This summary contains notes on all mandatory reading for course 1.7 People at Work. Made from notes of an Honours student receiving a grade of 9.0 on the exam. Clear, concise, with pictures and explanations.
P1 – Motivation
Motivation: concerns the conditions responsible for variations in intensity, persistence, quality
and direction of ongoing behavior → prioritizing goals and where energy is expanded
Person-as-Machine Theories
Behavior and actions are involuntary, can be performed without any conscious awareness
INTERNAL
Maslow’s need theory – more about human development than work motivation
• Concerned with physical well-being → social needs
• Hierarchically form physiological to self-actualization
• If a lower need reemerges, person immediately reverts actions to satisfy the lower-level
need
• Behavior unconscious and automatic
• Universal
• Workers are able to choose between benefit packages according to current needs
The hierarchy
1. Physiological needs – basic needs or drives (food, water, and sleep)
2. Security needs – secure environment free of threats to existence
3. Love or social needs – interpersonal factors, desire to be accepted by others
4. Esteem needs – being respected for accomplishments or capabilities
5. Self-actualization needs – desire to develop own capabilities to the fullest (usually never
fully reached)
Variations on Maslow’s theory
• Herzberg Two-factor theory: only 2 basic needs
o Hygiene needs (physical and security) – eliminates dissatisfaction
o Motivator needs (social, esteem and actualization) – positive satisfaction
EXTERNAL
Reinforcement theory
• B.F. Skinner – Behaviorism
• Stimulus, response, and reward
• Contingent reward: reward depends on response
• Schedule:
o Intermittent reward: only some of the correct responses are rewarded (higher
level of performance)
o Continuous reward: reward after every correct response
• Fails to acknowledge higher mental activities e.g. reasoning or judgement
,Person-as-Scientist Theories
Cognitive revolution cca 1970s
Workers as rational beings capable of gathering and analyzing information, making decisions
based on the information.
(Goal-path: measure instrumentality that will get you to your goal)
Vroom’s VIE Theory / Expectancy theory
• Valence – strength of a person’s preference for a particular outcome (attractive things
e.g. pay and repelling things)
• Instrumentality – perceived relationship between performance and attainment of a
certain outcome
• Expectancy – an individual’s belief that a particular behavior will lead to higher
performance
• Lead us to a decision
• Expectancy: outcome of the task considering other factors (behavior, skills used), in
self-efficacy it is only the belief in own capabilities
o Self-efficacy can be high because im capable but expectancy can be low because
I got a cold overnight and cannot perform my best
Equity Theory
• Festinger – dissonance theory – tension when individuals hold dissonant cognitions,
individual will expend energy to reduce the tensions seeking for “balance”
• Adam’s 1965 transplanted Festinger’s theory into Equity theory
o Inputs and outcomes – what they invest into work and what they get out
o Compare them to others e.g. collegues
o Outcome/input ration – if similar to comparison others = no tension
𝑂𝑝 𝑂𝑜
• = → Equity
𝐼𝑝 𝐼𝑜
𝑂𝑝 𝑂𝑜 𝑂𝑝 𝑂𝑜
• > or < → Inequity
𝐼𝑝 𝐼𝑜 𝐼𝑝 𝐼𝑜
• O= outcomes, I = inputs, p = person, o = other
• Inequity
o Underpayment → fewer units and of less quality
o Overpaid → being paid more is not painful or tension-producing
Modern Approaches – Person-as-Intentional (Judge)
Goal-Setting Theory
• Motivated behavior must include goals
• Purposefulness and intentionality
• Needs → motives → goals →performance (→ = influence)
• Specific difficult goals lead to higher levels of performance
• People that set specific difficult goals perform better than those who set “do your best”
goal or no goal
• Goal acceptance: goal has been assigned
, • Goal commitment: not only assigned but also self-set goals
• Mechanism or intermediated states
o Direction – directing attention and action
o Effort/intensity – mobilizing energy or effort
o Persistence – prolonged effort over time
o Strategy – relevant strategies for goal attainment
• Feedback loop between knowledge of results and intermediate states between goal
commitment and performance
o Individual evaluates his or her performance and may change the intermediate
states
• Control theory – individual compares a standard (a goal) to actual outcome and adjusts
behavior to bring the outcome in agreement with the standard
o Practical issues to be addressed:
▪ Should goals be related to quantity or quality of performance? Both
▪ Goals related to process or outcomes? Simple outcome goals lead quicker
to high performance
▪ How should they be set? Assign or set them by oneself? – cultural issues
▪ How difficult should the goal be? 10-20% above current ability
▪ When to get rewards? All-or -nothing basis? Easy goals →
underperformance, Difficult goals → quitting
▪ Individual vs group goals?
