Chapter 08 – Foundations of Motivation
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CHAPTER EIGHT: Foundations of Motivation
LEARNING OJBECTIVES
See Slides 8-2, 8-3
When you finish studying the material in this chapter, you should be able to:
• Contrast Maslow’s, Alderfer’s, and McClelland’s need theories.
• Explain the practical significance of Herzberg’s distinction between motivators
and hygiene factors.
• Discuss the role of perceived inequity in employee motivation.
• Explain the differences among distributive, procedural, and interactional justice.
• Describe the practical lessons derived from equity theory.
• Explain Vroom’s expectancy theory.
• Explain how goal setting motivates an individual.
• Review the five practical lessons from goal-setting research.
• Discuss the three conceptually different approaches to job design.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Chapter 8 describes employee motivation and how content and process motivation
theories seek to explain and predict purposeful or goal-directed behavior. Motivation
represents psychological processes that cause the arousal, direction, and persistence
of voluntary actions that are goal directed. Content theories of motivation focus on
identifying internal factors such as instincts, needs, satisfaction, and job characteristics.
Process theories focus on explaining the process by which internal factors and
cognitions influence employee motivation. Ways to motivate employees through job
design are discussed. Finally, the chapter discusses challenges managers may face
when implementing a motivational program.
This chapter describes four content theories of motivation: Maslow’s need hierarchy
theory, Alderfer’s ERG theory, McClelland’s need theory, and Herzberg’s motivator–
hygiene theory. Needs are physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse
behavior. In his need hierarchy theory, Maslow proposed that motivation is a function of
five basic needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. These need
categories are arranged in a prepotent hierarchy. According to Maslow’s need
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hierarchy, managers should motivate employees by attempting to satisfy emerging or
unmet needs.
Alderfer’s ERG theory proposes that behavior can be explained by (from lowest to
highest) existence, relatedness, and growth needs. ERG theory does not assume
needs are related to each other in a stair-step hierarchy as does Maslow’s need
hierarchy. Alderfer believes that more than one need may be activated at a time.
Frustration of higher-order needs can influence the desire for lower-order needs.
Research on ERG theory has provided mixed support.
McClelland has examined needs for achievement, affiliation, and power. The need for
achievement is defined as the desire to excel one’s self, to accomplish something
difficult, and to do it as rapidly and as independently as possible. Those with high need
for achievement prefer tasks of moderate difficulty and situations in which their
performance is due to their own efforts, and they desire more feedback. People with a
high need for affiliation prefer to spend more time maintaining social relationships,
joining groups, and wanting to be loved. The need for power reflects a person’s desire
to influence, coach, teach, or encourage others to achieve.
Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene theory proposes separate and distinct clusters of factors
associated with job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Motivators are factors associated
with the content of the performed task and are associated with strong effort and good
performance. Motivators cause a person to move from a state of no satisfaction to
satisfaction. Hygiene factors are associated with the work context and are indicative of
job dissatisfaction.
This chapter also discusses three process theories of motivation: Adams’s equity
theory, Vroom’s expectancy theory, and goal setting. Equity theory is a motivation
model explaining how people strive for fairness and justice in social exchanges or give–
and-take relationships. A key component of equity theory is the individual-organization
exchange relationship. Two elements in the employee-employer exchange are inputs
and outcomes. An employee’s inputs, for which he or she expects a just return, include
education, experience, skills, and effort. Organizations provide outcomes such as pay,
fringe benefits, and recognition. An individual makes equity judgments by comparing
the perceived fairness of his or her employment exchange of inputs to outcomes to that
of relevant others. People tend to compare themselves to similar others. Equity exists
when an individual’s ratio of perceived outcomes to inputs is equal to the ratio of a
referent other. If the comparison other receives greater outcomes for similar inputs,
negative inequity will be perceived. A person will experience positive inequity when his
or her outcome to input ratio is greater than that of a referent other. Perceived inequity
can be reduced by altering one’s equity ratios behaviorally and/or cognitively.
