TOPIC
INDIVIDUALS IN THE ORGANIZATION
MOTIVATION
Ing. Pavel Adámek, Ph.D.
adamek@opf.slu.cz

Motivation – key terms and learning outcomes
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•Different ways in which the term motivation is used.
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•The nature of motives and motivation processes as influences on behaviour.
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•Expectancy theory and job enrichment to diagnose organizational problems and to recommend
solutions.
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•The continuing contemporary interest in this field, with respect to extreme jobs, boreout, and
high performance work systems.
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Content

•A motivated workforce can be a sign of a successful organization. How is that achieved?
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•Each of us has a different reason for getting out of bed in the morning.
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•Our motives – from the Latin movere, to move – are key determinants of our behaviour.
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•If we understand your motives (desire for more leisure), we can influence your behaviour (take a
day’s holiday if you finish that assignment).
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What motivates you?
Why study motivation?

The top career goals for UK university students were:
1. to have work-life balance
2. to be competitively or intellectually challenged
3. to be secure or stable in my job
4. to be dedicated to a cause or to feel that I am serving a greater good
5. to have an international career
6. to be entrepreneurial or creative and innovative
7. to be a leader or manager of people
8. to be a technical or functional expert
9. to be autonomous or independent.
Why study motivation?

When Apple released the iPad in May 2010, pictures of iPhones were burned in Hong Kong and
protesters called for a global boycott of Apple products.
-This followed a series of employee suicides at Foxconn, a contract manufacturer which makes
products for Apple and other electronics companies at Foxconn City, an industrial park in Shenzen.
-Foxconn City has 15 multistorey manufacturing buildings where there were twelve suicides in one
year. These deaths raised questions about ‘sweatshop’ working conditions. Although Foxconn paid the
Shenzen minimum wage, employees compared the company facilities to a prison, said that they were
forced to work illegal overtime and night shifts, were exposed to hazardous materials, and had
their privacy invaded by management.
-In response to the suicides, the company put nets around its buildings, hired counsellors, and
brought in Buddhist monks to pray. The chief executive denied that he was running a ‘sweatshop’,
but Apple, Foxconn, and other companies had already suffered ‘bad press’ (The Economist, 2010).
A demotivated workforce, on the other hand, can be disastrous!!!

•However, is more money really more motivating? Douglas McGregor (1960) set out two sets of
motivational propositions, which he called ‘Theory X’ and ‘Theory Y’.
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•Managers who subscribe to Theory X believe in giving orders and direct supervision, and in the
motivating power of money.
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•Managers who subscribe to Theory Y believe in giving autonomy and responsibility, and in the
motivating power of interesting jobs.
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•McGregor argued that Theory Y was a more accurate description of most people’s attitudes to work,
and that Theory X in practice demotivated people.
–In other words, nonfinancial rewards can be as powerful, if not more powerful, motivators than
money, as we also value recognition, jobs with a worthwhile purpose, flexible working, and personal
development.
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Why study motivation?

Extreme jobs



•Long hours and intense pressure are also exhausting, and have implications for family life.
•Women in extreme jobs are concerned that their children are less disciplined, eat more junk food,
and watch too much television as a result of their frequent absence.
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Results show:
• 53 per cent of women in extreme jobs say that their job interferes with their sex life;
• 65 per cent of men say their extreme jobs damage relationships with their children.
•Research has shown that extreme jobs with long hours are associated with higher satisfaction,
better career prospects, and higher salary, but with also with higher levels of stress, more
psychosomatic symptoms, lower family satisfaction, and poorer emotional health.
Extreme jobs

•Demotivation is common, especially among office workers, and is caused by repetitive,
uninteresting, unchallenging work, leading to boreout. They estimate that 15 per cent of office
workers are affected.
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•Boreout leads to high levels of sick leave and reduces company loyalty.
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•If you suffer boreout, you turn up for work lacking energy and enthusiasm, and spend your time
surfing the internet, chatting to colleagues, and trying to look busy.
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Boreout

The employee who answers ‘yes’ to four or more of these questions may be suffering boreout:
•1. Do you complete private tasks at work?
•2. Do you feel under-challenged or bored?
•3. Do you sometimes pretend to be busy?
•4. Are you tired and apathetic after work even if you experienced no stress in the office?
•5. Are you unhappy with your work?
•6. Do you find your work meaningless?
•7. Could you complete your work quicker than you are doing?
•8. Are you afraid of changing your job because you might take a salary cut?
•9. Do you send private emails to colleagues during working hours?
•10. Do you have little or no interest in your work?
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Boreout

