Chapter 5
Foundations of
Employee Motivation
1
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Great Little Box Company
Through goal setting, plenty of appreciation and recognition,
and fair pay, Vancouver-based Great Little Box Company
Ltd. (GLBC) has a workforce that is both motivated and
highly engaged.
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Motivation Defined

The forces within a person that affect the direction,
intensity, and persistence of voluntary behaviour
 Exerting particular effort level (intensity), for a certain
amount of time (persistence), toward a particular goal
(direction).
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Employee Engagement
Emotional and cognitive motivation, self-efficacy to
perform the job, a clear understanding of one’s role in
the organization’s vision and a belief that one has the
resources to perform the job
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Drives and Needs

Drives (aka-primary needs, fundamental needs,
innate motives)
• Neural states that energize individuals to correct deficiencies
or maintain an internal equilibrium
• Prime movers of behaviour by activating emotions
Self-concept, social norms, and past
experience
Drives
(primary needs)
Needs
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Decisions and
Behaviour
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Drives and Needs

Needs
• Goal-directed forces that people experience.
• Drive-generated emotions directed toward goals
• Goals formed by self-concept, social norms, and experience
Self-concept, social norms, and past
experience
Drives
(primary needs)
Needs
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Decisions and
Behaviour
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Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory
Seven categories
capture most needs
Five categories placed
in a hierarchy
Selfactualization
Need to
know
Need for
beauty
Esteem
Belongingness
Safety
Physiological
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Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory
Selfactualization
Need to
know

Lowest unmet need has
strongest effect
Need for
beauty

When lower need is
satisfied, next higher need
becomes the primary
motivator

Self-actualization -- a
growth need because
people desire more rather
than less of it when satisfied
Esteem
Belongingness
Safety
Physiological
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Evaluating Maslow’s Theory
Need to
know
Selfactualization
Need for
beauty

Lack of support for theory

People have different
hierarchies – don’t progress
through needs in the same
order

Needs change more rapidly
than Maslow stated
Esteem
Belongingness
Safety
Physiological
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What Maslow Contributed to
Motivation Theory

More holistic
• Integrative view of needs

More humanistic
• Influence of social dynamics, not just instinct

More positivistic
• Pay attention to strengths, not just deficiencies
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What’s Wrong with Needs
Hierarchy Models?

Wrongly assume that everyone has the same
needs hierarchy (i.e. universal)

Instead, likely that each person has a unique
needs hierarchy
• Shaped by our self-concept -- values and social
identity
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Learned Needs Theory

Needs are amplified or suppressed through
self-concept, social norms, and past
experience

Therefore, needs can be “learned” (i.e.
strengthened or weakened through training)
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Three Learned Needs
Need for achievement
• Need to reach goals, take responsibility
• Want reasonably challenging goals
Need for affiliation
• Desire to seek approval, conform to others wishes,
avoid conflict
• Effective executives have lower need for social approval
Need for power
• Desire to control one’s environment
• Personalized versus socialized power
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Four-Drive Theory
Drive to Acquire
• Drive to take/keep objects and
experiences
• Basis of hierarchy and status
Drive to Bond
• Drive to form relationships and
social commitments
• Basis of social identity
Drive to Learn
• Drive to satisfy curiosity and
resolve conflicting information
Drive to Defend
• Need to protect ourselves
• Reactive (not proactive) drive
• Basis of fight or flight
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Features of Four Drives
Innate and hardwired
• everyone has them
Independent of each other
• no hierarchy of drives
Complete set
• no drives are excluded from the model
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How Four Drives Affect Motivation
1.
Four drives determine which emotions are
automatically tagged to incoming information
2.
Drives generate independent and often
competing emotions that demand our
attention
3.
Mental skill set relies on social norms,
personal values, and experience to
transform drive-based emotions into goaldirected choice and effort
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Four Drive Theory of Motivation
Drive to
Acquire
Drive to
Bond
Drive to
Learn
Social
norms
Personal
values
Past
experience
Mental skill set resolves
competing drive demands
Goal-directed
choice and effort
Drive to
Defend
Social norms, personal values, and
experience transform drive-based emotions
into goal-directed choice and effort
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Implications of Four Drive Theory
Provide a balanced opportunity for employees
to fulfil all four drives
• employees continually seek fulfilment of drives
• avoid having conditions support one drive more
than others
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Expectancy Theory of Motivation
P-to-O
Expectancy
E-to-P
Expectancy
Outcomes
& Valences
Outcome 1
+ or -
Effort
Performance
Outcome 2
+ or -
Outcome 3
+ or -
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Increasing E-to-P and P-to-O
Expectancies

