Motivation

By: Dipanjon Konwar, B.E. MBA

Industrial, Management & Quality Consultant

We know that motivation is the result of the interaction of the individual and the situation. Certainly,
individual differ in their basic motivational drive. For example, you may read a novel at one sitting,
yet find it difficult to stay with a textbook for more than twenty minutes. It is not necessarily you—it
is the situation. So when we analyse the concept of motivation, we need to keep in mind that level
of motivation both varies between individuals and within individuals at different times. We can
define motivation as the willingness to exert high levels of efforts toward organizational goals,
conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need.
Motivation to work can be defined as the forces acting upon and within an individual that
account for the level, direction and persistence of effort expended at work.
There are three terms introduced in this definition:
• Level refers to how much effort a person puts forth.( e.g. a lot or a little effort).
• Direction refers to what the person chooses when he is presented with a number of
alternatives (e.g. exert effort towards product quality or product quantity.).
• Persistence refers to how long a person sticks with a given action (e.g. try for product
quantity and give up when he finds it difficult to attain).
All contemporary approaches to understand motivation are based on following assumptions:
• Behaviour is goal-directed: Every person has a reason, a purpose or a motive that is
responsible for his working or non-working. E.g., work for pay, work for personal satisfaction,
work for status, work for power, etc.
• Individual’s goals are dynamic: The goals of an individual can undergo change. Goals
change when a individual accomplishes something or when there is prolonged non-
accomplishment.
• A motivated person has a tendency to be more productive than a less motivated
person: An employee who is willing to expend effort and put forth his skills and abilities has
more chances of achieving higher levels of performance than a person who has the same
level of skills but not wiling to put in the desired effort.
• People can be motivated: Behaviour is learnt or acquired. As such most people can be
motivated by directing behaviour. This can be achieved through various ways depending
upon the nature of the individual, the job and the organizational environment.
Motivation Theories
There are two theories that serve to explain motivation at work—1. Content theories; and 2.
Process theories. Content theories deal with what motivates people; while Process theories deal
with how people are motivated.
Content Theories
Content theories primarily deal with what it is within an individual or his environment which
energies and sustain his behaviour. These theories provide insights into an individual’s needs
and helps understand what individuals will value and what they will not value as work rewards.
To state differently, content theories highlight the differences among people and help managers
realize an important aspect of motivating people, i.e., different people are motivated by different
things.
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The three most popular Content theories are (a) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory, (b)
McClelland’s Acquired Needs Theory and (c) Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory (Two-Factor
Theory).
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory: This theory propounded by Abraham Maslow is the earliest
of the lot. It explains the dynamics involved in an individual’s motivation. It emphasizes the role of
needs in determining one’s motivation. Need is a state of deficiency in an individual which the
individual is expected to fulfill or satisfy. Needs can be classified into five categories:
i. Physiological needs: E.g. Hunger, thirst, etc.
ii. Safety needs: E.g. Security, safety, protection, stability of job and events.
iii. Social needs: E.g. Need for love, affection and a sense of belonging.
iv. Esteem needs: E.g. Respect, prestige, recognition, need for self esteem, personal
sense of competence and mastery of skills.
v. Self-actualisation needs: E.g. the need to fulfill one’s self—to grow and use abilities to
fullest and to the more creative extent.
Maslow’s Need Theory postulates the following to explain motivational dynamics:
• Hierarchy: The five needs are arranged in a hierarchy in terms of their relative
importance to the individuals. Lower order needs like physiological needs (food, clothing, etc.)
have to be relatively satisfied in an individual before he looks at satisfying other needs.
• Deprivation-Domination: A deprived need dominates the individual’s behaviour till it
is relatively satisfied. He or she will first of all direct all efforts towards satisfying what is denied,
only then will the person move on to something else.
• Satisfaction-Activation: A relatively satisfied need no longer motivates an
individual. Further, it plays an active role in the emergence of the next need in the hierarchy and
thus motivates the individual to strive for that.
Maslow’s Need Theory implies that managers, in order to motivate employees, should first make
efforts to identify the deprived needs of the individual. This will tell them what dominates the
individual’s behaviour. They can then proceed to provide the appropriate opportunities to satisfy
them.
McClelland’s Acquired Needs Theory (Three Needs Theory)
David McClelland’s Acquired Needs Theory is another approach that focuses on the individual’s
needs to explain motivation. Using a projective technique called Thematic Apperception Test (TAT);
this theory enjoys a significant amount of cross-cultural validity. It proposes three needs that
accounts for an individual’s motivational behaviour. These needs are: Need for Achievement (n-
Ach), Need for Affiliation (n-Aff) and Need for Power (n-Pow). These needs are generally
acquired over time and as a result of life experiences.
Need for Achievement (n-Ach): From research into the achievement need McClelland found that
high achievers differentiate themselves from others by their desire to do thing better. The
behavioural patterns associated with this need are
• The compelling drive to succeed for personal achievement rather than the rewards of
success per se.
• The desire to do something better or more efficiently.
• The desire to take personal responsibility in solving problems.
• The desire to master complex tasks.

