Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Chapter 6 – Motivation and Engagement
Slide 1 – Opening
Slide 2 – Chapter Objectives
•Understand the importance of motivation in public organizations
•Debunk the myth of the unmotivated public employee
•Define motivation theories
•Understand the 9 ways of acting to improve motivation in your organization
Slide 3 – A Big Question
•Whereas motivation is important in all types of organizations, it can be argued that motivation is
particularly important in governmental organizations.
Slide 4 – Conventional Wisdom
Slide 5 – The Truth
Slide 6 – Important for Success
•There are several reasons for beginning our discussion of motivation with ourselves.
•The final reason for beginning our examination of motivation with a look inward requires a bit
more explanation. Put simply, looking inward helps us to resist the temptation to assume that
what motivates us is what motivates others. Psychologists call this process projection. Projection
Slide 7 – Defined
•Motivation is what causes people to behave as they do.
•It is important to differentiate between job satisfaction and motivation. Job satisfaction is an
attitude or feeling about one’s job. It includes satisfaction with pay, coworkers, supervision,
promotion, and the organization. Motivation has deeper roots. It includes not only attitudes about
the job, but also factors such as individual needs. Needs are based on personality and values
and are related to things that are lacking and are desired.
Slide 8 – General Components
•First, motivation is related to individual differences that we discussed earlier.
•Second, the actual job that people do affects their motivation. As you will see, many motivation
theories consider the job one of the most important factors in motivation. If the job is interesting
and challenging and provides a sense of achievement, employees are more likely to be engaged
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
and motivated to perform it. A boring, repetitive, and tedious job is less likely to motivate most
people.
•Third, the organization plays a role in motivation. To motivate employees to do their job, the
organization must provide the right climate and opportunities. Factors such as the organizational
culture, the mission, the management style, the structure and goals and strategies all provide the
setting in which employees work. They therefore can affect motivation.
Slide 9 – Needs Theories
•Among the most influential and intuitively appealing approaches to understanding motivation are
the theories that describe behavior as being directed toward the satisfaction of human needs.
Slide 10 – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
•Maslow (1943) suggested that the needs that motivate human behavior can be categorized as
follows, moving from the bottom (the most basic) to the top of the pyramid:
•Physiological needs—Called the most “prepotent” of needs, these address basic biological drives
for food, air, water, and shelter.
•Safety needs—Once basic physical needs are met, humans seek to gratify their needs for safety,
security, and freedom from danger.
Slide 11 – McGregor
•Contrasted the conventional view of “management’s task in harnessing human energy” (which he
called Theory X) with a “new theory of management” (which he called Theory Y). Theory X is
based on conventional assumptions about worker motivation such as those represented in the
works of Taylor. Conversely, Theory Y is based on the recognition that people need opportunities
at work to satisfy not only lower-level needs for wages and decent working conditions but also
higher-level social and ego needs.
Slide 12 – Aldefer
•Aldefer (1972) studied worker behavior in organizations.
Slide 13 – Herzberg
•Herzberg (1968), who also studied motivation in work settings, took a different approach. In his
two-factor or motivation–hygiene theory, he suggested that the factors that produce job
satisfaction or motivation are different from the factors that lead to dissatisfaction.
Slide 14 – Hackman and Oldham
•Hackman and Oldham (1980) suggested that the following elements contribute positively to the
motivating potential of a job:
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
•Skill variety—The job requires varying skills, activities, tasks, and talents.
•Task identity—The job allows completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work or work
product.
•Task significance— The work is important and has a positive impact on others in the organization
or outside of it.
•Autonomy—The workers have a degree of discretion and control over their work.
•Feedback—The work provides direct and clear information on the effectiveness of performance.
Slide 15 – McClelland
•McClelland suggested that people have different motive dispositions that he defined as a “current
concern about a goal state that drives, orients, and selects behavior”. According to this model, the
need for achievement drives some of us, whereas the need for affiliation might be more important
Slide 16 – Expectancy Theories
•In order to be motivated to act or perform their job, employees must perceive that their efforts (E)
are likely to lead to good performance (P). In other words, effort has to be instrumental to good
performance. Second, people must expect that their performance is clearly linked to certain
outcomes (O). And finally they have to value (V) the outcome they obtain when they perform. If all
these paths and linkages are clear, the person will be motivated. Two other factors that can affect
motivation are ability and role clarity. A person might be highly motivated, but if she does not have
the ability to perform the job or task and a clear understanding of how to direct her efforts in a
manner that is appropriate to her organizational role, then the task might not be accomplished.
Slide 17 – Vroom
•Valence refers to the strength of a person’s desire for a particular outcome. Expectancy is the
association that a person makes between actions and outcomes.
Slide 18 – Porter and Lawler
•Porter and Lawler (1968) refined Vroom’s model to suggest that, although employee effort is
determined by both the value placed on certain outcomes and the degree to which people believe
that their efforts will lead to these rewards, effort does not always lead to task accomplishment.