Motivation can be explored from three distinct but related perspectives:
•1. Goals. What are the main motives for our behaviour?
–Wealth, status, and power trigger behaviours directed towards their achievement. This perspective
views motivation in terms of our desired outcomes or goals. This question is addressed by content
theories of motivation.
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•2. Decisions. Why do we choose to pursue certain goals? Why do you study hard to earn distinctions
while a friend has a full social life and is happy with pass grades?
–This perspective views motivation in terms of the cognitive decision-making processes influencing
an individual’s choice of goals. This question is addressed by process theories of motivation.
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•3. Influence. How can we get you to work harder? Managers want to motivate employees to turn up on
time and be helpful to customers.
–This perspective views motivation as a social influence process and is addressed by job enrichment
theories.
Drives, motives, and motivation

Drives, motives, and motivation



Drives, motives, and motivation



The ‘emotional needs’ theory claims that we are driven by four basic and innate (‘hardwired’)
drives:
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•the drive to acquire (obtain scarce goods, develop social status);
•the drive to bond (form connections with other individuals and groups);
•the drive to comprehend (satisfy our curiosity, master our environment);
•the drive to defend (protect against threats, promote justice).
Content theories

Content theories - Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy



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Content theories


•Theories of motivation that focus on how we make choices with respect to goals are known as
process theories.
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•Unlike content theories, process theories give us a decision-making role in choosing our goals and
how to pursue them. Individuals are motivated by different outcomes.
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We will explore four process theories of work motivation:
1.equity theory,
2.expectancy theory,
3.goal-setting theory, and
4.inner work life theory.
Process theories

•Equity theory a process theory of motivation which argues that perception of unfairness leads to
tension, which motivates the individual to resolve that unfairness.
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•The calculation of what is just or equitable depends on the comparisons we make with others.
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•How do you calculate inequity? We compare our rewards (pay, recognition) and contributions (time,
effort, ideas) with the outputs and inputs of others. Equity thus exists when these ratios are
equal:
•Rewards can include a range of tangible and intangible factors: pay, status symbols, fringe
benefits, promotion prospects, satisfaction, job security.
•Inputs similarly relate to any factor that you believe you bring to the situation, including age,
experience, skill, education, effort, loyalty, and commitment. The relative priority or weighting
of these various factors depends on the individual’s perception.
Equity theory

Strategies for reducing inequity
Equity theory


•A motive is an outcome that has become desirable. The process through which outcomes become
desirable is explained by the expectancy theory of motivation.
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•For work motivation to be high, productive work has to be seen as a path to valued goals. If you
need more money, and if you expect to get more money for working hard, then we can predict that you
will work hard.
•If you still need more money, but if you expect that hard work will only result in happy smiles
from the boss, then we can predict that you will decide not to work hard (unless you value happy
smiles).
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Expectancy theory

Expectancy theory



•Goal-setting theory a process theory of motivation which argues that work motivation is influenced
by goal difficulty, goal specificity, and knowledge of results.
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The main positive feature of goal-setting theory concerns the clarity of the practical
implications:
•Goal difficulty: set goals for performance at levels which will stretch employees, but which are
not beyond their ability levels.
•Goal specificity: express goals in clear and precise language, if possible in quantifiable terms,
and avoid setting vague and ambiguous goals.
•Participation: allow employees to take part in the goal-setting process to increase the
acceptability of and their commitment to goals.
•Acceptance: if goals are set by management, ensure that they are adequately explained and
justified, so that those concerned understand and accept them.
•Feedback: provide information on the results of past performance to allow employees to adjust
their behaviour, if necessary, to improve future performance.
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Goal-setting theory

Goal-setting theory has established four propositions which are well-supported by research:
•1. Challenging goals lead to higher levels of performance than simple and unchallenging goals.
Difficult goals are also called ‘stretch’ goals because they encourage us to try harder (unless the
goal is beyond our level of ability).
•2. Specific goals lead to higher levels of performance than vague goals such as ‘try harder’ or
‘do your best’. It is easier to adjust our behaviour when we know precisely what is required of us,
and goal specificity avoids confusion. Goals should thus be SMART: specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic and time-related.
•3. Participation in goal-setting, particularly when this is expected, can improve performance by
increasing commitment to those goals, but managerially assigned goals that are adequately explained
and justified can also lead to high performance.
•4. Knowledge of results of past performance – feedback – is necessary for effective goal
achievement. Feedback contains information and is also motivational.
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Goal-setting theory

