Intrinsic Motivation in Business - Literature review Example

Running Head: Intrinsic Motivation Intrinsic Motivation Customer’s name: Institution: Customer’s Course Tutor’s Name 24th February, 2015 Introduction In every organization, employees are expected to the best in relation to their work. Quality and an excellent job is usually achieved when motivation is involved. Motivation is termed as an essential aspect when it comes to the creation of effective management in an organization. Every employee in an organization is motivated by various and different kind of things. Motivation is defined as a behavior that can enable employees to act towards the achievement of their goals. It has also been noted that, a motivated employee will always perform in maximum capacity in their allocated tasks. Money and sense of purpose are essential factors, and they are usually the ones that motivate individuals the most. The term motivation is closely related to the concept that explains why and how the human behaviors are in a way affected and directed. There exist two major types of motivation that is intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. This research paper will discuss intrinsic motivation in details. Intrinsic motivation Researchers started to study intrinsic motivation in the early 1970's. Based on Jennifer et al., (2013) motivation can be said to be intrinsic when a person performs an activity since it is likely to bring some form of satisfaction. Ke et al. (2012), on the other hand, define this kind of motivation as if an action is undertaken for a person who is in need of immediate satisfaction. Thus, the most commonly accepted definition of intrinsic motivation is the one that terms it as the self-desire to reach out to new challenges and new things, to analyze individual capacity, to observe and gain knowledge. This kind of motivation is usually driven by enjoyment or interest in the task being undertaken, and it often exists within an individual more willingly than relying on other external pressures or relying on the desire to be rewarded. The trend of intrinsic motivation was first one with experimental studies in animal behavior. Based on the studies, organisms could engage in curiosity and playful behaviors with the absence of rewards. Additionally, other researchers have argued that, there exist two major types of intrinsic motivation that is; the direct and the indirect intrinsic motivation. The direct intrinsic motivation is termed as the free choice, and it usually comes from within an employee. This kind of motivation is hard to measure since it involves a lot of emotional feelings. Indirect intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is referred to as the motivation of a person's attitude toward work. This kind of motivation is usually applied by managers since it is directly connected to self-report. Factors that promote intrinsic motivation There exist seven factors that promote intrinsic motivation, and they include challenge, control, curiosity, competition, fantasy, cooperation, and recognition. One of the major factors that affect intrinsic motivations is challenge. It is acknowledged that employees are motivated well when they tend towards the achievement of personally meaningful goals. Effective leaders can motivate their subordinates by offering them challenging tasks that require them to achieve more. When managers demand that their employees set measurable, specific, attainable, and realistic and timely goals they establish an environment that calls for continuous improvement (Petchsawang & Duchon, 2012). By offering feedback, coaching and mentoring to their employee managers are able to help their employees in the development of intrinsic motivation and more so in their career development and this also benefits the business in that there is organizational growth and increased profitability. Another aspect that promotes intrinsic motivation is curiosity. By attracting the attention of the employees, managers get them to follow the conduct and rules of the business based on the already established business policies and procedures. Employees at time view something and certain aspects of the physical environment that attract their attention (Khan & Sheikh, 2012). At the time, there are also certain discrepancies that exist between the present skills and knowledge possesses by the employee and the skills and knowledge they could attain lest they engaged in some other form of activity. The third factor is control. Almost all individuals have a tendency of wanting to control what happens to their lives. Based on these, when employees are given the opportunity to make their choices, they feel empowered and thus they tend to work longer and harder so as to complete the allocated tasks. Employees also take ownership by trying to solve problems since the motivation to succeed usually comes from within. In relation to these factor, managers and leaders need to make it clear to their subordinates that the effect and cause relationship between long-term success and their behavior are essential in controlling their destiny and more so in relation to their work. The other factor that promotes intrinsic motivation is fantasy. Through this factor, employees can use metal images of aspects as well as situations that are not actually present to stimulate their individual behavior. An additional factor that promotes this kind of motivation is recognition. Employees feel a greater level of satisfaction when other recognize and at the same time appreciate their personal achievements. Based on these factors, departmental heads need to recognize the individual efforts that employees make, and they may give word compliments. By so doing, the employees will feel more motivated to achieve better in the future. The other factor is competition. Employees are usually satisfied when they can gauge and compare their individual performance favorably with the performance of others (Rajhans, 2012). The other factor is cooperation. This factor relates well to the idea of being able to work well with other employees and helping them in areas where they may be experiencing some form of difficulties. Human resource management with respect to intrinsic motivation Khan and Sheikh (2012) argue that employees who are intrinsically motivated can attain more from employee development programs as compared to their counterparts who are weakly intrinsically motivated. This can be attributed to the fact that intrinsically motivated employees are usually more autonomous and self-driven, and they also tend to have a high level of involvement and responsibility. It is also crucial to note that only the employees who are greatly intrinsically motivated are likely to increase their performance at work if there is a performance appraisal