Management Accounting: Motivation Theories - Assignment Example

The paper "Management Accounting: Motivation Theories" is a wonderful example of an assignment on human resources. The concept of a hierarchy of needs was introduced by Abraham Maslow. According to Maslow’s theory of needs, an individual gets motivated to fulfill the fundamental needs before focusing upon the other set of needs which are more advanced. The hierarchy of needs has been divided into 5 levels. The needs are mentioned below:
Physiological needs.
Security needs.
Affiliation or acceptance needs.
Esteem Needs.
Self-actualization needs (Koontz & Weihrich, 2006, p.290).
The rationale behind this hierarchy of needs is to identify and understand the different types of needs of human beings. In addition to that, it is also portrayed that an individual raises his/her level of expectations, once the earlier needs get fulfilled. However, the primary motive was to segment the various needs of human beings and to assess their priority.       

According to Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory, there are some aspects in the workplace that create job satisfaction among the employees, while on the other hand, there are also a certain set of factors that generate dissatisfaction among the employees (Sapru, 2008, p.222-223).
The two factors described by Herzberg include motivational factors and hygiene factors.
Motivational factors: - It increases the level of satisfaction among the employees. Some of the factors that motivate an individual are recognition, achievement, growth, advancement, responsibility, and success among others.       
Hygiene factors: - Hygiene factors do not motivate the workers; however, they create a sense of dissatisfaction due to the absence of hygiene factors. These include salary, supervision, benefits, job security, etc (Griffin, 2007, p.295).      

Control issues can be defined as the process by which an individual orchestrates and manages the behaviors and actions of others out of his/her need (Goodtherapy, n.d.). Control issues are also referred to as the reaction against fear. The given scenario, where the group of teachers has assembled to mark the essays of students, portrays control issues. The teachers were given a target of 16 per hour, but during the training, they find that only 13 essays were possible to check. In this context, all the teachers collectively tried to orchestrate and redefine their daily targets. This clearly portrayed the employment of control issues.      

A flexible budget is a financial plan which gets adjusted according to the changes in the underlying volume of activity (Coombs, Hobbs & Jenkins, 2005, p.152). Flexible budgets are considered more useful than a static budget. Furthermore, the flexible budget also offers a number of benefits. However, the two important benefits are as follows:
It allows companies to project their outcomes.
It is also used for feedback control.
Flexible budgets can be used for the purpose of feedback control. However, it is only possible once the actual costs have been determined for a definite period. Also, if the actual costs have been compared with flexi budgets for a certain period, it can offer important control information. Read More