CHAPTER – II:

THEORIES &
CONCEPTS

 About Motivation
 Various Theories of Motivation
 About Retention
 Issues about Retention
 CHAPTER – II

THEORIES & CONCEPTS

(A) ALL ABOUT MOTIVATION

MOTIVATION DEFINITION:

Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be
continually interested and committed to a job, role or subject, or to make an effort to
attain a goal is known as Motivation. It results from the interaction of both
conscious and unconscious factors such as the (1) intensity of desire
or need,
(2) incentive or reward value of the goal, and (3) expectations of the individual and
of his or her peers.1 These factors are the reasons one has for behaving a certain way.
An example is a student that spends extra time studying for a test because he or
she wants a better grade in the class. The following definitions give a clear view of
what does Motivation really mean.

o It is the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something

o It is the act or process of motivating someone
o It is the condition of being eager to act or work : the condition of being
motivated
o It is a force or influence that causes someone to do something

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION:

Employee motivation can be defined as "psychological forces that determine

the direction of a person's behavior in an organization, a person's level of effort and a
person's level of persistence"2. It is important to understand that employee
motivation is a separate and distinct topic apart from motivation. Vast articles and
studies exist on this topic indicating the level of importance employee motivation
has in business success. A study conducted by the District Chief of the Tulsa,
Oklahoma Fire Department concluded that morale does, in fact, have a direct impact
on employee productivity.3 Employers who understand the theories of motivation
have a greater ability to understand what motivates employees, to boost employee
morale and thus obtain the advantage of greater organizational productivity.

Employee Motivation is a widely practiced exercise today across all corporate

sectors regardless of their size of being either big or small. Just like the
psychological need for any individual to be appreciated over his efforts, the same
idea of thought stems the need for rewards and recognition in order to increase the
work drive of an employee and increase his efficiency and seriousness towards
work. Today organizations from all around the world strive to motivate its
employees in order to survive and compete in dynamic corporate environment
successfully as motivation puts human resources into action, improves level of
efficiency of employees, enables the organizations to attain sustainable competitive
advantage over the rivals and ultimately leads to the achievement of organizational
goals. The concept of motivation is derived from a Latin word ―movere‖ which
means ―to move‖. Motivation is what moves the employees from dullness to
interest. It is just like the steering of the vehicles that directs and shapes employees‘
activities. Motivation has been defined as the ―Drive or energy that compels people
to act with energy and persistence towards some goal‖4

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES OF MOTIVATION:

a. Early Views of Motivation

One early view of motivation derives from the concept of Hedonism – the idea

‗that people seek pleasure and comfort and try to avoid pain and discomfort‘ 5. This
philosophy, which argues that pleasure is the ‗ultimate importance and is the most
important pursuit of humanity‘, dominated and shaped early thinking of human
motivation.6 Even if this theory seems reasonable as far as it applies to the current
society, there are still many kinds of behavior that it cannot explain. For instance,
why do recreational athletes train themselves very hard willingly and regularly
while hedonism suggests that people are always seeking to relax? And why do
volunteers spend their time working untiringly to collect money for charity events?
As experts eventually realized that the concept of hedonism is very limited and does
not adequately explain the view of human behavior, other perspectives of
motivation stood out.7

b. The Scientific Management Approach

The Scientific Management Approach strongly emphasizes the belief

that people are motivated by money. Frederick W. Taylor, the supporter of this
approach, assumed that employees are ‗economically motivated‘ and will work
hard to earn as much money as they can.8 Researchers, however, soon found out
that human behavior is far more complex and cannot simply be explained by the
assumption of the scientific management theory.

c. The Human Relations Approach

The human relations approach suggested that employees are motivated

by social factors other than money, in other words, they respond to their social
environment at work. Job satisfaction is assumed to be the crucial motive in
improving employees‘ performance. The development of Maslow's hierarchy of

needs theory, which is our next main topic of discussion, has played a vital role in

helping scientists answer questions related to human behavior.9

THE NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF MOTIVATION:

Managers and scholars alike have long been inspired in attempting to find out

why some employees tend to work harder than others. The study of motivation helps

managers understand this variance in performance. Furthermore, knowledge of what

motivates people allows managers to take ‗constructive steps‘ to improve their

employees‘ work performance.10

Before understanding the different types of motivation, we need to examine

closely the nature of motivation. The term motivation derives from the Latin
word movere, meaning, ‗to move‘11. This means that no one can understand a
person‘s motivation until that person ‗behaves or literally moves‘. Kreitner
describes motivation as ‗the psychological process that gives behavior purpose and
direction‘, while Moorhead and Griffin explain motivation as ‗the set of forces that
causes people to engage in one behavior rather than some alternative behavior‘12.