Slide 19 – Goal Theories
•It is better to state a specific goal than to simply urge workers to do their best.
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 20 – Locke, et al
•Goal setting has been found to enhance performance about 90% of the time.
Slide 21 – Eden
•Eden (1988) suggested that goal setting and expectancy theories are compatible approaches to
increasing motivation.
Slide 22 – Equity Theories
•Motivation, according to this model, is a consequence of perceived inequity. Adams also argued
that perceived inequity creates tension in proportion to the magnitude of the inequity. People can
either feel guilty because they think they are paid too much (overpayment inequity) or be angry
because they believe they are paid too little (underpayment inequity). Individuals will be motivated
to reduce this tension by either changing what they do or changing what they think.
Slide 23 – Adams
•Research on equity theories also has provided important information on the influence of pay on
motivation and on how people look to others to evaluate whether they think they are treated fairly.
Slide 24 – Reward Systems
Slide 25 – Skinner
•His work focused on what he called operant behavior, or behavior that is controlled by the
individual. The question that Skinner posed was how operant behavior can be conditioned so that
desired outcomes occur. He suggested four approaches.
Slide 26 – Reward Systems
•Financial incentives can motivate employees, but their effect is limited and they only work when
other organizational conditions are favorable.
Slide 27 – Participation
•An overall philosophy of management that emphasizes a participative approach is positively
related to employee motivation and performance.
Slide 28 – Life Stages
•First, they suggest that there will be predictable patterns of development, depending on age and
stage in the life cycle, that will largely determine the psychological set that employees bring to the
workplace. This psychological set will determine how central the organization is to the lives of
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
preretirement period. Finally, life-stage theories have important implications for the career
development and job design strategies that will be most effective for individual employees.
Slide 29 – Generational Differences
•We should not assume, for example, that a 21-year-old employee necessarily wants the same
things or has the same values we did when we were 21-years-old. In today’s organizations, there
may be at least three generational groups: baby boomers, Generation X, and millennials.
Although researchers differ as to the exact dates, in general, baby boomers were born in the
1940s to 1960s, Generation X was born in 1970 to 1980, and millennials were born after 1980.
While there are great individual differences, researchers have found that growing up in different
eras has resulted in generational shifts in values and needs that are relevant to the workplace.
Slide 30 – Public Service Motivation
•These motives speak to why individuals might be drawn to public service work and, once they are
employed, why they might find satisfaction in it. Rational public service motives have to do with
individual utility maximization. In other words, some individuals seek public service as a means of
satisfying their own needs. These needs might be based on personal identification with a
program, a desire to advocate for a special interest, or a desire to participate in policy making
because of the excitement or the image of self-importance that it may reinforce.
Slide 31 – Other Theories
•At the most basic level, the TMT model reminds us that not only do people have different needs
and value expected rewards differently, but they also may be more or less sensitive to time delays
in meeting those needs and receiving those rewards.
•Locke and Latham (2004) have offered another integrative theory, and define motivation as
Slide 32 – Anti-Motivation Theories
•Marcum also emphasized the idea that rewards actually might destroy people’s natural interest in
work because people know that if they have to be rewarded to do something, then the action
must not be worth doing for its own sake. Marcum suggested that we think in terms of voluntary
engagement with work activities rather than in terms of what he characterized as “carrot and
stick” motivational approaches. Two essential elements of engagement theory are learning and
involvement. The idea is that if people are allowed a degree of self-determination, they will
become voluntarily engaged in work that is interesting and enjoyable to them. People will choose
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Instructor Resources
Denhardt, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition
SAGE Publications 2016
Slide 33 – Trust & Engagement
•Trust in all major institutions, including business, labor, and government, has decreased
substantially over the last decades.
Slide 34 – Trust & Engagement
Slide 35 – Trust & Engagement
Slide 36 – Ways of Acting
•Be self-reflective and proactive about your own motivation. It is difficult, if not impossible, to
motivate your employees if you lack motivation yourself.
•Be aware that what motivates you is not necessarily what will motivate others. Talk with your
employees and listen carefully to what they say about the motivational factors that are important
to them. Help them to clarify their goals, desires, and needs. There is no “one size fits all”
approach to motivating people. Be cognizant of the differences among people in terms of what
they need from you and the organization to motivate them.
•Have realistic expectations about the extent to which you can influence the motivation of others. It
also is important to remember that motivation is internal to the individual. As a manager, you
cannot motivate everyone. There might be people who, despite your best efforts, simply are not
motivated to work toward organizational goals. In those cases, it might just be a poor fit between
the organization and the individuals.
•Participate in setting clear and challenging goals. Goal setting is important from several
perspectives. Particularly if established in a participative process, goal setting clarifies shared
objectives, provides an opportunity for communication, enhances self-efficacy and commitment,
and provides the basis for tracking performance. It is particularly important in the public sector
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