Equity theory has been expanded to include the concept of organizational justice.
Organizational justice has three components. Distributive justice reflects the perceived
fairness of how resources and rewards are allocated. Procedural justice is the
perceived fairness of the process and procedures used to make allocation decisions.
Interactional justice refers to the fairness of the decision maker’s behavior in the
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process of decision making. Among the important practical implications of equity theory
is the fact that it is the employee’s and not the manager’s perception of the equity of the
organization’s policies, procedures and reward systems that counts for motivational
processes.
Expectancy theory holds that people are motivated to behave in ways that produce
desired combinations of expected outcomes. According to Vroom’s expectancy theory,
the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an
expectancy that the act will be followed by a given consequence and on the value or
attractiveness of that consequence to the individual. The theory entails a two-stage
sequence of expectations: effort → performance (called expectancy) and performance
→ outcome (called instrumentality). With expectancy theory, managers should focus
on linking employee performance to valued rewards, either monetary or nonmonetary
rewards.
A goal is defined as what an individual is trying to accomplish; it is the object or aim of
an action. Goal setting works by focusing one’s attention, regulating one’s effort,
motivating one to persist, and encouraging the development of task strategies and
action plans. Goal setting research has lead to a number of practical insights. First,
specific high goals lead to higher performance. Goal specificity pertains to the
quantifiability of a goal. Second, feedback enhances the effect of specific, difficult
goals. Third, participative goals, assigned goals, and self-set goals are equally
effective. Managers are advised to use a contingency approach. Fourth, action
planning facilitates goal accomplishment. Finally, goal commitment and monetary
incentives affect goal-setting outcomes.
Job design refers to any set of activities that involve the alteration of jobs with the intent
of improving the quality of employee job experience and their on-the-job productivity.
There are three approaches to job design: top-down approaches, bottom-up
approaches, and idiosyncratic deals (i-deals). With top-down approaches to job design,
managers change employees’ tasks with the intent of increasing motivation and
productivity. There are five principal top-down approaches to job design: scientific
management, job enlargement, job rotation, job enrichment, and the job characteristics
model.
Scientific management relies on research and experimentation to produce jobs which
are highly specialized, standardized, and efficient. Although productivity typically
increases, these simplified, repetitive jobs also lead to job dissatisfaction and a low
sense of accomplishment. Job enlargement, or horizontal loading, involves putting
more variety into a worker’s job by combining specialized tasks of comparable difficulty.
Job rotation is designed to give employees greater variety by moving employees from
one specialized job to another. Job enrichment entails modifying a job through vertical
loading such that an employee has the opportunity to experience achievement,
recognition, stimulating work, responsibility and advancement.
The job characteristics model approach to job design presented in Figure 8-4 seeks to
incorporate five core job characteristics (i.e., skill variety, task identity, task significance,
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autonomy and feedback from the job) to foster three critical psychological states (i.e.,
meaningfulness of the work, responsibility for outcomes and knowledge of results) so
that employees are internally or intrinsically motivated. Moderator variables influence
the extent to which the critical psychological states impact relevant work outcomes.
In a bottom-up approach to job design, employees proactively change or redesign their
own jobs, thereby boosting their own motivation and engagement. Job crafting is
defined as the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational
boundaries of their work. Table 8-3 summarizes the three key forms of job crafting:
changing one’s task boundaries, changing the relational nature of a job and cognitive
crafting by altering perceptions or thoughts about the tasks and relationships associated
with a job. Job crafting can change how employees perceive their jobs, resulting in
more positive attitudes about their jobs, which, in turn, results in increased employee
motivation, engagement, and performance.
With the third approach to job design, idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), employees and
individual managers jointly negotiate the types of tasks employees complete at work. I-
deals attempt to address the fact that managers cannot always create changes in task
characteristics that are optimum for everyone and the fact that job crafting is limited by
the amount of latitude people have in changing their own jobs. I-deals represent
employment terms individuals negotiate for themselves, and they can take a myriad of
forms from flexible schedules to career development. The goal of such deals is to
increase employee motivation and productivity by allowing employees the flexibility to
negotiate employment relationships that meet their needs and values.