Employees are essentially the most important aspect of an organization.

Managers strive to motivate their employees so that they are willing to perform at
their highest levels. When employees work hard, come to work regularly and
continue making positive contributions to the organization, the business will be able
to cut costs and yield more profit, both of which are the ultimate goals of any
organization. On the contrary, unmotivated employees will mean the organization
will have people that are not willing to do well in the jobs or have to hire more

people to do different jobs, which contribute to higher operating costs and a

reduction in profit.

According to an article entitled ‗Need-based Perspectives on Motivation‘

by Moorhead and Griffin, job performance depends on three main factors:
Motivation, Ability and Environment. In order for an employee to reach a higher
level of performance, he/she must ‗want to do the job‘ (motivation), ‗be able to do
the job‘ (ability), and ‗must have the materials, resources, and equipment to do the
job‘ (environment).For this reason, the following relationship can be established:

PERFORMANCE = MOTIVATION + ABILITY + ENVIRONMENT

Deficiency in any one of these factors will result in a lower level of job
performance. Managers always need to ensure that these three conditions are met.13

Of all the three factors, it is generally accepted that motivation is the most
difficult factor to manage. This is mainly due to the fact that human‘s
attitude/behavior is full of complexities and thus difficult to manage. As for the
other two factors, an employee has been recruited with the awareness that he/she
has the skills and capacity needed to perform the tasks as well as the fact that
resources are readily available. If the manager feels that the employee lacks training
of some sort, he/she can be sent to training programs to learn those skills. If the
person is not suitable for the level, he/she can be directed to work at lower jobs. On
the other hand, if resources are not available, i.e. the environment factor, the
manager can take action to ensure that they become available. For example, if an
employee needs a photocopier, he/she can formulate request to the management
team and ask for one. For this reason, it is quite clear that the most challenging job
for every employer is how to motivate their employees to strive their best to work
for the organization.

TYPES OF MOTIVATION:

We can turn our attention to the types of motivation that managers can take
into consideration in order to successfully motivate their employees.

 Money and Motivation

‗No one works for free, nor should they‘. 14 Pursuing money with hard
work to provide security and comfort for oneself and their family is not the same
pursuing money with a negative motive. Obviously, employees want to earn fair
wages and salaries, and employers want them to know this is what they are
getting for their hard work. Unsurprisingly, this all leads to the fact that
employees and employers would all view money as the fundamental incentive
for satisfactory job performance. Two general suggestions can be provided to
managers are:
1. Financial incentives are very important but their effectiveness also depends on
organizational conditions. Differences in organizational conditions contribute to
possibility and effectiveness of various monetary incentives. Therefore, to ensure
the success the implementation of any changes to existing incentives plans,
companies are recommended to study those environment conditions.

2. Group incentive systems can also be very effective in private sector settings.
Team-based or small-group incentives are described as rewards for individuals‘
hard work as a team. In general, its effectiveness depends on the characteristics
of its reward system, the organization, the team and the individual team
members. Research suggests that equally divided small-group incentives
maintain high level of productivity.

