Organizational Behaviour:
Understanding and Managing Life at
Work
Twelfth Edition
Chapter 5
Theories of Work Motivation
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What Is Motivation?
• The extent to which persistent effort is directed toward a
goal.
• The basic characteristics of motivation:
– Effort
– Persistence
– Direction
– Goals
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Intrinsic Motivation
• Motivation that stems from the direct relationship between
the worker and the task and is usually self-applied.
• Examples include:
– Feelings of achievement, accomplishment, challenge,
and competence derived from performing one’s job,
and the sheer interest in the job itself.
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Extrinsic Motivation
• Motivation that stems from the work environment external
to the task and is usually applied by others.
• Examples include:
– Pay, fringe benefits, company policies, and various
forms of supervision.
• Some motivators have both extrinsic and intrinsic qualities.
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Factors Contributing to Individual
Job Performance
Exhibit 5.1 Factors contributing to individual job performance.
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Emotional Intelligence – The Office
• [Link]
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Emotional Intelligence (E I) (1 of 2)
• The ability to understand and manage one’s own and
others’ feelings and emotions.
• It involves the ability to:
– Perceive and express emotion.
– Assimilate emotion in thought.
– Understand and reason about emotions.
– Manage emotions in oneself and others.
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Emotional Intelligence (E I) (2 of 2)
• Peter Salovey and John Mayer developed an E I model
that consists of four interrelated sets of skills or branches.
• The four skills represent sequential steps that form a
hierarchy:
– Perceiving emotions accurately in oneself and others.
– Using emotions to facilitate thinking.
– Understanding emotions, emotional language, and the
signals conveyed by emotions.
– Managing emotions so as to attain specific goals.
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The Motivation–Performance
Relationship (1 of 2)
• It is possible for performance to be low even when a
person is highly motivated.
• In addition to personality, general cognitive ability, and E I,
poor performance could also be due to:
– Poor understanding of the task.
– Luck and chance factors.
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The Motivation–Performance
Relationship (2 of 2)
• We cannot consider motivation in isolation.
• High motivation will not result in high performance if
employees have low cognitive ability and E I, do not
understand their jobs, or encounter unavoidable obstacles
over which they have no control.
• Motivational interventions will not work if employees are
deficient in important skills and abilities.
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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• A five-level hierarchical need theory of motivation that
specifies that the lowest-level unsatisfied need has the
greatest motivating potential. The needs include:
– Physiological needs
– Safety needs
– Belongingness needs
– Esteem needs
– Self-actualization needs
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Physiological Needs
• Needs that must be satisfied for the person to survive,
such as food, water, oxygen, and shelter.
• Organizational factors that might satisfy these needs
include:
– Minimum pay necessary for survival
– Working conditions that promote existence
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Safety Needs
• Needs for security, stability, freedom from anxiety, and a
structured and ordered environment.
• Organizational conditions that might meet these needs
include:
– Safe working conditions
– Fair and sensible rules and regulations
– Job security
– Comfortable work environment
– Pension and insurance plans
– Pay above the minimum standard
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Belongingness Needs
• Needs for social interaction, affection, love,
companionship, and friendship.
• Organizational factors that might meet these needs
include:
– Opportunity to interact with others on the job
– Friendly and supportive supervision
– Opportunity for teamwork
– Opportunity to develop new social relationships
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Esteem Needs
• Needs for feelings of adequacy, competence,
independence, strength, confidence, and the appreciation
and recognition of these characteristics by others.
• Organizational factors that might satisfy these needs
include:
– Opportunity to master tasks leading to feelings of
achievement and responsibility
– Awards, promotions, prestigious job titles, professional
recognition
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Self-Actualization Needs
• These needs are difficult to define.
• They involve the desire to develop one’s true potential as
an individual to the fullest extent and to express one’s
skills, talents, and emotions in a manner that is most
personally fulfilling.
• Organizational conditions that might provide self-
actualization include absorbing jobs with the potential for
creativity and growth.
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McClelland’s Theory of Needs (1 of 5)
• A non-hierarchical need theory of motivation that outlines
the conditions under which certain needs result in
particular patterns of motivation.
• Needs reflect relatively stable personality characteristics.
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McClelland’s Theory of Needs (2 of 5)
• Concerned with the specific behavioural consequences of
three needs:
– Need for Achievement
– Need for Affiliation
– Need for Power
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Need for Achievement
• A strong desire to perform challenging tasks well.
• Individuals with a high need for achievement exhibit the
following characteristics:
– A preference for situations in which personal
responsibility can be taken for outcomes.
– A tendency to set moderately difficult goals that
provide for calculated risks.
– A desire for performance feedback.
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Need for Power
• A strong desire to influence others, making a significant
impact or impression.
• People with a high need for power seek out social settings
in which they can be influential.
• Power can be used to serve the power seeker, other
people, or the organization.
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Self-Determination Theory (SD T) (1 of 5)
• SD T relates the satisfaction of three basic psychological
needs to autonomous motivation and controlled
motivation.
• Considers needs to be universal necessities for
psychological health and well-being.
• All people have three basic psychological needs and what
is most important is the satisfaction of these three basic
needs.
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Self-Determination Theory (SD T) (2 of 5)
• Needs are universal necessities for psychological health
and well-being and they are not hierarchical.