Increasing E-to-P Expectancies
• Assuring employees they have competencies
• Person-job matching
• Provide role clarification and sufficient resources
• Behavioural modelling

Increasing P-to-O Expectancies
• Measure performance accurately
• More rewards for good performance
• Explain how rewards are linked to performance
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Increasing Outcome Valences

Ensure that rewards are valued

Individualize rewards

Minimize countervalent outcomes
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Goal Setting
The process of motivating
employees and clarifying their
role perceptions by establishing
performance objectives
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Effective Goal Setting
Feedback
Participative
Specific
Relevant
(sometimes)
Accepted
(commitment)
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Challenging
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Feedback at Nova Chemicals
When Nova Chemicals introduced computer technology that
shows the plant’s operational capacity against actual
performance, employees used the feedback to see which
team could keep the plant’s operations as close as possible
to the plant’s maximum capacity.
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Characteristics of Effective
Feedback
Specific – connected to goal details
2. Relevant – Relates to person’s behaviour
3. Timely – to improve link from behaviour to
outcomes
4. Sufficiently frequent
1.
• Employee’s knowledge/experience
• task cycle
5.
Credible – trustworthy source
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Multisource Feedback

Received from a full circle of people around
the employee
 Provides more complete and accurate
information
 Several challenges
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Evaluating Goal Setting and
Feedback


Goal setting has high validity
and usefulness
Goal setting/feedback
limitations:
• Focuses employees on
measurable performance
• Motivates employees to set
easy goals (when tied to pay)
• Goal setting interferes with
learning process in new,
complex jobs
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Organizational Justice
Distributive justice
• Perceived fairness in
outcomes we receive relative
to our contributions and the
outcomes and contributions
of others
Procedural justice
• Perceived fairness of the
procedures used to decide
the distribution of resources
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Elements of Equity Theory
Outcome/input ratio
• inputs -- what employee contributes (e.g., skill)
• outcomes -- what employee receives (e.g., pay)
Comparison other
• person/people against whom we compare our ratio
• not easily identifiable
Equity evaluation
• compare outcome/input ratio with the comparison
other
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Correcting Inequity Feelings
Actions to correct inequity
Example
Reduce our inputs
Less organizational citizenship
Increase our outcomes
Ask for pay increase
Increase other’s inputs
Ask coworker to work harder
Reduce other’s outputs
Ask boss to stop giving other preferred
treatment
Change our perceptions
Start thinking that other’s perks aren’t
really so valuable
Change comparison other
Compare self to someone closer to your
situation
Leave the field
Quit job
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Equity Sensitivity

Outcome/input preferences and reaction to
various outcome/input ratios
 Benevolents
• tolerant of being underrewarded

Equity Sensitives
• want ratio to be equal to the comparison other

Entitleds
• prefer proportionately more than others
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Evaluating Equity Theory

Good at predicting situations unfair
distribution of pay/rewards

Difficult to put into practice
• doesn’t identify comparison other
• doesn’t indicate relevant inputs or outcomes

Equity theory explains only some feelings of
fairness
• procedural justice is as important as distributive
justice
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Procedural Justice

Perceived fairness of procedures used to
decide the distribution of resources
 Higher procedural fairness with:
• Voice
• Unbiased decision maker
• Decision based on all information
• Existing policies consistently
• Decision maker listened to all sides
• Those who complain are treated respectfully
• Those who complain are given full explanation
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Chapter 5
Foundations of
Employee Motivation
34
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved