewards aren't financial. Leaders also clarify the
expectancies and instrumentalities for employees.
 Situational Approaches
 Job Characteristics Model
 Hackman and Oldham (1976, 1980): Workers will be
more motivated if their tasks:
Are performed beginning to end (task identity)
Are meaningful (task significance)
Provide ample feedback (feedback)
Allow considerable latitude in deciding how to
accomplish them (autonomy)
 Require use of a variety of skills (skill variety)
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 Growth need strength
 Implications: Implement as many job characteristics
as possible
 Operant Approach
 Thorndike’s Law of Effect
 Rewards
 Punishments
 Research: rewards tend to work better than
punishments, especially when administered in a
consistent manner (e.g., Stajkovic & Luthans, 2001;
Podsakoff & Todor, 1985)
 Bill Parcels, Coach
 Knack for knowing how to motivate
different players in different ways
 Mind games, telling a player there is no way
he can outperform the superstars on the
opposing team
 Has yelled at players to motivate them to achieve higher
standards
 May act like a best friend or may challenge another to do better
 Operant Principles for Implementation
 Leadership practitioners need to
 clearly specify what behaviors are important
 determine if those behaviors are currently being
punished, rewarded, or ignored
 find out what followers actually find rewarding and
punishing
 be wary of creating perceptions of inequity when
administering individually tailored rewards (be clear and
consistent with rewards)
 not limit themselves to administering organizationally
sanctioned rewards and punishments (social recognition
and performance feedback resulted productivity
improvements in followers of 24% and 20%, respectively;
Stajkovic & Luthans)
 should administer rewards and punishments in a
contingent manner whenever possible
 Implications for Managers
 People do not like to feel that they are being
manipulated like a household pet, and so there is much
resistance to having one's behavior modified.
 However, reinforcement is at the heart of most
organizational systems.
 The biggest resistance is where the leader uses contrived
or insincere reinforcers in a thinly disguised attempt to
get the worker to do something.
 Job-based approaches build reinforcers into jobs and
personnel systems.
 Leadership-based approaches build reinforcement
tools & schedules into their personal approach with
subordinates, but in a sincere, honest manner.
 Equity Theory
 Inputs (e.g., education, training, experience, effort,
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time, concentration)
Outcomes (e.g., pay, promotion, respect)
Ratio: personal I:O =? others I:O
Overpayment or underpayment inequity, or equity
Ways to Restore Equity:
 Cognitive
 Behavioral
 Implications for Managers
 Exchange and justice theories receive a lot of attention
in research & at the workplace.
 Workers often complain about the lack of equity, or
worse, adjust down their performance to compensate.
 Job-based approaches set up fair performance
appraisal & reward systems. Complaint/grievance
procedures also enhance perceptions of procedural
justice.
 Leadership-based approaches enforce such systems,
but leaders can also correct inequities, and/or refocus
the employee to a more appropriate reference person.
Leaders should also be aware that workers tend to
overestimate the "deal" they think their bosses have.