• Motivation depends on the satisfaction of three basic
psychological needs:
– Competence
– Autonomy
– Relatedness
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Self-Determination Theory (SD T) (3 of 5)
• Competence has to do with feeling a sense of mastery
and being effective in one’s environment.
• Relatedness has to do with feeling connected to others
• Autonomy refers to having choice and feeling volitional in
one’s behaviour.
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Autonomous Motivation
• Autonomous motivation is self-motivation or intrinsic
motivation.
• It occurs when people feel they are in control of their
motivation.
• When motivation is autonomous, individuals are
performing a task because it is interesting and they have
chosen to do it.
• Motivation is internally rather than externally regulated.
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Controlled Motivation
• Controlled motivation occurs when people are motivated
to obtain a desired consequence or extrinsic reward.
• When motivation is controlled, individuals feel they are
pressured and have no choice but to engage in a task.
• Motivation is externally rather than internally regulated.
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Process Theories of Work Motivation
• Motivation theories that specify the details of how
motivation occurs.
• Three important process theories of work motivation:
– Expectancy theory
– Equity theory
– Goal setting theory
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Expectancy Theory (1 of 2)
• A process theory that states that motivation is determined
by the outcomes that people expect to occur as a result of
their actions on the job.
• The basic components of Victor Vroom’s expectancy
theory are:
– Outcomes
– Instrumentality
– Valence
– Expectancy
– Force
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Valence (1 of 2)
• The expected value of outcomes, the extent to which they
are attractive or unattractive to the individual.
• Good pay, peer acceptance, or any other second-level
outcome might be more or less attractive to particular
workers.
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Valence (2 of 2)
• The valence of first-level outcomes is the sum of products
of the associated second-level outcomes and their
instrumentalities:
the valence of particular first -level outcome Σ instrumentalities
second -level valences
• The valence of a first-level outcome depends on the
extent to which it leads to favourable second-level
outcomes.
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Force (1 of 2)
• Force is the end product of the other components of the
theory.
• It represents the relative degree of effort that will be
directed toward various first-level outcomes.
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Force (2 of 2)
• The force directed toward a first-level outcome is a
product of the valence of that outcome and the expectancy
that it can be achieved:
force = first -level valence × expectancy
• We can expect an individual’s effort to be directed toward
the first-level outcome that has the largest force product.
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The Premises of Expectancy Theory
• People will be motivated to perform in those work activities
that they find attractive and that they feel they can
accomplish.
• The attractiveness of various work activities depends on
the extent to which they lead to favourable personal
consequences.
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Expectancy Theory (2 of 2)
• Expectancy theory is based on the perceptions of the
individual worker.
• It can handle any form of second-level outcome that has
relevance for the person in question (extrinsic and intrinsic
outcomes).
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Managerial Implications of
Expectancy Theory
• The motivational implications of expectancy theory involve
“juggling the numbers” that individuals attach to
expectancies, instrumentalities, and valences.
• Three implications:
– Boost expectancies
– Clarify reward contingencies
– Appreciate diverse needs
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Boost Expectancies (1 of 2)
• One of the most basic things managers can do is ensure that
their employees expect to be able to achieve first-level
outcomes that are of interest to the organization.
• Workers will not pursue goals if expectancy is low.
• Low expectancies can take many forms.
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Reasons for Low Expectancies
• Poor equipment, poor tools, lazy co-workers
• Lack of understanding of what the organization considers
good performance and how to achieve it.
• Perception that performance evaluation ratings are
capricious and arbitrary, and not understanding how to
obtain a good rating.
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Boost Expectancies (2 of 2)
• Expectancies can usually be enhanced by:
– Providing proper equipment
– Training
– Demonstrating correct work procedures
– Explaining how performance is evaluated
– Listening to employee problems
• The point is to clarify the path to beneficial first-level
outcomes.
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Let’s Role Play – Equity Theory
• Groups of 4
• Madison Retirement Home has been having challenges with the employees and
the Management Group.
• It is a non-unionized environment with 100 employees and a family
owned/operated business.
• The Employees feel that there are a lot of inequities:
– Varying wage rates for employees in the same position
– Approval for time off is granted to some and not others
– Scheduling concerns, with shift preferences given to the ‘favourite’
employees.
– Family members of the owners receive additional breaks, meals and
additional vacation time. \
• Discuss WHY these may be perceived as inequities and how the Management
Team could rectify these concerns?
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Equity Theory (1 of 2)
• Equity theory explains people’s job satisfaction through a
comparison process of inputs and outcomes.
• When workers perceive equity they experience job
satisfaction; when they perceive inequity, they experience
job dissatisfaction.
• In what sense is equity theory a theory of motivation?
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Equity Theory (2 of 2)
• Motivation stems from a comparison of the inputs one
invests in a job and the outcomes one receives in
comparison with the inputs and outcomes of another
person or group.
• Individuals are motivated to maintain an equitable
exchange relationship.
• How do people reduce inequity and achieve equity?
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Tactics for Reducing Inequity
• Perceptually distort one’s own inputs or outcomes.
• Perceptually distort the inputs or outcomes of the
comparison person or group.
• Choose another comparison person or group.
• Alter one’s inputs or alter one’s outcomes.
• Leave the exchange relationship
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