Motivating employees is a key aspect of being an effective manager. It may be difficult
for managers to develop motivation programs if they feel stretched in their many job
duties or if they do not know how to motivate people beyond the simple use of monetary
rewards. Managers should use an integrated approach when trying to motivate
employees and they should consider the various theories and models discussed in this
chapter as well as concepts covered in previous chapters. Organizations can help
managers by providing them with training and coaching that focuses on how they can
improve their ability to motivate others.
LECTURE OUTLINE
I. Motivation Overview
i) Motivation Overview
(1) An employee’s motivation is a function of several components, including
an individual’s needs, the extent to which a work environment is positive
and supportive, perceptions of being treated fairly, creating a strong
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relationship between performance and the receipt of valued rewards, the
use of accurate measures of performance, and the setting of specific
goals.
(2) Motivation: psychological processes that cause the arousal, direction,
and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed. See
Slide 8-4
(3) Researchers have proposed two general categories of motivation theories
to explain the psychological processes underlying employee motivation:
content theories and process theories. See Slide 8-5
(a) Content theories of motivation: focus on identifying internal factors
such as instincts, needs, satisfaction, and job characteristics that
energize employee motivation.
(b) Process theories of motivation: focus on explaining the process by
which internal factors and cognitions influence employee motivation.
(4) Table 8-1: Overview of Motivation Theories provides an overview of the
various content and process theories discussed in this chapter. See
Slide 8-6
II. Content Theories of Motivation
i) Content Theories of Motivation Overview
(1) Most content theories of motivation revolve around the notion that an
employee’s needs influence motivation.
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(2) Needs: physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse behavior.
See Slide 8-7
(3) Needs can be strong or weak, are influenced by environmental factors and
vary over time and place.
(4) The general idea behind need theories of motivation is that unmet needs
motivate people to satisfy them.
ii) Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory See Slide 8-8
(1) Abraham Maslow published his need hierarchy theory of motivation in
1943.
(2) He proposed motivation is a function of five basic needs needs—
physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.
(3) Figure 8-1: Maslow’s Need Hierarchy lists the five levels in Maslow’s
model. See Slide 8-9
(4) Maslow contended that the five needs are arranged in a prepotent
hierarchy and he believed that human needs generally emerge in a
predictable stair-step fashion.
(5) Once a need is satisfied it activates the next higher need in the hierarchy
until the highest need, the need for self-actualization is activated.
(6) Although research does not clearly support this theory, two key
managerial implications are that it is important for managers to focus on
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satisfying employee needs related to self concepts and a satisfied need
may lose its motivational potential.
(7) Managers are more likely to fuel employee motivation by offering benefits
and rewards that meet individual needs.
iii) Alderfer’s ERG Theory See Slide 8-10
(1) Alderfer’s theory differs from Maslow’s in three major respects:
(a) A smaller set of core needs, including of existence needs (the desire
for physiological and materialistic well-being), relatedness needs (the
desire to have meaningful relationships with significant others), growth
needs (the desire to grow as a human being and to use one’s abilities
to their fullest potential), is used to explain behavior.
(b) ERG theory does not assume needs are related to each other in a
stair-step hierarchy, rather more than one need may be activated at a
time.
(c) ERG theory contains a frustration-regression component, meaning that
frustration of higher-order needs can influence the desire for lower–
order needs.
(2) There are two key managerial implications associated with ERG theory:
(a) As a result of the frustration-regression component, employees may be
motivated to pursue lower-level needs because they are frustrated with
a higher-order need.
(b) ERG theory is consistent with the finding that individual and cultural
differences influence our need states.
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iv) McClelland’s Need Theory See Slide 8–12
(1) Need for achievement: the desire to accomplish something difficult.
