Theories of Motivation

Motivation is a driving force that pushes us to work more and work hard even if the situations are not favorable. This is a form of mental energy which makes us work in a certain way. There are different theories of motivation trying to define what causes motivation to exist and how it works. It is very important topic for management studies as it helps managers to motivate the workforce and get more things done. Let us dig deeper now.

Theories of Motivation

There are two types of theories of motivation, Content theories, and Process theories. Content theories focus on ‘what’ part of the motivation asking what motivates people. Focus theories, on the other hand, focus on ‘how’ of motivation discussing how people get motivated.

Content Theories

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

This theory is proposed by Abraham Maslow who emphasized the impact of certain needs and their order. He classified the needs from very basic to advanced level and defined a clear hierarchy. There are 5 types of needs according to Maslow’s theory. He suggested that these needs are hierarchical in nature and one arises once the previous one is fulfilled.

Physiological Needs

These are very basic needs for the survival of an individual. It includes food, water, shelter, clothing, etc as we say “roti, kapda aur makan” in India. If these needs are unmet, there will be a great motivation to fulfill them as soon as possible as these are survival needs and must be fulfilled to go higher in the hierarchy.

Safety Needs

Once the physiological needs are fulfilled, safety comes into the picture. Like once the shelter is made, one makes boundry walls, adds fencings. This need involves a sense of safety from known and unknown dangers. This can be safety in physical form or in the financial form such as insurance, savings, etc. Though Maslow meant only for physical safety but in today’s world, we can consider physical and financial both.

Social Needs

Once the initial two needs in the hierarchy are met, the social part of human behavior starts driving the individual. This need consists of love, affection, friends, family, social acceptance, forming and maintaining relationships, etc.

Esteem Needs

After the fulfillment of the above three needs, there arise esteem needs. This has to do with self-worth, self-respect, self-confidence, getting respect and recognition for the skills and achievements. This gives a feeling of power that the individual is above average in the respective field. This also gives a sense of control when the recognition is acquired on the basis of a skill set. You can relate this to the performing artists, without recognition they are nothing but with great recognition they get control to negotiate their worth with producers and advertisers.

Self-Actualization Needs

This is the highest need in the hierarchy. Once all the aforementioned needs have been met, one starts thinking about the existence of mankind, the purpose of life, the meaning of life, understanding him/her in a better way, getting new skills, honing current skillset, seeking purpose in the work, etc. This has to do with mindfulness, spirituality, etc.

Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory

Frederick Herzberg was a psychologist who picked up Maslow’s theory and extended it to propose a new theory popularly known as Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory where two factors are Motivation and Hygiene.

He asked two questions from a large group of people and formulated the results as a new theory. The questions were-

• When you feel good at your job?
• What makes you feel bad about your job?\

The most important finding from the research was satisfaction is not the reverse of dissatisfaction. Even after removing the causes of dissatisfaction, no or little improvement was found in the satisfaction level. So the causes of satisfaction and dissatisfaction are different and need to be dealt separately.

Maintenance or Hygiene factor

The causes of dissatisfaction were classified in a group called maintenance or hygiene factor. The improvement in these factors does not improve satisfaction but if there is a lack of these factors, dissatisfaction level rises heavily. These factors include company policies, salary, security, working conditions, peers’ behavior, supervision, etc.

Motivational factor

These are the factors that increase satisfaction when present but do not cause dissatisfaction when absent. There are majorly 6 motivational factors.

• Achievement
• Advancement
• Recognition
• Work
• Possibility of growth
• Responsibility

McClelland’s Needs Theory

Also known as Three Need theory or Learned Needs Theory, McClelland’s Needs Theory was proposed by David McClelland who was a psychologist. He proposed that needs are learned by the experiences from the events of an individual’s life. Each individual can have different needs and behaves differently in the presence or absence of that needed factor. For example, we need not any degrees to live our lives in general but our experiences from the society in general and education system have made us believe that degrees are inevitable, irrespective of the skills.

McClelland has classified the needs into three broad categories.