 Motivation through Job Design

Considering the fact that the average adult spends half of their waking

lifetime at work, to effectively motivate them no longer relies on the importance

of money or other material objects. As jobs are the central feature of ‗modern

existence‘, feelings of having a challenging and interesting work can attach

people to their jobs whereas a boring and tedious job, on the other hand, can
become a serious obstacle to motivating people, not to mention the effect it has
on an individual's physical and mental health. This is when Job design comes in
to deepen a good manager's understanding and persuade them to adopt different
approaches of dealing with employee mediation rather than the typical approach
of motivating people through financial means.15

There are two main strategies a manager can take to motivate employees:

Strategy one: Fitting people to jobs

To avoid continual dissatisfaction and reinforce motivation, three alternatives

with proven track records include realistic job previews, job rotation, and limited
exposure, each of which explains how a manager could fit the right people to the
right jobs.

a. Realistic Job Previews: Managers commonly make unrealistically high

expectations in recruits to persuade them into accepting a position. Dissatisfaction
often appears in this kind of circumstances when high expectations of the jobs are
brought down to earth by terrible or boring work. Realistic job previews - giving
out honest information of what works involve in the job - have been useful in this
kind of situation. Research has been done on two groups of telephone operators
whose jobs are ultimately repetitive and boring. By giving out realistic job review
film to the first group of telephone operators before getting hired, they actually
had fewer thoughts of resigning and in contrast, another telephone operators

group was given the "good news only" job review film before they got hired was

found to have a higher thought of resigning from their jobs. This would prove

that realistic job previews could be useful in reducing staff turnover.16

b. Job Rotation: Job rotation is an alternative to eliminating job boredom. It refers

to the action of periodically moving people from one specialized job to another. It
can help neutralizing the boredom barrier in highly specialized jobs, but of
course, it should be noted that balance is needed to achieve its ultimate effects.
Frequency of rotating jobs cannot be too high or too low or it will lead to
unsatisfactory outcomes instead.

c. Limited Exposure: Another way to deal with a tedious job is to limit the
individual's exposure to it. This technique is called ‗contingent time off‘ (CTO), it
is about establishing a challenging yet fair daily performance standard, and
letting employees go home if standard is met. CTO plan was implemented in a
large manufacturing plant where employees were producing about 160 units a
day with 10 percent rejects: "...if the group produced at 200 units with three
additional good units for each defective unit, then they could leave the work site
for the rest of the day. Within a week of implementing this CTO intervention, the
group was producing 200+ units with an average of 1.5 percent rejects. These
employees, who had formerly put in an 8-hour day, were now working an
average of 6.5 hours per day and importantly, they increased their performance
by 25 percent." Some employees find the CTO plan extremely motivating.17

Strategy two: Fitting jobs to people

This second strategy is for managers to consider changing the job itself instead
of the people. Two techniques are provided in this field: Job Enlargement and Job
Enrichment.

a. Job Enlargement: Job enlargement is the process of combining two or more

specialized tasks in the workflow sequence into a single job. For instance, a clerk
working in an insurance claims department whose job is normally to type only
the client's name and address on the claim form may be asked to add in works of
typing in the claim description and disposition. A moderate degree of complexity
and freshness can be introduced in this manner. However, critics claim that
having two or more typically boring tasks do not necessarily help making a job
challenging. Besides, job enlargement has as well been criticized by organized
labor that it is a tricky tactic for adding more work in getting the same amount of
salary. For one condition, if pay and performance are kept in balance, boredom
barrier can be reduced a bit by job enlargement.18

b. Job Enrichment: In general terms, job enrichment is to redesign a job to

increase its motivating potential, in other words, it is to increase the challenge of
one's work. Unlike job enlargement, this is about building more complexity into
jobs by introducing planning and decision-making responsibility that is normally
carried out at higher levels.19

According to experts, jobs can be enriched by upgrading the five core dimensions
of work:

 Skill variety: The degree to which jobs are completed with a variety of
 different activities in the use of one's different skills and talents.
 Task identity: The degree to which a job is done from beginning to end with a
visible outcome.
 Task significance: The degree to which the jobs involve significant impact on
other people whether they are from the organization or the world at large.

 Autonomy: The degrees to which the jobs provide significant freedom,

independence, and discretion to the individual in completing their work by
letting them schedule the work and determine the procedures to be used.

 Job feedback: The degree to which clear and direct feedback is provided to the

individual when completing their work activities.20

Note that, however, not all employees will respond positively to enrich jobs.