(a) Achievement-motivated people: See Slide 8-13
(i) Prefer working on tasks of moderate difficulty.
(ii) Prefer situations in which performance is due to their efforts rather
than other factors, such as luck.
(iii)Desire more feedback on their successes and failures than do low
achievers.
(b) A review of research on the entrepreneurial personality showed that
entrepreneurs were found to have a higher need for achievement than
nonentrepreneurs.
(2) Need for affiliation: a preference to spend more time maintaining social
relationships, joining groups, and wanting to be loved.
(a) Individuals with a high need for affiliation are not the most effective
managers or leaders because they have a hard time making difficult
decisions without worrying about being disliked.
(3) Need for power: the desire to influence, coach, teach or encourage
others to achieve.
(a) People with a high need for power like to work and are concerned with
discipline and self-respect.
(b) A need for power has both positive and negative sides.
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(4) Managerial Implications
(a) Given that adults can be trained to increase their achievement
motivation, organizations should consider the benefits of providing
achievement training for employees.
(b) Achievement, affiliation, and power needs can be considered during
the selection process, for better placement.
(c) There is a downside to high achievement and people with high
achievement might be prone to cheat and cut corners.
(5) The Real World/Real People: High-Achievement Needs Can Lead to
Negative Outcomes profiles the illegal shortcuts of one highly driven
executive.
v) Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory
(1) Figure 8-2: Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Model presents the
components of Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene theory. See Slide 8-
14
(2) Herzberg found separate and distinct clusters of factors associated with
job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. See Slide 8-15
(a) Job satisfaction was more frequently associated with achievement,
recognition, characteristics of the work, responsibility and
advancement. Labeled these motivators: job characteristics
associated with job satisfaction.
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(b) Job dissatisfaction was associated primarily with factors in the work
context or environment, which were not motivational. Labeled these
hygiene factors: job characteristics associated with job
dissatisfaction.
(3) Under the Herzberg model, job dissatisfaction is not the opposite of job
satisfaction: “the opposite of job satisfaction is not job dissatisfaction, but
rather no job satisfaction; and similarly the opposite of job dissatisfaction
is not job satisfaction but no job dissatisfaction.”
(4) Although research does not support the two-factor aspect of this theory,
implications of Herzberg’s model are that managers should pay attention
to both hygiene factors and motivators and it is important to recognize
behaviors and results that are linked to the organization’s goals.
(5) The Real World/Real People: Dixon Schawbl Increases Employee
Satisfaction by Improving Hygiene Factors profiles the actions of one
employer to maintain employee motivation and satisfaction.
III. Process Theories of Motivation
i) Process Theories Overview
(1) Process theories explain motivation by identifying the process by which
various internal factors influence motivation.
(2) Process models are cognitive in nature because they are based on the
premise that motivation is a function of employees’ perceptions, thoughts,
and beliefs.
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ii) Adams’s Equity Theory of Motivation
(1) Equity Theory Overview
(a) Equity theory: holds that motivation is a function of fairness and
justice in social exchanges. See Slide 8-16
(b) Equity theory explains how an individual’s motivation to behave in a
certain way is fueled by feelings of inequity or a lack of justice.
(2) The Individual-Organizational Exchange Relationship
(a) Two primary components involved in the employee-employer
exchange are inputs and outcomes.
(i) Inputs: education/training, skills, creativity, seniority, age,
personality traits, effort expended, and personal appearance.
(ii) Outcomes: pay/bonuses, fringe benefits, challenging assignments,
job security, promotions, status symbols, recognition, and
participation in important decisions.
(3) Negative and Positive Inequity See Slide 8-17
(a) Negative and Positive Inequity Overview
(i) Feelings of inequity arise from a person’s evaluation of whether he
or she receives adequate rewards to compensate for the inputs
contributed in the employment exchange as compared to similar
others.
(ii) People tend to compare themselves to other individuals with whom
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they have close interpersonal ties rather than dissimilar others.