Need for Achievement

This is the need to perform as per the standards in the specific domain. It is found that high achievers have a great need for achievement. His researches discovered three major characteristics of high achievers-

• Having a personal sense of responsibility with the assigned task as if the task gets hampered, their credibility will hamper too
• Setting goals in the optimal zone, difficult but calculated and not too difficult
• Seeking performance feedback

Need for Affiliation

This is similar to Maslow’s social needs. The need for affiliation consists of enjoying the company of people, having strong relationships, loving people and getting the love back from them, geeting acceptance and approval from people, etc.

Need for Power

Power is the ability to control or influence the behavior and decision of others. People seek high positions that provide them with the power mentioned above.

Alderfer’s ERG Theory

This is an extension of Maslow’s need theory. Clayton Paul Alderfer, a psychologist, studied Maslow’s theory and proposed some additions to that. He stated that the needs are having an associated value hence those can be reclassified and ranked as lower-order needs to higher-order needs. This is the basis of Alderfer’s ERG theory.

Alderfer suggests a condensed form of Maslow’s theory where needs are classified in 3 categories starting from low order needs to high order needs. These 3 categories are Existence needs, Relatedness needs, and Growth needs. The initials from the 3 categories form the name of the theory, ERG theory.

Existence needs

This groups together the physiological and safety needs from Maslow’s need theory. All the survival and safety needs are clubbed in existence needs.

Relatedness needs

This consists of Maslow’s social needs and a part of the esteem need which is related to the relationships with other people and its impact on esteem.

Growth needs

This consists of Maslow’s self-actualization needs and a part of the esteem need which is related to personal growth and is internal to the individual.

Process Theories

Adam’s Equity Theory

This theory was proposed by John Stacey Adams. This presents the assumption that people want a certain relationship between their work and reward. They do this by comparing their work and reward with other people’s work and reward. If someone gets more rewards with the same or lesser inputs(work), people get demotivated.
The theory assumes-

• People work(input) with the intent of some reward(output)
• They compare their work and reward with others and observe if there is any inequality

After this comparison, they make either of the three observations-

Overpaid Inequity

This is the case when the outputs are greater as compared to others with the same inputs.

Underpaid Inequity

This is the case when the outputs are lesser as compared to others with the same inputs.

Equity

This is the case that is the most desired. People with similar input receive similar rewards (output). This helps improve motivation among them.

Carrot and Stick Approach to Motivation

This is a traditional theory of motivation. Carrot and Stick Approach suggests reward and punishment for good and bad performance. For a good performance, there are rewards. Rewards can be monetary or non-monetary. for a bad performance, there is a punishment. This could also be monetary or non-monetary in nature.

Reinforcement Theory

This theory, proposed by B.F. Skinner, suggests that the individual develops a behavior based on the outcomes of previously performed tasks.

This is also called operant conditioning. Operant means a person who does some operation. The operant’s behavior is highly affected by the outcomes from the previous actions. The operant is likely to repeat those actions that provided pleasure. On the other hand, operant will ignore/avoid the actions that were unpleasurable, unenjoyable and boring.

To understand this, let us suppose you are the operand. You were given two tasks, organize a room and make a presentation about micro-organism. If you feel pleasure in the first, next time you would want to repeat the task. The same holds true for the second task. And the reverse is also true. If you do not enjoy the task in hand, you are most likely to avoid it next time.

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory

Abraham Maslow and Frederick Herzberg suggested how people get motivated according to their needs. Vroom adds another dimension by discussing people’s efforts, performance, and the final results. Victor Vroom states that if employees get to make a choice regarding the role or a task, they are most likely to take the task that is the most motivating for them.

He suggested a formula to calculate motivation which is given below-

Motivational force = Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence

Expectancy

The probability that the desired results will be achievable by a certain task.

Instrumentality

It is based on the thought that each employee is an instrument of growth of the organization. Each role has a value to add and everyone should be praised for their contribution. If an employee believes that he/she will get praised for performing well, that is a motivating factor.

Valence

Valence defines what gets valued more by an individual. Some value money, some value flexibility, some value freedom, some value authority and so on. Organizations reward people with what they value the most. Someone seeking a higher authoritative position is most likely to leave if provided just a monetary raise because raise has no substantive value for that individual.