Motivation Theory : Motivate People At Work

Motivate people at work

Introduction
When we need to explore the extent to which motivation theory is useful in understanding what motivates people at work, we need to understand the meaning of motivation. motivation is a state arising in processes that are internal and external to the individual, in which the person perceives that it is appropriate to pursue a certain course of action directed at achieving a specified outcome and in which the person chooses to pursue those outcomes with a degree of vigour and persistence. (Rollinson, D., 2008.) However, during this process, motivation will be defined into different ways, motivation is an internal state or condition that serves to activate or energize behavior and give it direction which is internal state or condition that activates behavior and gives it direction; desire or want that energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior; influence of needs and desires on the intensity and direction of behavior. (Huitt, W. 2011) So that scholars begun to create different theories to explain this process. There are two motivation theories which comes from content theory and process theory. There are Alderfer’s ERG theory and Adam’s equity theory. The task for this essay is to explore the extent to which motivation theory is useful in understanding what motivates people at work.

Findings and discussion section
At the beginning, we firstly need to distinguish the difference between the Alderfer’s ERG theory and Adam’s theory. Alderfer’s ERG theory was developed by the psychologist Clayton Alderfer. He made a new model to explain the simultaneous nature of Maslow’s five needs. He first published this model in a 1969 article titled “an Empirical Test of a New Theory of Human Need.” (MindTools...

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...eds. Alderfer’s work suggests that growth needs are actually more important when satisfied, whereas Maslow argued that, when it is fulfilled, a need becomes less important to an individual. (Bratton, J., 2015) on the other hand, the strength of Adams’ Equity theory is it is a good tool to be used in organizations to review and understand what employee behaviors are. However, the weakness is limitation. It is only used to think about the fair when compared with the related object. I cannot talk about which theory will be better using in the workplace, I would rather think which theory will be better in this particular situation, different theory used in different situation will be have different result. The thing we need to do is trying to understand the theories deeply, and understand the strengths and weakness, in order to use these theories in to right workplace.