MPO Midterm - Motivation Frameworks

• Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of five needs—physiological,
• safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization—in which, as each need is substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant.

There exists a hierarchy of five needs:

• 1. Physiological. Includes hunger, thirst, shelter, sex, and other bodily needs.
• 2. Safety. Security and protection from physical and emotional harm.
• 3. Social. Affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship.
• 4. Esteem. Internal factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement,and external factors such as status, recognition, and attention.
• 5. Self-actualization. Drive to become what we are capable of becoming;
• includes growth, achieving our potential, and self-fulfillment.

Under Theory X, managers believe employees inherently dislike work and must therefore be directed or even coerced into performing it.

Under Theory Y, in contrast, managers assume employees can view work as being as natural as rest or play,and therefore the average person can learn to accept, and even seek, responsibility.

To understand more fully, think in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy. Theory Y assumes higher-order needs dominate individuals. McGregor himself believed Theory Y assumptions were more valid than Theory X. Therefore, he proposed such ideas as participative decision making, responsible and challenging jobs, and good group relations to maximize an employee’s job motivation.

• Unfortunately, no evidence confirms that either set of assumptions is valid or that acting on Theory Y assumptions will lead to more motivated workers. OB theories need empirical support before we can accept them. Theory X and
• Theory Y lack such support as much as the hierarchy of needs.

• Believing an individual’s relationship to work is basic, and that attitude toward work can determine success or failure, psychologist Frederick Herzberg wondered, “What do people want from their jobs?” He asked people to describe,
• in detail, situations in which they felt exceptionally good or bad about their jobs. The responses differed significantly and led Hertzberg to his two-factor theory—also called motivation-hygiene theory.

• To Hertzberg, the data suggest that the opposite of satisfaction is not
• dissatisfaction, as was traditionally believed. Removing dissatisfying character-
• istics from a job does not necessarily make the job satisfying. As illustrated in
• Exhibit 7-3, Herzberg proposed a dual continuum: The opposite of “satisfaction”
• is “no satisfaction,” and the opposite of “dissatisfaction” is “no dissatisfaction.”

• According to Herzberg, the factors that lead to job satisfaction are sepa-
• rate and distinct from those that lead to job dissatisfaction. Therefore, manag-
• ers who seek to eliminate factors that can create job dissatisfaction may bring
• about peace, but not necessarily motivation.

• 1. Need for achievement (nAch) is the drive to excel, to achieve in
• relationship to a set of standards.

• 2. Need for power (nPow) is the need to make others behave in a way they
• would not have otherwise.

• 3. Need for affiliation (nAff) is the desire for friendly and close interpersonal
• relationships.

• Need for achievement
• They prefer working on tasks of moderate difficulty, prefer work in which the results are based on their effort rather than on anything else, and prefer to receive feedback on their work. Achievement based individuals tend to avoid both high risk and low risk situations. Low risk situations are seen as too easy to be valid and the high risk situations are seen as based more upon the luck of the situation rather than the achievements that individual made.[3] This personality type ismotivated by accomplishment in the workplace and an employment hierarchy with promotional positions.[4]

•  Need for affiliation
• People who have a need for affiliation prefer to spend time creating and maintaining social relationships, enjoy being a part of groups, and have a desire to feel loved and accepted. People in this group tend to adhere to the norms of the culture in that workplace and typically do not change the norms of the workplace for fear of rejection. This person favors collaboration over competition and does not like situations with high risk or high uncertainty.[1] People who have a need for affiliation work well in areas based on social interactions like customer service or client interaction positions.[3]

• Need for power
• People in this category enjoy work and place a high value on discipline. The downside to this motivational type is that group goals can become zero-sum in nature, that is, for one person to win, another must lose. However, this can be positively applied to help accomplish group goals and to help others in the group feel competent about their work. A person motivated by this need enjoys status recognition, winning arguments, competition, and influencing others.[1]With this motivational type comes a need for personal prestige, and a constant need for a better personal status.[4]

A theory of motivation that is concerned with the beneficial effects of intrinsic motivation and the harmful effects of extrinsic motivation.

• When people are paid for work,
• it feels less like something they want to do and more like something they have
• to do.

• When organizations use extrinsic rewards as payoffs for superior
• performance, employees feel they are doing a good job less because of their
• own intrinsic desire to excel than because that’s what the organization wants.

• Eliminating extrinsic rewards can also shift an individual’s perception of why
• she works on a task from an external to an internal explanation. If you’re read-
• ing a novel a week because your English literature instructor requires you to,
• you can attribute your reading behavior to an external source. However, if you
• find yourself continuing to read a novel a week after the course is over, your
• natural inclination is to say, “I must enjoy reading novels because I’m still
• reading one a week.”

