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Motivation – Basic concepts and theories

This overview is compiled from Michael Armstrong’s book A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. It intends to give a very brief overview on the most important concepts and theories of motivation.

According to Arnold, there are 3 components of motivation:

●   direction – what a person is trying to do

●   effort – how hard a person is trying

●   persistence – how long a person keeps on trying

Furthermore, literature distinguishes 2 types of factors that influence motivation:

●   intrinsic – self generated factors (responsibility, freedom to act, scope to use and develop skills and abilities, interesting and challenging work, opportunities for advancement) – they have a deeper and longer-term effect

●   extrinsic - what is done for people to motivate them (rewards, promotion, punishment) – they have an immediate and powerful effect, but won’t necessarily last long

Most influential is the Needs (content) Theory

●   The underlying concept is the belief that an unsatisfied need creates tension and a state of disequilibrium. To restore balance, a goal is identified that will satisfy the need and a behavior pathway to this goal is selected.

●   All behavior is motivated by unsatisfied needs.

●   People will be better motivated if their work experience satisfies their needs and wants.

Maslows hierarchy of needs

●   Self-fulfillment

●   Esteem

●   Social

●   Safety

●   Physiological

●   If a lower need is satisfied, the next higher one becomes dominant.

●   Higher-order needs provide greatest motivation.

●   Different people may have different priorities

Alderfer’s ERG Theory

●   About subjective states of satisfaction and desire

●   3 primary categories of human needs

●              existence needs – need for material and energy exchange

●              relatedness needs – transactions with human environment, process of sharing or mutuality

●              growth needs – people make creative or productive efforts for themselves

McClelland’s needs

●   Based mainly on studies of managers

●   3 most important needs:

●   achievement – need for competitive success measured against a personal standard of excellence

●   affiliation – need for warm, friendly relationships with others

●   power – need to control and influence others

Herzbergs two-factor model

●   Motivators – factors that really motivate people,

●   Hygiene factors – dissatisfiers; their absence would demotivate people, but their presence not necessarily improves motivation; essentially describe the environment, little effect on positive job attitudes

Process cognitive theory

●   Emphasis on psychological processes that effect motivation and on basic needs

●   Concerned with peoples perceptions and the way they interpret and understand it

●   People will be highly motivated if they can control the means to attain their goals

Expectancy theory

●   By Vroom

●   Value, instrumentality (belief that if we do one thing it will lead to another), expectancy (probability that action or effort will lead to an outcome)

●   Strength of expectations may be based on past experiences

●   Motivation is only likely when a clearly perceived relationship exists between performance and an outcome that is seen as a means of satisfying needs

●   Porter and Lawler: two factors determining the effort people put into their jobs:

●   Value of rewards to individuals in so far as they satisfy their needs

●   Probability that rewards depend on effort, as perceived by individuals, their expectation about relationships between effort and reward

●   Two additional variables:

●   Ability – individual characteristics and skills

●   Role perceptions – what he wants to do or thinks he is required to do, good if they correspond with the viewpoint of the organisation

Goal theory

●   Latham and Locke

●   Motivation and performance are higher when individuals are set specific goals

●   Goals have to be difficult but accepted

●   Feedback on performance

●   Participation in goal setting is important –  goals need to be agreed

●   As long as they are accepted – demanding goals lead to better performance than easy goals

Reactance theory

●   Brehm

●   Individuals are not passive receivers but responders

●   They seek to reduce uncertainty by seeking control about factors influencing rewards

Equity theory

●   Adams

●   Perceptions people have about how they are being treated as compared with others

●   Involves feelings and perceptions, is always a comparative process

●   People will work better if they are treated equitably

●   Two forms of equity:

●   Distributive – fairness people feel they are rewarded in accordance with their contribution and in comparison with others

●   Procedural – perceptions of employees about fairness of company procedures

●   We hope/expect that the inputs we give into our job equal the outputs we get

Other theories

●   Behavioral theory (Skinner): behavior is learnt from experience, learning takes place mainly through reinforcement

●   Social learning theory (Bandura) significance of reinforcement as a determinant of future behavior, importance of internal psychological factors, esp. Expectancies

●   Attribution theory (Guest) explanation of performance after we have invested considerable effort and motivation in a task; 4 types of explanations: ability, effort, task difficulty, luck; motivation depends on the factor used to explain success or failure

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More Information on Motivation

A list of links to external articles is available in our
Knowledgebase - HR - Motivation