Personal traits and motives influence the connection between core job
characteristics and desired outcomes. Only those who have necessary knowledge
and skills plus the desire for personal growth can be successfully motivated by
enriched work. Job enrichment can effectively work when it is carefully planned,
when management is committed to its success, and when employees truly desire
additional challenge to their jobs.21

 Motivation through Rewards

Employees, or volunteers who donate their time and efforts for good
causes, expect to receive rewards of some sort for their contributions. Managers
have found that rewards play a significant role in motivating employees to work
harder and longer. This section, therefore, attempts to identify the numerous
types for rewards that can be administered by managers. There are two types of
rewards: Extrinsic and Intrinsic.

Extrinsic rewards are external outcomes granted to someone by others, such

 as money, employee benefits, promotions, recognition, status symbols, and

praise.22 In other words, this kind of reward is provided by another person or by

organizational system to individuals.23

In contrast, intrinsic reward derives internally from individuals and

can be experienced through their work, such as the feelings of competency, sense
of accomplishment, personal development and self-esteem. The importance of
being self-administered offers great advantages and power of "motivating from
within". As a 50-year-old Steve Schifer, who works at a small copper kettle
manufacturer in northern Ohio, once said, ‗It gets in your blood and you can't get
rid of it, it's something you can create with your hands and no one else can‘.24

There are four ways in which extrinsic rewards can be administered in order
to improve job performance and efficiency.

i. Reward must satisfy individual needs: Motivation is an unlikely outcome if

the reward does not satisfy individual needs. Since different people have
different needs, what they expect to be rewarded from their work is also
different. Some people tend to focus more on high wages, while others would
prefer to be promoted to a higher position in the organization.
ii. One must believe that effort will lead to reward: An employee tends to
work harder if they believe their efforts will lead to reward. According to the
expectancy theory, an employee will not endeavor for a reward if they
perceive it as unattainable. For example, a company has promised to pay for
the leading salesperson to go on a trip for two to Hawaii. This will only
prompt those who feel they have a good chance of winning it to work hard
and try to sell as many of their products as possible. Those who believe the
reward is highly unlikely to achieve will not be motivated to tray any
harder.25
iii. Rewards must be equitable: Reward must be fair and equitable. For instance,
 if the reward is a bonus payment of 100$, so each member, considering other
things equal, should be rewarded with the same amount of money. In
contrast, inequity will lead to jealousy and dissatisfaction in work.26
iv. Rewards must be linked to performance: The manager can increase staff
motivation by providing rewards to those who ‗give that little extra‘ hard
work. Schemes that can be used to reward employee based on their
performance include profit sharing, annual bonus, and stock purchase.27

 Motivation through Quality-of-work-life innovations

One of the world authorities on this subject has once described

Quality- of-work life (QWL) as "a process by which an organization attempts to

unlock the creative potential of its people by involving them in decisions
affecting their work lives." In other words, QWL program is an interpersonal
connection between employees and the organization; it touches every aspect of
modern work life. Three main categories of QWL program are flexible work
schedules, participative management, and workplace democracy. The common
characteristic of these three categories is that they give employees a degree of
control over their own work lives, or to say that every step and decision they
make does not only affect the company but also themselves, which leads to
another kind of employee motivation.28

a. Flexible Work Schedules: The standardized and normal work life starts from
[Link] to [Link], 40 hours a week; things started to be different when Flexible work
schedules were introduced. Flexi-time is a work-scheduling plan that offers
employees the chance to determine their own arrival and departure times within
specified limits. All employees must be present during a fixed time. Supposed an
eight-hour day is required, the early bird can choose to arrive at [Link], take a half
an hour lunch break, and leave work at [Link], on the other hand, people who
like to come late can decide to come in at [Link] and leave at [Link]. Flexible work
schedules can be introduced in several types, such as compressed workweeks (40
hours in less than 5 days), permanent part time (less than 40-hour workweeks),
and job sharing (corresponding schedule that allows two or more part timers to
share a single full-time job). For all these years, employees have been working
under the standard of the 40-hour, five days‘ workweek. These flexible work
schedules represent a significant adjustment to individual needs and
circumstances.29

b. Participative Management: By years of research and implementation,

management scholars have tried hard to determine which part of management
should be appropriate for employees to participate in, and fortunately, one
scholar came up with the final answer of the four key areas of participative
management. Employees are allowed to participate in (1) setting goals, (2)
making decisions, (3) solving problems, and (4) designing and implementing
organizational changes. Employee motivation and performance are said to have
significant improvement via personally involved in one or more of the
management areas. Participative management connects employees to their
companies, making them more dedicated to their jobs.