Inner work life theory



•The ‘inner work life’ model of work performance. One of the most important implications of this
perspective concerns the role of emotions.
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•Neuroscience has shown that cognition (including perception) and emotion are closely linked.
Events at work trigger a combination of perceptual, emotional, and motivational processes.
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•The way in which these processes interact shapes our behaviour and our performance at work
Inner work life theory

The social process of motivating others



Task fragmentation has advantages:
•employees do not need expensive and time-consuming training;
• repeating one small specialized task makes employees very proficient;
•unskilled work gets lower pay; and
•some of the problems of achieving controlled performance are simplified.
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The disadvantages include:
•repetitive work is very boring;
•the individual’s contribution to the organization is meaningless and insignificant;
•monotony leads to apathy, dissatisfaction, and carelessness; and
•the employee does not develop skills that might lead to promotion.
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The social process of motivating others

The social process of motivating others



The social process of motivating others



•Herzberg (1968) put the way in which a job is designed determines the rewards available, and what
the individual has to do to get those rewards. It helps to distinguish between intrinsic rewards
and extrinsic rewards.
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•Intrinsic rewards valued outcomes or benefits which come from the individual, such as feelings of
satisfaction, competence, self-esteem, and accomplishment.
–Mountaineers, poets, athletes, authors, painters, and musicians are usually familiar with the
concept of intrinsic reward
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•Extrinsic rewards valued outcomes or benefits provided by others, such as promotion, pay
increases, a bigger office desk, praise, and recognition.
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The social process of motivating others

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The Job Characteristics Model


The JOB CHARACTERISTICS MODEL suggests that jobs can be analysed in terms of five core dimensions:
•skill variety: the extent to which a job makes use of different skills and abilities;
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•task identity: the extent to which a job involves a ‘whole’ and meaningful piece of work;
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•task significance: the extent to which a job affects the work of others;
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•autonomy: the extent to which a job provides independence and discretion;
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•feedback: the extent to which performance information is related back to the individual.
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The social process of motivating others

Empowerment, engagement, and high performance



Empowerment, engagement, and high performance



Organizations, or groups, are a high performance system if they
•perform excellently against a known external standard;
•perform beyond what is assumed to be their potential best;
•perform excellently in relation to what they did before;
•are judged by observers to be substantially better than comparable groups;
•are achieving levels of performance with fewer resources than necessary;
•are seen to be exemplars, as a source of ideas and inspiration;
•are seen to achieve the ideals of the culture;
•are the only organizations that have been able to do what they do at all, even though it might
seem that what they do is not so difficult or mysterious.
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Empowerment, engagement, and high performance

The case for high performance work systems



•Motivation can refer to desired goals which we as individuals have or acquire.
•Motivation can refer to the individual decision-making process through which goals are chosen and
pursued.
•Motivation can refer to social influence attempts to change the behaviour of others.
•Motives as desirable goals can be innate (drives) or acquired (socially learned).
•Content theories of motivation explain behaviour in terms of innate drives and acquired motives.
•Equity theory explains motivation in terms of perceived injustice or unfairness.
•Expectancy theory explains motivation in terms of valued outcomes and the subjective probability
of achieving those outcomes.
•Goal-setting theory explains behaviour in terms of goal difficulty and goal specificity.
•Inner work life theory explains behaviour in terms of the interactions between perceptions,
motives, and emotions.
RECAP

•A job will only be motivating if it leads to rewards which the individual values.
•Rewards motivate high performance when the link between effort and reward is clear.
•Hygiene factors can overcome dissatisfaction but do not lead to motivation.
•Content factors lead to job satisfaction, motivation, and high performance.
•Jobs can be enriched by applying vertical job loading factors.
•The motivating potential of a job can be increased by improving skill variety, task identity, task
significance, autonomy, and feedback.
•Job enrichment will not improve the performance of individuals with low Growth Need Strength.
•Some people are motivated by extreme jobs, working long hours under pressure, for the adrenalin
rush, high pay, status, and power, but with personal and social problems.
•In a rapidly changing competitive business environment, organizations need to motivate employees
to be flexible, adaptable, committed, and creative, not just to turn up on time and follow
instructions.
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RECAP

We can share our thoughts and ask questions
J
Pavel Adámek
adamek@opf.slu.cz