• A version of self-determination theory which holds that allocating extrinsic rewards for behavior that had been previously intrinsically rewarding tends to
• decrease the overall level of motivation
• if the rewards are seen as controlling.

Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET- Deci 1975)[1] is a theory in Psychology that is designed to explain the effects of external consequences on internal motivation. Specifically, CET is a sub-theory of Self-Determination Theory that focus on competence and autonomy while examining how intrinsic motivation is affected by external forces.CET uses three propositions to explain how consequences affect internal motivation:External events set will impact intrinsic motivation for optimally challenging activities to the extent that they influence perceived competence, within the context of Self-Determination Theory. Events that promote greater perceived competence will enhance intrinsic motivation, whereas those that diminish perceived competence will decrease intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985).[2]Events relevant to the initiation and regulation of behavior have three potential aspects, each with a significant function.The informational aspect facilitates an internal perceived locus of causality and perceived competence, thus positively influencing intrinsic motivation.The controlling aspect facilitates an external perceived locus of causality (a person’s perception of the cause of success or failure), thus negatively influencing intrinsic motivation and increasing extrinsic compliance or defiance.The amotivating aspect facilitates perceived incompetence, and undermining intrinsic motivation while promoting disinterest in the task.The relative salience and strength of these three aspects to a person determines the functional significance of the event (Deci & Ryan, 1985).[2]3. Personal events differ in their qualitative aspects and, like external events, can have differing functional significances. Events deemed internally informational facilitate self-determined functioning and maintain or enhance intrinsic motivation. Events deemed internally controlling events are experienced as pressure toward specific outcomes and undermine intrinsic motivation. Internally amotivating events make incompetence salient and also undermine intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985).[2]

A theory that says that specific and difficult goals, with feedback, lead to higher performance.


People do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing toward their goals, because it helps identify discrepancies between what they have done and what they want to do—that is, feedback guides behavior. But all feedback is not equally potent. Self-generated feedback—with which employees are able to monitor their own progress—is more powerful than externally generated feedback.40

• If employees can participate in the setting of their own goals, will they
• try harder? The evidence is mixed.41 In some cases, participatively set goals
• yielded superior performance; in others, individuals performed best when as-
• signed goals by their boss. But a major advantage of participation may be that
• it increases acceptance of the goal as a desirable one toward which to work.42
• Commitment is important. Without participation, the individual assigning the goal needs to clearly explain its purpose and importance.43

In addition to feedback, three other factors influence the goals–performance relationship: goal commitment, task characteristics, and national culture.

• Goal-setting theory assumes an individual is committed to the goal and determined not to lower or abandon it. The individual (1) believes he or she
• can achieve the goal and (2) wants to achieve it.44 Goal commitment is most
• likely to occur when goals are made public, when the individual has an internal
• locus of control (see Chapter 4), and when the goals are self-set rather than
• assigned.45 Goals themselves seem to affect performance more strongly when
• tasks are simple rather than complex, well learned rather than novel, and inde-
• pendent rather than interdependent.46 On interdependent tasks, group goals
• are preferable.

• Finally, setting specific, difficult, individual goals may have different ef-
• fects in different cultures. Most goal-setting research has been done in the
• United States and Canada, where individual achievement and performance
• are most highly valued.

That’s often left up to the individual. Some managers set aggressive performance targets—what General Electric called “stretch goals.” Some CEOs, such as Procter & Gamble’s A. G. Lafley and SAP AG’s Hasso Plattner, are known for the demanding performance goals they set. But many managers don’t set goals. When asked whether their job had clearly defined goals, only a minority of employees in a recent survey said yes.52





But because lower-unit managers jointly partici-pate in setting their own goals, MBO works from the bottom up as well as from the top down. The result is a hierarchy that links objectives at one level to those at the next. And for the individual employee, MBO provides specific personal performance objectives.

• A more systematic way to utilize goal-setting is with management by
• objectives (MBO), which emphasizes participatively set goals that are tan-
• gible, verifiable, and measurable.