To achieve the ultimate effect of participative management, some barriers are

needed to overcome:

 Every level of management may resist employee participation because they

do not believe in its underlying philosophy.
 To believe that its short-run costs outweigh its long-term benefits can end this
program from the start.

 Fear that participative management might threaten the authority and power
over some part of management.
 Managers who lack experience with consensual decision-making might
fight the process.
Participative management is more than just a new motivation method, it
involves great planning and a good background work is often needed to make
 sure that supportive climate exists.

c. Workplace democracy: Generally, workplace democracy covers all efforts to

increase employee self-determination. This could be achieved through providing
stocks and shares to employees. Letting the employees own part of the
company's stock does not necessarily mean that they can take control over the
company, but as stockholders, employees will be more dedicated to their work to
increase the company's profitability. The harder they work, the greater their
stock dividends will be. Another way would be to ask employees to
manage the company. However, this concept has raised a lot of questions from
scholars and managers and is highly debatable.

THEORIES OF MOTIVATION:

Motivation is the force that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented

behaviors. It is what causes us to take action, whether to grab a snack to reduce
hunger or enroll in college to earn a degree. The forces that lie beneath motivation
can be biological, social, emotional or cognitive in nature. Researchers have
developed a number of different theories to explain motivation. Each individual
theory tends to be rather limited in scope. However, by looking at the key ideas
behind each theory, you can gain a better understanding of motivation as a whole.

Instinct Theory of Motivation:

According to instinct theories, people are motivated to behave in certain

ways because they are evolutionarily programmed to do so. An example of this
in the

animal world is seasonal migration. These animals do not learn to do this; it is

instead an inborn pattern of behavior. William James created a list of human
instincts that included such things as attachment, play, shame, anger, fear, shyness,
modesty and love. The main problem with this theory is that it did not really explain
behavior, it just described it. By the 1920s, instinct theories were pushed aside in
favor of other motivational theories, but contemporary evolutionary psychologists
still study the influence of genetics and heredity on human behavior.

Incentive Theory of Motivation:

The incentive theory suggests that people are motivated to do things because
of external rewards. For example, you might be motivated to go to work each day for
the monetary reward of being paid. Behavioral learning concepts such as association
and reinforcement play an important role in this theory of motivation.

Drive Theory of Motivation:

According to the drive theory of motivation, people are motivated to take

certain actions in order to reduce the internal tension that is caused by unmet
needs. For example, you might be motivated to drink a glass of water in order to
reduce the internal state of thirst. This theory is useful in explaining behaviors that
have a strong biological component, such as hunger or thirst. The problem with the
drive theory of motivation is that these behaviors are not always motivated purely
by physiological needs. For example, people often eat even when they are not really
hungry.

Arousal Theory of Motivation:

The arousal theory of motivation suggests that people take certain actions to
either decrease or increase levels of arousal. When arousal levels get too low, for
example, a person might watch and exciting movie or go for a jog. When arousal
levels get too high, on the other hand, a person would probably look for ways to

relax such as meditating or reading a book. According to this theory, we are

motivated to maintain an optimal level of arousal, although this level can vary based
on the individual or the situation.

Humanistic Theory of Motivation:

Humanistic theories of motivation are based on the idea that people also have
strong cognitive reasons to perform various actions. This is famously illustrated in
Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which presents different motivations at
different levels. First, people are motivated to fulfill basic biological needs for food
and shelter, as well as those of safety, love and esteem. Once the lower level needs
have been met, the primary motivator becomes the need for self-actualization, or
the desire to fulfill one's individual potential.30

NEED THEORIES OF MOTIVATION:

Need theories represent the ‗starting point‘ for most contemporary thought on
motivation. These theories argue that humans are motivated by ‗deficiencies‘ in one
or more important needs or needs categories. Human beings then try harder to
satisfy those needs and thus become motivated. The two best-known need theories
are Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs and Alderfer‘s ERG theory.

a. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

The hierarchy of needs, developed by Abraham Maslow in the 1940s,

was arguably the most famous need theory – famous probably because it was so
straightforward and ‗intuitively appealing‘ to those interested in work behavior. 31
Maslow, who labeled human beings as ‗wanting‘ animals, asserted that people

have an ‗innate‘ desire to satisfy a predictable five-step hierarchy of needs. These

needs have been categorized in an order of importance, with the most basic needs
at the foundation of the hierarchy.32 The three sets of needs at the bottom of the
hierarchy can be grouped as ‘deficiency needs’, which must be satisfied in order
for a person to be comfortable, while the top two sets can be named ‘growth
needs’, which focus on the growth and development of an individual. Having
looked at the basic concepts of Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs theory, we are going
to examine each one of the five needs very closely.

Physiological Needs: these needs refer to the desire to fulfill physical

satisfactions such as water, sleep, food, air and sex. These needs are considered
the most important needs because without them, human beings cannot survive.
No other needs would be of any importance if physiological needs have not been
satisfied.33

Safety Needs: Maslow‘s theory states that human beings strive to meet these

needs once the physiological needs are satisfied. It is about individual safety -
being away from evils and threats. It is also believed that most modern
employees are able to fulfill these needs through earning an income or
depending on unemployment benefits. Maslow asserts that individuals who have
‗prolonged deprivation of physiological and safety needs‘ may become ‗seriously
maladjusted‘ people.34

Love/Belongingness Needs: Once the physiological and safety needs are

satisfied, human beings tend to focus on the needs for love and affection. People
endeavor to obtain a sense of belonging with others. This category of needs is a
very powerful motivator of human behavior. 35

Esteem Needs: A person who wishes to be a highly valued individual in the

society always desires for high self-esteem. This self-esteem needs derive from
self-respect, which in turn comes from being accepted and respected by the
society. It is essential for those who are considered the people to help achieve an
organization‘s targeted objectives to be able to fulfill this category of needs. Once
again, according to Maslow, esteem needs to be met for an individual to move to
higher-level needs.

Self-actualization Needs: The fifth and final category at the top of Maslow‘s
hierarchy of needs is the needs for self-actualization. This means ‗realizing our
full potential and becoming all that we can be‘.36 In other words, it involves to the
need to become more and more what we are, and to become everything that we
are capable of becoming, which makes self-actualization an open-ended
category. Specific examples of these types are given below, in both the work and
home context. (Some of the instances, like "education" is actually satisfiers of the
need.)

Achieving all of the above characteristics is almost an impossible task.

After all, it is still debatable whether an organization should have more or fewer
self-actualized managers. On the one hand, this type of managers will play an
important role in breaking barriers to creativity and providing new initiatives as
to where the organization should be heading. On the other hand, too many
‗unconventional nonconformists‘, i.e. self-actualized individuals, can also
provoke chaos in one organization. 37

b. Alderfer’s ERG Theory

Another very important theory of motivation is the ERG Theory, which

was developed by Yale psychologist Clayton Alderfer. The ERG Theory –

E stands for Existence Needs, R for Relatedness Needs and G for Growth
needs – has many aspects that are very similar to those of Maslow‘s hierarchy of
needs, although there are still a number of very important differences between
the two.38

For Alderfer‘s ERG Theory, The Existence category is similar to

Maslow‘s Physiological and Safety needs, while Maslow‘s Love and Self Esteem
needs are placed in the Relatedness needs category. Finally, the Growth category
is similar to the self-actualization and self-esteem needs of Maslow‘s theory.39 The
ERG Theory, in contrast to the Hierarchy needs theory, emphasizes that more
than one kind of need may motivate a person at the same time. Also, an even
more important difference between the two theories is that the ERG includes two
main components: The Satisfaction-Progression Component and The
Frustration-Regression Component.40

The satisfaction-progression component explains that after an

individual has satisfied one category of needs, he then moves on to the next level.
This concept agrees with that of hierarchy of needs‘ theory. The Frustration-
Regression Component, on the other hand, argues that if an employee is not able
to satisfy a higher level of needs, he becomes ‗frustrated‘ and eventually
‗regresses‘ to the previously satisfied level.41