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 • The desire to be goal-oriented.
• The willingness to take calculated and moderate risks.
• A tendency to insist on concrete and immediate feedback. Such a person would use the
feedback to correct himself for greater achievement.
Need for Affiliation (n-Aff): Individuals with high affiliation motive strive for friendship, prefer
cooperative situations rather than competitive ones, and desire relationships involving high degree
of mutual understanding. This need manifest itself in behaviour like:
• The desire to establish and maintain friendly and warm relationships with others.
• The desire to create opportunities to communicate.
• Valuing popularity to personal goal accomplishment.
• Belief in one’s ability to charm others.
Need for Power (n-Pow): The need for power (n-Pow) is the desire to have impact, to be influential
and to control others. Individuals high in n-Pow enjoy being “in charge”. This need is characterized
by behaviours arising out of:
• The desire to control others and influence their action.
• The desire to be responsible for others
• Desire to be placed in to competitive and status oriented situations and tend to be more
concerned with gaining influence over others and prestige than with effective performance.
• Inability to tolerate failures of self and others.
According to this theory, individuals are motivated by this need for achievement, affiliation and
power in varying proportion. The kind of need profile a person has explains his preferences and his
motivation. This theory encourages managers to identify the presence of these needs in themselves
and others and then make the need profile of the person match with that of the job. It is important to
realize that every individual possesses all these three needs but to a varying degree. A manager
must understand and appreciate these variations in individuals and then apply appropriate
motivational interventional strategies.
Herzberg’s two-factor theory
This theory developed by Herzberg suggests that motivation of individuals is composed of two
largely unrelated dimensions: hygiene and motivators. This theory postulates that the absence of
dissatisfaction cannot be construed as the presence of satisfaction.
Hygiene: Hygiene factors include those aspects and activities of the job which prevent
dissatisfaction but do not influence employees to grow and develop. The hygiene factors include:
• Organisational policies and procedures ( e.g. prerequisites and privileges)
• Working conditions (e.g. clean office, well lit workshop, comfortable A.C. workplace, quite
surroundings, etc.)
• Interpersonal relationships with the boss, colleagues, subordinates.
• Quality of supervision
• Status
• Salary
• Security

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The Hygiene factors pertain to the environment of the job. Hence, they are also referred to as
context factors. It is important to note that the absence of positive hygiene factors act as
demotivators. Once positive Hygiene factors are provided, an individual will perceive it as a
deprived need being met and as such it will not turn demotivation into motivation. Thereafter, he
may not put in that extra bit of work until the second set of factors called motivators are brought to
play.
Motivators: Motivator factors include those job-related aspects and activities that actually
encourage growth and development. The Motivator factors identified are:
• Achievement (provision of challenging targets)
• Recognition (non-monetary awards, name on notice boards, etc.)
• Work (actual work, technically skillful work, sensitive work, self-satisfying work, etc.)
• Responsibility (team leadership, group head, captaincy, etc.)
• Advancement ( fast track promotion in recognition of extraordinary work, added privileges
and perks)
• Growth (sponsorship to training programs, seminars, etc.)
These factors represent the core aspects of the job. Hence, they are also known as content
factors.
Herzberg’s two-factor theory suggests that managers should concentrate on both hygiene and
motivator factors to motivate employees. With hygiene factors, they could reduce discontentment in
the employees and help employees move away from dissatisfaction. The real motivation to perform
at higher levels comes only when they make an effort to add motivator factors to the job.

HYGIENE
Np
Dissatisfaction
Dissatisfaction

MOTIVATORS
Np
Satisfaction
Satisfaction

Herzberg’s view: Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction are independent dimensions. Satisfaction is affected by motivators
and dissatisfaction by Hygiene

Process Theories
From the above discussion, it becomes clear that the Content theories address the what aspect of
motivation but fail to address the how and why aspects. The process theories attempt to fill this
void. They provide us with an understanding of the thoughts taking place within our minds which act
to influence our behaviour. There are two types of process theories: Equity theory and
Expectancy theory.
Equity theory: Equity theory establishes a relation between work input and work outcome (reward).
When the outcome is not in proportion to work input inequity is said to take place.

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The experienced inequity, which is a state of mind, works as a motivating force. In other words,
when an employee perceives inequity in his work, he gets motivated to remove the discomfort an
restore equity to the situation.
J. Stacy Adam’s equity theory states that employees tend to judge fairness by comparing the
outcomes (rewards) they receive with their relevant inputs and also by comparing this ratio (not
always the absolute level of rewards) with the ratios of other people.
Equity theory stresses that managers should be sensitive to the feelings of inequity and must
understand that they are solely determined by the individual’s interpretation of the situation. It
emphasizes that what managers consider as important (regarding individual motivation) may not
really be important for individual, rather it is the feelings of the individual (how he perceives the
rewards) that should be given due prominence.
Equity theory strongly advocates that managing equity is important to motivate employees. This is
because while rewards that are received with feelings of equity foster higher levels of job
satisfaction and performance, rewards received with feelings of inequity damage morale and
performance.
Expectancy theory: This approach is based on the premise that people will do what they can do
and when they want to do. Essentially, the Expectancy theory argues that the strength of a
tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be
followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual.
This theory contends that mangers can motivate employees better if they realize that there are
three aspects to motivating people, namely expectancy, instrumentality and valence.
• Expectancy: Expectancy is an individual’s assessment of the probability that a particular
level of effort will lead to a desired level of performance.
• Instrumentality: Instrumentality is the individual assessment of the probability that the
desired level of performance will lead to a desired reward.
• Valence: Valence (preference) is the importance or value placed by the individual employee
on a reward.
Expectancy theory emphasizes expected behaviours, concerned with expectations. It is irrelevant
as to what is realistic or rational. It makes a strong argument in favour of having rewards contingent
upon successful performance. The implications for managers too are clear:
• It emphasis payoff. People make choices based upon what they think they will get, not what
they got in the past.
• Rewards are tied to performance.
• Rewards should be equitable.
• It emphasizes expected behaviours. Does the individual know what is expected of him and
how he will be appraised?

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