• Self-efficacy (also known as social cognitive theory or social learning theory) refers to an individual’s belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.56 The higher your self-efficacy, the more confidence you have in your ability to succeed. So, in difficult situations, people with low self-efficacy are more likely to lessen their effort or give up altogether, while those with high self-efficacy will try harder to master the challenge.57 Self-efficacy can create a positive spiral in which those with high efficacy become more engaged in their tasks and then,
• in turn, increase performance, which increases efficacy further.58 Changes in self-efficacy over time are related to changes in creative performance as well.Individuals high in self-efficacy also seem to respond to negative feedback with increased effort and motivation, while those low in self-efficacy are likely to lessen their effort after negative feedback.60 How can managers help their employees achieve high levels of self- efficacy? By bringing goal-setting theory and
• self-efficacy theory together.

Goal-setting theory and self-efficacy theory don’t compete; they complement each other.

A theory that says that behavior is a function of its consequences.

• Reinforcement theory, in contrast, takes a behavioristic view, arguing that reinforcement conditions behavior. The two theories are clearly at odds philosophically. Reinforcement theorists see behavior as environmentally caused. You need not be concerned, they would argue, with internal cognitive events; what controls behavior is reinforcers—any consequences that, when
• immediately following responses, increase the probability that the behavior will be repeated.

Reinforcement theory ignores the inner state of the individual and concentrates solely on what happens when he or she takes some action. Because it does not concern itself with what initiates behavior, it is not, strictly speak-ing, a theory of motivation. But it does provide a powerful means of analyzing what controls behavior, and this is why we typically consider it in discussions of motivation.69

• A theory that says that
• individuals compare their job inputs
• and outcomes with those of others
• and then respond to eliminate any
• inequities.

• Employees perceive what they get from a job situation (salary levels, raises, recognition) in relationship to what they put into it (effort, experience, education,
• competence), and then they compare their outcome–input ratio with that of relevant others. This is shown in Exhibit 7-6. If we perceive our ratio to be equal to that of the relevant others with whom we compare ourselves, a state of equity exists; we perceive that our situation is fair and justice prevails. When we see the ratio as unequal and we feel underrewarded, we experience equity tension that creates anger. When we see ourselves as overrewarded, tension creates guilt. J. Stacy Adams proposed that this negative state of tension provides the motivation to do something to correct it.74

The referent an employee selects adds to the complexity of equity theory. There are four referent comparisons:

Self–inside. An employee’s experiences in a different position inside the employee’s current organization.

Self–outside. An employee’s experiences in a situation or position outside the employee’s current organization.

• Other–inside. Another individual or group of individuals inside the
• employee’s organization.

• Other–outside. Another individual or group of individuals outside the
• employee’s organization.

A theory that says that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual.

• Expectancy theory argues that the strength of our tendency to act a certain way depends on the strength of our expectation of a given outcome and its attractiveness. In more practical terms, employees will be motivated to exert
• a high level of effort when they believe it will lead to a good performance appraisal; that a good appraisal will lead to organizational rewards such as bonuses, salary increases, or promotions; and that the rewards will satisfy the
• employees’ personal goals. The theory, therefore, focuses on three relation-ships (see Exhibit 7-8):

1. Effort–performance relationship. The probability perceived by the indi-vidual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to performance.

2. Performance–reward relationship. The degree to which the individual believes performing at a particular level will lead to the attainment of a desired outcome.

3. Rewards–personal goals relationship. The degree to which organizational rewards satisfy an individual’s personal goals or needs and the attractiveness of those potential rewards for the individual.101

Need theories. Maslow’s hierarchy, McClelland’s needs, and the two-factor theory focus on needs. None has found widespread support, although McClelland’s is the strongest, particularly regarding the relationship between achievement and productivity. In general, need theories are not very valid explanations of motivation.

• Self-determination theory and cognitive evaluation theory. As research on the motivational effects of rewards has accumulated, it increasingly appears extrinsic rewards can undermine motivation if they are seen as
• coercive. They can increase motivation if they provide information about competence and relatedness.

Goal-setting theory. Clear and difficult goals lead to higher levels of employee productivity, supporting goal-setting theory’s explanation of this dependent variable. The theory does not address absenteeism, turnover, or satisfaction, however.

Reinforcement theory. This theory has an impressive record for predicting quality and quantity of work, persistence of effort, absentee-ism, tardiness, and accident rates. It does not offer much insight into employee satisfaction or the decision to quit.

• Equity theory/organizational justice. Equity theory deals with productivity, satisfaction, absence, and turnover variables. However, its strongest legacy is that it provided the spark for research on organizational justice,
• which has more support in the literature.

• Expectancy theory. Expectancy theory offers a powerful explana-tion of performance variables such as employee productivity, absentee-ism, and turnover. But it assumes employees have few constraints on decision making, such as bias or incomplete information, and this limits
• its applicability. Expectancy theory has some validity because, for many behaviors, people consider expected outcomes.