(iii)Figure 8-3: Negative and Positive Inequity presents three
different equity relationships: equity, negative inequity and positive
inequity. See Slide 8-18
1. Equity exists for an individual when his or her ratio of perceived
outcomes to inputs is equal to the ratio of outcomes to inputs for
a relevant coworker.
2. Negative inequity: comparison in which another person
receives greater outcomes for similar inputs.
3. Positive inequity: comparison in which another person
receives lesser outcomes for similar inputs.
(b) Reducing Inequity
(i) People change equity ratios by attempting to alter their outcomes or
adjusting their inputs.
(ii) Equity can be restored by altering one’s equity ratios behaviorally
and/or cognitively.
(iii)A cognitive strategy entails psychologically distorting perceptions of
one’s own or one’s comparison person’s outcomes and inputs.
(iv)The Real World/Real People: Feelings of Consumer Inequity
Can Go Viral illustrates how companies may have to overcome
image problems created by consumers who use social media to
complain about perceptions of inequity.
8–13
(4) Expanding the Concepts of Equity: Organizational Justice
(a) Organizational justice: the extent to which people perceive they are
treated fairly at work.
(b) Components of organizational justice include:
(i) Distributive justice: the perceived fairness of how resources and
rewards are distributed.
(ii) Procedural justice: the perceived fairness of the process and
procedures used to make allocation decisions.
(iii)Interactional justice: extent to which people feel fairly treated
when procedures are implemented.
(c) Perceptions of distributive and procedural justice are enhanced by
giving employees a “voice” by allowing employees who are affected by
a decision to present relevant information about the decision to others.
(5) Practical Lessons from Equity Theory See Slides 8-19, 8-20, 8-
21
(a) Equity theory has at least six important practical implications:
(i) Research on equity theory emphasizes the need for managers to
pay attention to employees’ perceptions of what is fair and
equitable because no matter how fair management thinks the
organization’s policies, procedures, and reward system are, each
employee’s perception of the equity of those factors is what counts.
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(ii) Managers benefit by allowing employees to participate in making
decisions about important work outcomes and giving employees a
voice in decision-making processes.
(iii)Employees should be given the opportunity to appeal decisions that
affect their welfare.
(iv)Managers can promote cooperation and teamwork among group
members by treating them equitably.
(v) Employees’ perceptions of justice are strongly influenced by the
leadership behavior exhibited by their managers and therefore
managers should consider the justice-related implications of their
decisions, actions and public communications.
(vi)Managers need to pay attention to the organization’s climate for
justice.
(b) Managers can monitor equity and justice perceptions through informal
conversations, interviews, or attitude surveys.
iii) Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
(1) Expectancy Theory Overview See Slide 8-26
(a) Expectancy theory: holds that people are motivated to behave in
ways that produce desired combinations of expected outcomes.
See Slide 8-23
(b) Expectancy theory can be used to predict motivation and behavior in
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situations requiring a choice of alternatives.
(c) The essence of this model is that motivation is the decision of how
much effort to exert in a specific task situation.
(d) Motivation is based on a two-stage sequence of expectations:
(i) Motivation is affected by an individual’s expectation that a certain
level of effort will produce the intended performance goal.
(ii) Motivation is also influenced by the employee’s perceived chances
of getting various outcomes as a result of accomplishing his or her
performance goal.
(e) Individuals are motivated to the extent that they value the outcomes
received.
(2) Expectancy
(a) Expectancy: an individual’s belief that a particular degree of effort will
be followed by a particular level of performance. See Slide 8-24
(b) Expectancy is an effort → performance expectation.
(c) Expectancies range from zero to one with an expectancy of one
suggesting that performance is totally dependent on effort.
(d) Factors influencing an employee’s expectancy perceptions include
self-esteem, self-efficacy, previous success at the task, help received
from others, information necessary to complete the task and good
materials and equipment. See Slide 8-25
(3) Instrumentality