Motivation means “the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior”(1)
In other to explain, predict and influence human behavior, some motivation theories, based on internal needs and external incentives, have been developed. The most known theories are:
Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy says that there are some needs that are basic to all human beings, and in their absence nothing else matters. As we satisfy these basic needs, we start looking to satisfy higher order needs and once a lower level need is satisfied, it no longer serves as a motivator.
Image 1
Theory X and Theory Y Theory was developed by Douglas McGregor. People is classified as either X or Y. X type is lazy, dislike working and responsibilities, don’t have ambitions, whereas Y type sees working as something valuable, is involve in the organization, is creative and enjoy responsibilities. Further more Douglas includes the Maslow hierarchy as a way to motivate both types; lower order needs for type X and higher order needs for type Y.
ERG Theory was developed by Clayton Alderferer. This theory simplifies Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in three groups, what is now its the concept of regresion that means that when people fail to achieve a higher level, they will come back to a lower level and intensify they satisfaction in that level
McClelland’s Needs Theory says that an individual has a combination of needs ( Achievement, Power or Affiliation), and that what can motivate an individual can be found by identifying the dominant need of a individual.
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory identify two types of factor:
Hygiene factors if no well provide, they are a source of dissatisfaction; but if well provide they not really generates motivation as they are commonly given by granted by employees. Motivator factor are the one that matter in other to motivate employs to go further.
There are also other theories based on processes and the more important ones are:
Work Motivation and Equity Theory refers to the action of comparison of an individual’s outcomes and inputs against someone else, and the result of feeling under pay or over pay as a motivational factor.
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Expectancy Theory says that an individual gets motivated after assessing if his effort will lead to a positive performance that at same time provide him with a positive and desirable reward.
1. What are the Hawthorne Studies? explain its importance for studying motivation at the workplace and its influence over diverse motivation theories.
As The Hawthorn Studies are known those studies conducted to a group of female workers at the Western Electric by its managers and a group of researches from Harvard University between 1924 and 1932. The objective of this investigation was to prove Taylor’s idea that more light in the workplace would increase the productivity of workers. But what researchers and managers did discover was that despite a reduction in light provided to work areas, Productivity would still rise. After this findings the investigation focused on the relation ship between managers and workers However, to the amazement of the researchers, the experiment showed productivity rising still further, even with a decrease in illumination. The investigation then turned its attention to the relationship between managers and workers, and its relation in improving workers productivity while changing the environmental conditions. “After conducting a number of experiments, they finally concluded that the improvements in productivity happened almost solely due to social factors, such as moral and satisfactory inter-relationships within the production team. The study also showed that just the fact of being chosen for the study motivated workers to continually improve production, regardless of the working environment (Mayo, 1949; Wren, 1994; Weihrich and Koontz, 1993; Lee and Schniederjans, 1994)”. This phenomenon was then coined as The Hawthorn Effect.
Even thought these studies started with a different purpose and objectives, it became such important approach to understand motivation inside the organization, when there was no real studies on performance based social behavior, and when the most important aspect to understand motivation was based on external physical incentives.Although, these studies have received recently a lot of criticism by many scholars because of the method, which created what is known as Hawthorn Effect, and the inconclusive data that, two facts that ended up corrupting the studies’ conclusion on the importance of social relation on motivation, there is a very important legacy from them to the organizational understanding of motivation. This legacy refers to the realization of investigators that motivation was not only a matter of external incentives but that it was very important to focused efforts to understand the behavior of the individual in terms of internal needs and the group dynamics that organizations promoted.That is way after this studies we started seeing theories such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need and all its variations, Herzberg’s two-factor theory, Equity and Motivation Theory and the Expectancy Theory. I would say that dispite the fact that Hawthorn studies might not be a reliable source of understanding motivation at work, they really gave the bases to the new organizational researchers to go further in developing more integral theories base on the individual.
2. Based on the class activity about "Flight 001: Motivating Employees", please answer the following question:
¿Which motivation theory do you think has the most relevance for understanding the behavior of Griffin and fostering her motivation at work?
In my opinion the theory that has most relevance for understanding the behavior of Griffin and fostering her motivation at work is Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory. This is because first it explains the importance of provide hygiene factor to a person in order to avoid dissatisfaction and Motivators to improve their Job satisfaction and motivation. What happened to Griffin at her old Job was that she did not have a Job security and its manager and job did not also provide her with any of Herzberg’s motivator so she quit her job, but the story was completely different for her at Flight 001. She found there that hygiene factors were provided so she did not become dissatisfy but also that hygiene factor such as achievement, recognition,responsibility and growth make her motivated at many different aspects that she literally fell in love with his job an feel herself satisfy and ready to give her best at working in Flight 001.
- (1) http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=motivation
- Image 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg (2010)
- Image 2 http://www.envisionsoftware.com/Management/ERG_Theory.html (2010)
- Image 3 Baue,Talyar. Erdogan,Berrin. Organizational Behavior. Chapter 5, section 1
- Image 4 Baue,Talyar. Erdogan,Berrin. Organizational Behavior. Chapter 5, section 2
- Image 5 Baue,Talyar. Erdogan,Berrin. Organizational Behavior. Chapter 5, section 2
Carey,Alex. The Hawthoren Studies: A radical criticism, American Sociology review, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Jun., 1967), pp. 403-416. (Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2091087)
Guinaldo dos. Santos, James Alfred Powell, Marjan Sarshar, (2002) "Evolution of management theory: the case of production management in construction", Management Decision, Vol. 40 Iss: 8, pp.788 - 796
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