Challenges of Goal-setting theory
• Need to integrate variables such as knowledge and skill into the model
Self-efficacy theory
• Bandura
• Self-efficacy: belief in one’s own capability to perform a specific task or reach a specific
goal (not self-esteem which also has a social aspect)
, o More related to motivation and behavior
o Self-esteem more related to emotions
o Self-fulfilling prophecy
• How is it developed and increased:
o Mastery experiences – successful performance of a challenging task
o Modeling – comparing capabilities to others, if someone similar to oneself can
succeed, own efficacy is strengthened
o Social persuasion – encouragement by others
o Physiological states – stress or fatigue indicates the task exceeds their abilities ,
techniques that reduce stress and fatigue increase feeling of self-efficacy
• Scientific evidence / Criticism:
o Scientific evidence has been proven even when taking into account individual
differences (it does influence motivation)
Job characteristics theory/model
• Hackman and Oldham 1975 – five characteristics of a job – given numerical value and
are combined into a score Motivating Potential Score (MPS)
o Skill variety – extent to which a job requires a number of skills or talents
▪ High: HR manager, nurse, teacher
▪ Low: operator on product assembly
o Task identity – extent to which the job requires performance of a whole unit,
which is identifiable with a visible outcome
▪ High: carpenter
▪ Low: operator who solders wires on a piece of equipment
o Task significance – significant impact on the lives and work of other people inside
and outside the organization
▪ High: surgeon
▪ Low: secretary, clerk, administration
o Autonomy – degree of freedom, discretion and independence
▪ High: lecturer
▪ Low: intern? Being supervised
o Feedback from the job – information about the effectiveness of the job holder’s
performance available
▪ High: pilot, model
▪ Low: salesman, startup manager
(𝑆𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑣𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑡𝑦 + 𝑇𝑎𝑠𝑘 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑦 + 𝑇𝑎𝑠𝑘 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 )
𝑀𝑃𝑆 =
3
× 𝐴𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑦 × 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘
(+ not multiplication because if one of them was 0 it would all be 0)
, Motivating potential of jobs can be improved by:
• Combining tasks – enlarge the range of tasks of the employee for greater variety
• Forming natural work units – job that incorporates number of steps form start to finish
rather than a fragmented part of the whole job cycle, significance enhanced and
individual contribution
• Establishing client relationships – greater freedom, more potential for feedback and job
variety
• Vertical loading – give employees responsibility such as scheduling work, control of
quality, determining priorities, recruiting and training → greater autonomy
• Opening feedback channels – greater opportunity for feedback on performance
Evaluation:
• Greater psychological wellbeing for such workers
• JCM models not culturally universal but the experience of meaningfulness and
responsibility for the outcome work - mediates the relationship between job
characteristic and motivation
• Implementation of guidelines are nor specific and managers have to modify them for
use
• Role of individual differences not supported
Justice at work
• Relationship between employee and employer is economic: employee gives skills and
effort to employer who in return pays compensation (in dev countries since 1st
industrial revolution).
• But is also social relationship → employees may want intangible things in return
(recognition, belonging, dev opportunities, fulfilling relationships).
• Organizational justice refers to perceptions that someone or something is fair. Justice
and injustice perceptions subjective.
• The literature on organizational justice can be structures along 2 dimensions:
o The unit of analysis
▪ Recipient
▪ Observer
▪ Actor
o The nature of the variable of interest
▪ Independent (how it relates to work attitudes and behavior)
▪ Dependent (if and why perceptions of justice vary across ppl and
contexts)
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