Organisational Behaviour Chapter 4 Motivation Objectives Discuss the

Organisational Behaviour Chapter 4

Motivation Objectives: • Discuss the meaning of the word motivation • Evaluate content and process theories of motivation • Develop a view about the role of financial and other rewards as motivating factors • Discuss the motivational aspects of job design © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Motivation – a descriptive definition Psychologists define motivation as: • the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge. • It involves the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that activate behaviour. In everyday usage, the term motivation is frequently used to describe why a person does something. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Motivation – a prescriptive definition • Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a job, role or subject, or to make an effort to attain a goal. • Motivation results from the interaction of both conscious and unconscious factors such as the (1) intensity of desire or need, (2) incentive or reward value of the goal, and (3) expectations of the individual and of his or her peers. These factors are the reasons one has for behaving a certain way. An example is a student that spends extra time studying for a test because he or she wants a better grade in the class © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Content theories of motivation focus on the satisfaction of needs as key motivating factors. Deciding on what those needs might be is central to this group of theories © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Content theories of motivation – Maslow’s hierarchy of needs © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Content theories of motivation – Alderfer’s ERG theory In contrast to Maslow, Alderfer identifies three broad categories of need. He suggested that these needs had a variable strength for each individual, as well as varying over time. Existence Food, water, shelter, safety, physical wellbeing, confidence that these needs will continue to be met. Relatedness Good relations with others, feeling part of a group or community, sense of identity, concern to be seen as valued member of group. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014) Growth Need for sense of achievement, emotional and psychological growth, positive sense of self.

