Chapter Four
Motivation in
Organizations
Chapter Objectives
• Characterize the nature of motivation,
including its importance and basic historical
perspectives.
• Describe the need-based perspectives on
motivation.
• Explain the major process-based
perspectives on motivation.
• Describe learning-based perspectives on
motivation.
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The Nature of Motivation
• Motivation
– The set of forces that leads people to behave in a
particular way.
• The Importance of Motivation
– Managers strive to motivate the organization’s
people to perform at high levels.
– Job performance depends on ability, motivation,
and environment.
– P = M + A + E when:
P = performance
A = ability
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M= motivation
E = environment
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Figure 4.1: The Motivational Framework
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Historical Perspectives on Motivation
• The Traditional Approach
– Assumption: Employees are economically
motivated to work to earn as much money as they
can.
• Conclusion: Incentive pay systems are a good motivation
– Assumption: work is inherently unpleasant and
the money earned is more important to employees
than the nature of the job they are performing.
• Conclusion: People can be expected to perform any kind
of job if they are paid enough.
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Historical Perspectives on Motivation
(continued)
• The Human Relations Approach
– Suggests that favorable attitudes result in
motivation to work hard.
• Assumption: Employees want to feel useful and
important; employees have strong social needs; and
those needs are more important than money when
motivating employees.
• Conclusion: Managers should make workers feel
important and allow them a modicum of self-direction and
self-control in carrying out routine activities.
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Historical Perspectives on Motivation
(continued)
• The Human Resource Approach
– Assumption: Employees want and are able to
make genuine contributions to the organization.
• Whereas the human relationists believe the illusion of
contribution of and participation will enhance motivation,
the human resources view assumes the contributions
themselves are valuable to both individuals and
organizations.
– Management’s task is to:
• encourage participation
• create a work environment that makes full
use of the human resources available
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Need-Based Perspectives on Motivation
• Needs-Based Theories
– Humans are motivated primarily by deficiencies in
one or more important needs or need categories.
– Need theorists have attempted to identify and
categorize the needs that are most important to
people.
– The best known need theories are the hierarchy of
needs, ERG, and dual-structure theories.
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Hierarchy of Needs Theory
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
– Assumes human needs are arranged in a
hierarchy of importance, as shown in
Figure 4.2 on the next slide.
– Maslow believed each need level must be
satisfied before the level above it can
become important.
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Figure 4.2: The Hierarchy of Needs
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ERG Theory
• ERG Theory of Motivation
– Extends and refines Maslow’s needs hierarchy
concept
– Describes existence, relatedness, and growth
needs
– In contrast to Maslow’s approach, ERG theory
includes a satisfaction progression component
and a frustration-regression component.
• The satisfaction-progression component suggests that
after satisfying one category of needs, a person
progresses to the next need.
• The frustration-regression component suggest that a
person who is frustrated by trying to satisfy a higher level
of needs eventually will regress to the preceding level.
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Dual-Structure Theory
• Development of the Theory
– Frederick Herzberg and his associates developed the dualstructure theory in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
– Herzberg asked a group of participants in a study to recall
times when they felt especially satisfied and motivated by
their jobs and times when the felt particularly dissatisfied and
unmotivated.
• To his surprise, Herzberg found that entirely different sets
of factors were associated with the two kinds of feelings
about work, which he called motivation factors and
hygiene factors.
• Motivation factors -- intrinsic to the work itself and include
factors such as achievement and recognition.
• Hygiene factors -- extrinsic to the work itself and include
factors such as pay and job security.
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Figure 4.3: The
Dual-Structure
Theory of
Motivation
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Outcome of the Dual-Structure Theory
• Motivation Factors
– Motivation factors, such as achievement and
recognition, were often cited as primary causes of
satisfaction and motivation.
• Hygiene Factors
– Hygiene factors, such as pay, job security,
supervisors, and working conditions, could lead to
dissatisfaction and lack of motivation.
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Other Important Needs
• The Need for Achievement
– The desire to accomplish a task or goal
more effectively than in the past.
• The Need for Affiliation
– The need for human companionship.
• The Need for Power
– The desire to control the resources in one’s
environment
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Process-Based Perspectives on Motivation
• Process-Based Theories
– Deal with how motivation occurs
– Rather than attempting to identify motivational
stimuli, process perspectives focus on why people
choose certain behavioral options to satisfy their
needs and how they evaluate their satisfaction
after they have attained those goals.
• Useful Process Perspectives
– Three useful process perspectives are equity
theory, expectancy and theory, and goal setting
theory.
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Equity Theory of Motivation
• Equity Theory
– Is the belief that one is being treated fairly in
relation to others; inequity is the belief that one is
being treated unfairly in relation to others.
• Social Comparisons
– Involves evaluating our own situation in terms of
others’ situations.
• Four Step Process
– People in organizations form perceptions about
the equity of their treatment through a four-step
process.
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Forming Equity Perceptions
• Step 1: A person evaluates how he or she is
being treated by the firm.
• Step 2: The person forms a perception of how
a “comparison other” is being treated.
• Step 3: The person compares his or her own
circumstances with those of the comparison
other to form an impression of either equity or
inequity.
• Step 4: On the strength of this feeling, the
person may choose to pursue one or more
alternatives.
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Figure 4.4: Responses to Perceptions of
Equity and Inequity
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Evaluation and Implications of Equity Theory
• Managerial Implications
– Everyone in the organization needs to understand
the basis for rewards.
– People tend to take a multifaceted view of their
rewards; they perceive and experience a variety of
rewards, some tangible and others intangible.
– People base their actions on their perceptions of
reality. If two or more people make exactly the
same salary, but each thinks the other makes
more, each will base his or her experiences of
equity on the perception, not the reality.
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Expectancy Theory of Motivation
• The Basic Expectancy Model
– Suggests that people are motivated by how
much they want something and the
likelihood they perceive of getting it.
• Effort-to-Performance Expectancy
– A person’s perception of the probability that
efforts will lead to performance.
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Expectancy Theory of Motivation (continued)
• Performance-to-Outcome Expectancy
– An individual’s perception of the probability that
performance will lead to certain outcomes.
• Outcomes and Valences
– An outcome is anything that results from
performing a particular behavior.
– Valence is the degree of attractiveness or
unattractiveness a particular outcome has for a
person.
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Figure 4.5: The Expectancy Theory of
Motivation
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The Porter-Lawler Model
• Since its original conception, the
expectancy theory model has been
refined and extended many times.
• Although convention wisdom argues
that satisfaction leads to performance,
Porter and Lawler argued the reverse: If
rewards are adequate, high levels of
performance may lead to satisfaction.
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The Porter-Lawler Model (continued)
• According to the model, at the beginning of
the motivational cycle, effort is a function of
the value of the potential reward for the
employee (its valence) and the perceived
effort-reward probability (an expectancy).
• Effort then combines with abilities, traits, and
role perceptions to determine actual
performance.
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Figure 4.6: The Porter-Lawler Model
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Evaluation and Implications of Expectancy
Theory
Expectancy Theory offers several important
guidelines for the practicing manager.
1. Determine the primary outcomes each employee wants.
2. Decide what levels and kinds of performance are needed to
meet organizational goals.
3. Make sure the desired levels of performance are possible.
4. Link desired outcomes and desired performance.
5. Analyze the situation for conflicting expectancies.
6. Make sure the rewards are large enough.
7. Make sure the overall system is equitable for everyone.
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Learning-Based Perspectives on Motivation
• Learning is a relatively permanent change in
behavior or behavioral potential that results
from direct or indirect experience.
• It is a key component in employee motivation.
• In any organization, employees quickly learn
which behaviors are rewarded and which are
ignored or punished.
• Thus, learning plays a critical role in
maintaining motivated behavior.
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How Learning Occurs
• The Traditional View: Classical Conditioning
– Classical conditioning is a simple form of learning
the links a conditioned response with an
unconditional stimulus. Learning theorists soon
recognized that although classical conditioning
offered some interesting insights into the learning
process, it was inadequate as an explanation for
human learning.
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How Learning Occurs (continued)
• The Contemporary View: Learning as a
Cognitive Process
– Contemporary learning theory generally
views learning as a cognitive process; that
is, it assumes people are conscious, active
participants in how they learn. One of the
most well-known contemporary views of
learning is reinforcement theory.
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Reinforcement Theory and Learning
• Based on the idea that behavior is a function
of its consequences.
• Behavior that results in pleasant
consequences is more likely to be repeated,
and behavior that results in unpleasant
consequences is less likely to be repeated.
– Assumes people consciously explore different
behaviors and systematically choose those that
result in the most desirable outcome.
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Types of Reinforcement in Organizations
• Positive Reinforcement
– A reward or other desirable consequence
that a person receives after exhibiting
behavior.
• Avoidance, or negative reinforcement
– The opportunity to avoid or escape from an
unpleasant circumstance after exhibiting
behavior.
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Types of Reinforcement in Organizations
(continued)
• Extinction
– Decreases the frequency of behavior by
eliminating a reward or desirable
consequence that follows that behavior
• Punishment
– Is an unpleasant, or aversive,
consequence that results from behavior.
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Table 4.1: Schedules of Reinforcement
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Related Aspects of Learning
• Social Learning
– Occurs when people observe the
behaviors or others, recognize the
consequences, and alter their own
behaviors as a result.
• Organizational Behavior Modification
– Or OB mod, is the application of
reinforcement theory to people in
organizational settings.
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Figure 4.7:
Steps in
Organizational
Behavior
Modification
Source: Steps in Organizational Behavior
Modification from Personnel (July-August 1974).
Copyright © 1974 American Management
Association. Reproduced with permission of the
American Management Association via Copyright
Clearance Center.
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The Effectiveness of OB Mod
• OB Mod is a valuable method for improving
employee motivation in many situations.
• Not all applications have worked.
• Managers frequently have only limited means
for providing meaningful reinforcement for
their employees.
– If OB mod works for a while, the impact of the
positive reinforcement may wane one the novelty
has worn off, and employees may come to view it
as a routine part of the compensation system.
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The Ethics of OB Mod
• The primary ethical argument is that use of
OB mod compromises individual freedom of
choice.
• Managers may tend to select reinforcement
contingencies that produce advantages for
the organization with little or no regard for
what is best for the individual employee.
• OB mod also involves an element of
manipulation.
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Reinforcement Theory and Learning
• Based on the idea that behavior is a function
of its consequences.
• Behavior that results in pleasant
consequences is more likely to be repeated,
and behavior that results in unpleasant
consequences is less likely to be repeated.
– It assumes people consciously explore different
behaviors and systematically choose those that
result in the most desirable outcome.
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