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Motivation theories and their implications for management
Relation between motivation and rewards
Conclution of employee theory of motivation
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. Introduction
The majority of people on earth work either with or without salary (housewives, volunteers). Why some of them work more and others less? Why some of them are happy in their jobs and others are not? The questions were puzzled managers and psychologists who, through the understanding of employee incentives want to steer their behavior to reach the objectives of the organization. The following essay will consider two basic motivation theories that attempt to answer the above questions.
2. Motivation
The desire for a purpose creates behavior. Motivation is to provide appropriate incentives to meet the needs of employees to behave according to the way the company wants. Motivation is linked to human needs but not obvious. "Man lives only for bread, when there is no bread" (Zavlanos 2002). According to Hackman and Lawler (Zavlanos 2002) motivation is an internal state that activates people fulfills some purpose. The purpose of motivational theories is to predict behavior.
3. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow aimed to identify what motivates human behavior. Maslow's theory is based on three fundamental assumptions. (Zavlanos 2002).
• People are beings who have needs that can affect their behavior. Only needs not being met can affect a person's behavior and needs are met not act as an incentive.
• The human needs are classified in a hierarchical order from the most basic (food, shelter) as the most complex (self-actualization, success)
• The person proceeds to the next level of needs, from the most basic to the most complex , if only meet the need of lower level.
Investigating the needs of man and the motivational power, classified them into five levels : physiological, ...
... middle of paper ...
... whose needs are mainly economic. At the same time the high unemployment rate in our country, especially among young people, make the safety and permanence of high motivational factors. So money motivates people only at lower levels of needs. The more climbs in the administrative hierarchy of a person, the more important it is for it to meet the psychological needs. Money has high influence on the motivation of individuals to rise to the upper levels.
Works Cited
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/more-subjects/principles-of-management/motivating-and-rewarding-employees/motivation-theories-individual-needs
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologytopics/tp/theories-of-motivation.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
http://www.businessballs.com/motivation.htm
https://www.goldsmithibs.com/resources/free/Motivation/notes/Summary%20-%20Motivation.pdf
People have long considered general theories of motivation, and the question regarding the specific motives that direct and energize our human behavior has undergone tremendous speculation. To this day the question still stands: what is it that humans seek most in life? In an effort to answer this question, Abraham Maslow proposed what he called the hierarchy of needs. Maslow theorizes that human beings are motivated to fulfill this hierarchy, which consists of needs ranging from those that are basic for survival up to those that promote growth and self-enhancement (Kassin 300).
According with Maslow, all human being do have the same innate needs that active and drive their behaviors. These needs were organized from stronger to weaker in a pyramid known as hierarchy of needs, where the stronger need should be meet before people can have the need to accomplish the weaker one. Moreover, people can go back to the first need at any point of their life. The first two need are known as deficit needs or biological needs because without them people create a deficit in their body. The last three one are known as growth or psychological needs and are not essential for human survival.
The credible version of hierarchy of needs of Maslow (1943, 1954), have five motivational levels that are arranged in a pyramid with depicted levels. The stages are divided in basic needs which include, psychological, love, safety, and esteem. These needs are also primary of deficiency needs. The other needs are growth needs which incorporate self-actualization needs. When basic needs are not met, they are said to motivate people. The strength of the desire of such needs depends with the time in which they are denied. For example, the more a person lacks food, the hungrier that person becomes. Basic needs must be satisfied before a person proceeds to satisfy other needs in the higher levels. When basic needs are satisfied reasonably, the person can now strive at achieving the self-actualization level, which is the highest level.
Theories of Motivation What is the motivation for this? According to the text, motivation is defined as a set of factors that activate, direct, and maintain behavior, usually toward a certain goal. Motivation is the energy that makes us do things; this is a result of our individual needs being satisfied so that we have inspiration to complete the mission. These needs vary from person to person as everybody has their individual needs to motivate themselves.
The author trusts that all humans have some level of motivation as long as they exist. In turn, there are several well-known classic approaches that consider motivation such as instinct, drive reduction, arousal, incentive, and humanistic approaches. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe all in detail, but a brief synopsis of each follows: (1) Instinct approach theorists suggest that humans have many diverse instincts that are biologically determined and cause innate patterns of behaviors such as reproducing, territorial protection, curiosity, acquisition, and fight, flight or freeze to name a few (McDougall, 1908). (2) Drive-reduction theory proposes that individuals have needs that are essential for survival and this need cause a tension to act called a drive. These drives entail primary drives for physical needs such as water and food, and acquired drives realized through conditioning or experience such as the need for income or social acceptance; whereas, one must meet the need to reduce the drive to return to a state of homeostasis (Hull, 1943). (3) Theorists who support an Arousal approach believe that humans are motivated by stimulation and people develop an optimal level of stimulus tension; whereas, task performances may suffer if the level is too high such as severe test anxiety or even too low such as boredom
The hierarchy of needs is frequently represented in the shape of a pyramid and is broken up into 5 separate stages with the main, most important levels of necessities at the bottom and the need for self-actualization
The author trusts that all humans have some level of motivation as long as they exist. In turn, there are several well-known classic approaches that consider motivation such as instinct, drive reduction, arousal, incentive, and humanistic approaches. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe all in detail, but a brief synopsis of each follows: (1) Instinct approach theorists suggest that humans have many diverse instincts that are biologically determined and cause innate patterns of behaviors such as reproducing, territorial protection, curiosity, acquisition, and fight, flight or freeze to name a few (McDougall, 1908). (2) Drive-reduction theory proposes that individuals have needs that are essential for survival and this need cause a tension to act called a drive. These drives entail the primary drives for physical needs (water and food) and the acquired drives learned through experience or conditioning (need for money or social approval); whereas, one must meet the need to return to a state of homeostasis (Hull, 1943). (3) Theorists who support an Arousal approach believe that humans are motivated by stimulation and people develop an optimal level of stimulus tension; whereas, task performances may suffer if the level is too high such as severe test anxiety or even too low such as boredom (Teigen, 1994). (4) Incentive
Management spends a huge amount of time to design incentive systems and schemes to motivate their workers and to ensure they work in their best possible manner. Motivating workers by giving them decent pay helps in winning employees heart to make the work done efficiently, significantly and effectively. The most effective way to motivate people to work productively is through individual incentive compensation (Pfeffer, 1998). An attraction of getting more is a powerful incentive to people for high performance. While most people agree that money plays a major role in motivating people, in organizations there is a widespread belief that money may also have some undesirable effects on morale.
Learning the real importance of understanding the different types of motivation is in our ability to determine which type of motivation is most inspiring and effective to purse the desired behaviour in ourselves or others.
Employee motivation has always been a central problem in the workplace, and, as an individual in a supervisory position, it becomes one’s duty to understand and institute systems that ensure the proper motivation of your subordinates. Proper motivation of employees can ensure high productivity and successful workflow, while low worker motivation can result in absenteeism, decreased productivity rates, and turnover. A large body of research has been produced regarding motivation, and much of this research is applicable to the workplace. Due to the nature of man, motivation varies from individual to individual, and, because of this, there is no one system that is the best for ensuring worker motivation in every organizational situation, and, as a product, many theories have been created to outline what drives people to satisfactorily complete their work tasks. Throughout the course of this document, the three main types of these motivational theories will be outlined and examples of each, as well as how these theories can be used to further strengthen and sustain worker motivation....
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