Content theories of motivation – Herzberg’s two -factor theory Herzberg categorised needs as being of two types: 1. Hygiene factors or dissatisfiers – the absence of these factors led to dissatisfaction. If these needs were satisfied, however, this did not lead to greater satisfaction, but to the absence of dissatisfaction. Hygiene Factors are those aspects of working conditions which are extrinsic to the individual worker. They are part of the working environment set up by management. 2. Motivating factors – however if other needs were met, this produced motivation. These motivating factors were usually intrinsic to the individual, such as fulfilling work, or the ability to achieve personal goals. Herzberg found that pay was usually a hygiene factor in that it had more potential to bring about dissatisfaction than motivation. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation Whilst content theories of motivation looked at aspects of organisational life to discover how well they met workers’ needs, process theories are concerned with how people become motivated. Content theories of motivation are difficult to implement since they require the manager to have an intimate knowledge of the needs of any individual. They then need to have access to the resources which can satisfy those needs. Process theories, on the other hand are of interest to managers since they appear to be theories managers can use to direct workers to fulfill the needs of the organisation. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation – expectancy theories The underlying concept of expectancy is that an individual will strive to achieve a goal that they value. This basic concept was further developed by Victor Vroom. It is often set out as: Motivational Force (MF) = Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valency Expectancy – the belief that the effort input will lead to successful completion of a task. Instrumentality – the likelihood that the valued rewards will be forthcoming when the task is successfully completed; Valency – how valuable the outcome is to the person carrying out the task; © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation – expectancy theories Three key relationships in expectancy theory. These relationships must be present for motivation to ensue: 1. Value to the individual of the reward for achieving the task, which determines how much effort someone will put in to achieve it. (Valency) 2. The confidence that making the effort will result in successful completion of the task. (Expectancy) 3. The belief that successful completion of the task will deliver the reward. (Instrumentality). © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation – expectancy theories These three relationships can be viewed as cyclical: © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation – equity theory Like expectancy theory, Equity is calculative. According to Adam we weigh up the effort we put into a task and the reward we receive on its completion, similar to expectancy theory. Where equity theory develops this idea however, is that we not only calculate reward/effort relationship, but we also make a comparison about how well or badly we do after completing the task compared to other people. We do not see the performance of the task as carried out in isolation from other people carrying out similar tasks, but we almost try to establish a kind of a ‘going rate’ which we calculate by comparison with what rewards others receive. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation – equity theory Adam suggests that we make our comparison by looking at inputs to the task and comparing the outcomes we achieve. • Examples of inputs: Time, effort, skill, imagination, experience, conscientiousness, personal qualities. • Examples of outcomes: Money, status, position, satisfaction, praise, challenge, reputation, enhancement of your CV. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation – equity theory If equity is felt to be absent, a person can take steps to restore an equitable balance: • Change inputs. You can do this by increasing or decreasing personal effort, or other inputs to the task. • Change outcomes/expectations. You can do this by raising or lowering what you expect to receive as a reward. • • Change comparison. You may conclude that the person you are comparing your efforts with is not the right person for a comparison. In this case you need to change who you are comparing yourself to. Influencing the inputs and outcomes of your comparator. If for example, you find that someone else is carrying out the same task for a lesser reward, you may try to influence them to demand an increase in their reward. You may do this from a sense of fairness, or you may do it so that your own reward does not appear to be excessive – you are trying to change the ‘marketplace’. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Process theories of motivation – equity theory Individuals will respond to a sense of inequity in different ways. According to Husman there are three broad response categories: • Sensitives: These are people who are very concerned that there should be an equilibrium between inputs and outcomes • Benevolents: These individuals tend to be tolerant of perceived under reward, for example because they find intrinsic reward in other aspects of work rather than in the task they are engaged in. • Entitleds: These people tend to prefer situations in which they are overrewarded, in other words, the outcomes for their inputs are better than those of their comparators. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Goal theories of motivation Goal setting is based on the premise that human activity is purposeful and can be directed towards achieving a desired outcome. The theory can be seen as having three dimensions: 1. The nature of the goals 2. The processes at work which help to achieve those goals 3. The contribution of the goal achievement © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Goal theories of motivation – the nature of the goals Goals need to be: • Clear. They need to say exactly what is to be achieved, using what resources and in what timescale. In particular, the outcome needs to be unambiguously measurable. • Challenging. Goals which are easy to attain will not motivate. They need to challenge the capability of the person tasked with carrying them out, . • Realistic. Goals need to be credible and they need to relate to the overall aims of the organisation. • Reasonably complex. Simple tasks appear to be less motivating than complex tasks, although the complexity must not be such as to overwhelm the person carrying it out. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Goal theories of motivation – the processes at work Factors which facilitate the achievement of goals: • Commitment to the goal – this is the key motivational factor in goal-setting. It has two dimensions: 1. The goal must be important enough to be worthwhile 2. The person carrying out the task must have the belief that the task is within their capability • Feedback – to understand how well the task is going and to make any changes to improve the situation or even to change the goals. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Goal theories of motivation – the contribution of the goal achievement The contribution of the goal achievement: If a manager and subordinate have spent time and effort on defining clear, measurable goals, then have expended skill and diligence on achieving that goal, only to find that it is not valued, or that it makes little difference to overall departmental or organisational performance, then it is much less likely that there will be a similar level of commitment to achieving future goals. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Goal theories of motivation potential problems Goal conflict – if goals are not aligned to overall organisational needs there will be no significant contribution when they are achieved. Employee capability – Those setting goals must be confident that the staff working to achieve the goals set have the personal capability and the resources to complete the task successfully. Designing goal parameters – in many contexts this can be difficult. Where goal achievement is difficult to measure objectively, then it may be difficult to ascertain how effectively the goal has been achieved. Moreover, the outcomes of some tasks are only discernable some way into the future. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Job Design The ability of the way a job is designed to motivate those carrying it out is premised on the idea that people are motivated by work which is interesting, challenging and valued. Hackman and Oldham developed a model which attempts to measure the motivational properties of jobs by measuring the five core job dimensions. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Job Design – Core job dimensions • • • Skill Variety: The range of skills needed to carry out the job. The assumption is that worker prefer to utilize a range of skills, especially challenging skills, than the single, simplified skill set required in work broken down according to Scientific Management principles. Task Identity: Seeing the job as a whole entity, rather than as a single, insignificant contribution to a larger whole. Task Significance: This refers to how important and meaningful the job is for others, either inside or outside the organisation. • Autonomy: The degree of decision making the worker has about the way the job is to be done, the sequencing of activities, the quality of process and output. • Feedback: Feedback is the key to understanding how well you are doing in the job –or how well you are perceived to be doing. It enables you to modify how you are working to achieve improvements. The key feature of feedback, especially critical feedback, is that it needs to be constructive and concrete, with suggestions on what needs to be done to improve. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Job Design – Core job dimensions Psychological states arising from job dimensions: • The experienced meaningfulness of work: In other words the job that is done has meaning for both the worker and the organisation. It is important that it is done well. This critical state is mostly influenced by the dimensions of Skill variety, Task identity and Task Significance. • The experienced responsibility for the outcomes of the job: This refers to the notion of ‘ownership’ of the job. That is the job holder has to take responsibility for the process of carrying out the work as well as for the outcomes of the work. This critical state is influenced by the degree of autonomy in the work. • Knowledge of the results of the work: This is psychologically important since it tells the job holder whether the purposes of the job are being achieved and what needs to be done to make any changes. The main influence on this psychological state is the dimension of feedback © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Job Design – Core job dimensions A good fit of job dimensions can lead to four personal outcomes: • High internal work motivation: Provided that the core dimensions lead to appropriate psychological states for the individual, then the result is likely to be a self-motivated worker. • High quality work performance: We have seen in other aspects of motivation theory that effort and enthusiasm are not necessarily predictors of effective performance. However, Hackman and Oldman suggest that if the job dimensions fit the individual and the appropriate psychological state is achieved, then high quality work can be achieved. • High work satisfaction: As above, if the individual’s needs are met by the design of the job, then they will find the work satisfying. • Low absenteeism and labour turnover: Work that is motivating and high quality will tend to be attractive in itself. Consequently, staff will not be constantly seeking other opportunities. Moreover, as long as pay is seen as equitable, staff will not leave for purely financial reasons. © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)

Job Design – Core job dimensions Diagram of the model: © Mike Maughan, Organisational Behaviour, Palgrave (2014)