program. For that reason, intrinsic motivation entirely mediates the relationship that exists between work effort and perceived investment in employee development (Rajhans, 2012). Khan and Sheikh (2012) further states that there is a causal link between PIED and intrinsic motivation. Based on these all businesses, organizations and cooperatives need to modify their HRM strategies towards the adoption of intrinsic motivation. It is also crucial to note that the HRM departments need to place a lot of emphasis on aspects such as feedback, job autonomy, and task significance. Additionally organizations should attach greater level of importance to employee recruitment and they should always seek to recruit employees who can find pleasure and sense to their work and also those who can enjoy the work process this will go a long way in having employees who are intrinsically motivated by principle (Rani & Kumar-Lenka, 2012). Influence of intrinsic motivation on creativity Afful-Broni and Nanyele (2012) in their research on intrinsic motivation found out that intrinsic interest in employee's duties is preceding cause for the creativity of the employees. This means that for managers to keep and make their employee more creative they should not weaken the employee's intrinsic motivation. They also asserted that the risk taking mediate creativity and intrinsic motivation since experimenting as a way of risk taking interest of the employee in the work (Afful-Broni & Nanyele, 2012). Thus, it is crucial to note that interference with the autonomy and external control diminish the motivation of workers while positive feedback combined with relational base always stimulate intrinsically motivated employee behavior. Intrinsic rewards in today's workplace In essence, workers in today's workplaces are expected to self-manage themselves to a certain degree in that they are supposed to make use of their experience and intelligence to accomplish their duties. There exist four main intrinsic rewards, and they include a sense of choice, meaningfulness, competence, and progress. The feeling of meaningfulness involves to the importance of the purpose that the employee is trying to accomplish. Based on this sense the employee feels that they are trending on a path that is worth their energy and time, and thus they have a sense of direction (Manzoor, 2012). The other reward is the feeling of choice. Based on these the employees are supposed to feel free when choosing how they want to accomplish their work. Thus, they employee will have ownership of the activity, have high believe of the chosen approach and feel entirely responsible and take all necessary measures to make it work. The other reward is the sense of competence. The employee feels that they are handling their allocated tasks in the best way possible and that they are even exceeding their personal standards. The last intrinsic reward is the sense of progress. The employee’s feels and are encouraged that all their efforts are accomplishing something essential. Employees feel that their work is moving in the right direction (Sofat, 2012). Benefits of intrinsic rewards Intrinsic rewards are said to be beneficial to both the employee and the organization. One of the advantages of intrinsic rewards in the organizations is that they can get employees who can self-mange themselves without any form of supervision. For instance, employees who are in the high reward levels demonstrates greater level of concentration and are usually rated as being more efficient by their immediate bosses. The benefits can also be said to extend beyond the concept of self-management. Intrinsic rewards have also been found to be reliable predictors of employee retention (Adeyinka & Abdul-Rahman, 2013). These kinds of workers have also been found to be good marketers and recruiters for the organizations they work for. They are more likely to recommend the organizations and its products and services to their friends who may be potential consumers. The other benefit that is associated with intrinsic rewards is that they are a healthy and sustainable source of employee in the workplace. These forms of motivation have lowest chances of burnout (Seniwoliba & Nchorbono, 2013). Employee who has high reward levels tends to portray more positive feeling on the job as compared to negative ones. This means that these employees will have high job satisfaction levels, and they will demonstrate few work related stress, and they are likely to feel that they are also developing from the professional viewpoint. In general, intrinsic rewards seem to offer a win/win situation for both the employees and the organization. Despite the perceived benefits of intrinsic rewards, a number of managers still undervalue the benefits associated with intrinsic rewards, and they tend to place more value on financial rewards as being the essential aspect in motivating their employees (Petchsawang & Duchon, 2012). This is attributed to the fact that though people can recognize their role played by intrinsic rewards on their behavior they usually assume that others are mostly motivated by self-interest and money. Conclusion Based on the above discussion it is clearly evident that the study of intrinsic motivation has been around for a considerable amount of time now. It is also obvious that this kind of motivation is mainly focused on the desire that the work of the employee makes efficient, and essential contributions purposes since it is usually driven by performance. Business managers need to be aware of the intrinsic rewards their benefits, the HRM in respect to intrinsic motivation and also the effect on intrinsic motivation on creativity of their employees. When managers acknowledge these, they are likely to have a workforce that is bale to self-manage themselves, are motivated. Managers should not underestimate the benefits associated with intrinsic rewards, and thus they should treat it as another form of motivating their employees. Managers also need to know that a significant number of employee's value intrinsic rewards as compared to extrinsic rewards. References Adeyinka, A & Abdul-Rahman, O (2013). Motivation and its effect on Employee performance. Pakistan journal of social sciences, 10, 99-104. Afful-Broni, A. & Nanyele, S. (2012). Factors Influencing Worker Motivation in a Private African University: Lessons for Leadership. Creative Education, 3 (3), 315-321. Jennifer, E., Ramakrishna, A., Jason, B., & Philip L. (2013). Can We Have Fun @ Work? The Role of Intrinsic Motivation for Utilitarian Systems. European Journal of Information Systems, 22, 360–380 Ke, W., Tan, C., Sia, C., &Wei, K. (2012). Inducing Intrinsic Motivation to Explore the Enterprise System: The Supremacy of Organizational Levers. 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