The Future of Work Motivation Theory - Essay Example

? The Future of Work Motivation Theory The Future of Work Motivation Theory Introduction Motivation of employees usually plays a significant role in organizational management. It is applicable both in practical and theoretical basis. Motivation plays an integral part in the organization’s performance as it influences the input of the managers in the daily work. Notably, most of the organizational searchers regard motivation as a development building block upon which other useful and effective management practice theories are based. In fact, motivation penetrates many managerial fields including team building, leadership, managerial ethics, performance management, organizational change, and decision-making. Motivation has played a significant role in most of the organizations’ development and profitability; thus, it would be necessary to examine the future of motivation in relation to the organizations’ performance. Therefore, it would be significant to determine what aspects of motivation should be addressed in order to improve the overall managerial output, understanding the behaviors of the employees, as well as effecting job performance within the contemporary organizations. In addressing the future models of motivation, it would be overriding the where the effects past models of motivation. The term motivation is driven from the Latin word movere meaning movement. Atkinson built his ideas from this Latin word and defined motivation as “the cotemporary or immediate influence on the direction, persistence, and vigor of action. On the other hand, Vroom defined motivation as “a process governing choice made by individuals … among numerous alternative forms of voluntary activities” (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2007 p83). Campbell and Pritchard were of the view that motivation was governed by a set of dependent or independent variables in a relationship that would help in determining direction, persistence, and amplitude of an individual’s behavior. That is motivation has constant effects on individuals’ skill, aptitude, and understanding of his or her task and constrains within his or her working environment (Best, 2003 p63). Subsequently, the definitions above among other definitions share three common denominators; they all address principle concerns or factors that energize, sustain, and channel an individual’s behavior over time. In many ways, work motivation contemporary theories are usually driven from these three denominators or factors that interrelate determine the behavior of managers and employees in an organization. The adequate understanding and comprehending the effects future motivation, it would be vital to understand the early development of the motivation theory (Landy & Conte, 2007 p197). Early Development in Motivation Theory The ancient understanding of motivation regarded motivation as the principle driving force that determined an individual’s behavior. Individuals largely focused their efforts on seeking pleasure but ultimately evaded pain. Towards the end of the 19th century, the motivational issues shifted attention from the philosophical realms to the then newly emerged science of psychology. The change was immediately culminated with challenges especially in the application of hedonism as the fundamental principle of studying motivation (Erez & Ed, 2001 p104). According to Vroom, there was no distinction in the specification of type events that were pleasure oriented and the type of events that were painful. Furthermore, he did not understand how these events could be attached to a specific individual nor was it clears for him how people acquire their conceptions in attaining pleasure or pain or how pain and pleasure could be modified through acquiring experience. In other words, the hedonistic assumption had no empirical content thus, was untestable (Landy & Conte, 2007). Because of these challenges, the behavioral science embarked on empirical models in search of ways they could explain motivation (Landy & Conte, 2007 p196). The search of the early models of defining motivation led to development of numerous theories including those that were proposed by psychologist and philosophers including Freud, James, and McDougall. However, the theories proposed by these psychologists and philosophers did not view give motivation rationalism it so deserved, but instead resulted into one distinct understanding that was based on McDougall ideals. McDougall regarded experience as innate or inherited psychological predisposition that dictates its processor to pay attention or perceive objects of a given class; thus, leading to emotional excitement experience to perceived a given quality in a given manner. From this view, it is certain that motivator relates to quality and experience. James added to the list by identifying the instincts that were related to motivation and listed them as curiosity, locomotion, fear, sociability, sympathy, and jealousy (Erez & Ed, 2001 p107). In the early 1920s, the limitations of the theory increased and the instinct theories were eventually replaced by a model based reinforcement or drive (Best, 2003 p64). The drive theorists including Thorndike, Hull, and Worth introduced the concept of motivated learning behavior. In their new motivation behavior concept, they postulated that the present or the future decision concerning behavior is intensely influenced by the reward associated consequences that are related to the past behavioral experience (Steers & Ed, 2004 p23). The model was later referred to “hedonism of the past.” It stated that the past actions that led to a positive outcome are repetitive in nature, while actions that have ever led to a negative outcome will ever diminish. Thorndike later in 1911 referred generalized this model or concept as law of effect (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2007 p83). However, later in 1943, Hull postulated and forwarded the idea that; motivation was largely dependent drive and habit. In 1953, Skinner and other psychologies worked on these principles and introduced the concept of operant conditioning or the reinforcement theories. They argued that, with time, people tend to learn contingent relationship betwixt their actions and consequences of such actions. They stressed that these contingencies usually guide individual’s future behavior (Best, 2003 p63). In fact, reinforcement models are still applied today in the understanding work motivation in relation to job performance, as well as workplace performance in regards to the management programs. Unlike the psychologists who largely focus on the drives and instincts, managers are more interested in the pragmatic issues concerning motivation (Landy & Conte, 2007 p200). Later in 1911, Taylor and colleagues gave more insight into factory development in regards to the input of the managers at their work place. They proposed new and paternalistic way of managing workers that engulfed a combination of pay for performance, job training, improving employee selection techniques, and redesign jobs that include introduction of ergonomics (Erez & Ed, 2001 p107). Taylor and colleagues emphasized that proper scientific management is an economic boom to both workers and management only if the organization can adopt the use of new or improved manufacturing techniques, advanced operation efficiency, and sharing of rewards. However, they noted that increased workforce sophistication coupled with organization’s efforts of maximizing productivity without simultaneous reward of employees will only lead to discredit of the system or organization; thus, leading to rise unionization efforts (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2007 p84). These proposals led to consideration of social influence in the workplace especially concerning behavior of workers. Afterwards, employees were viewed as complex beings with numerous motivational influences, which could as well influence the work performance. Later Mayo, Roeth-lisberger and Dickson later summarized that organization’s failure to treat employees as a human being led to the employee’s low morale, unresponsiveness, poor craftsmanship, and confusion (Landy & Conte, 2007 p201). Later in the 1950s, numerous new models emerged and they were collectively referred to content theories since they all aimed to identify factors that were associated with motivation. In 1938, Murray focused on motivational potency and precisely defined needs including affiliation, power, achievement, and autonomy as factors that must be considered in motivating workers. McClelland, who later developed Murray concepts, argued that at any given time in life, an individual often possess several competing needs that need to be motivated so that they can be, activated (Steers & Ed, 2004 p21). McClelland tends to have focused on the individual’s achievement in relation to their behavior (Erez & Ed, 2001 p111). He then defined behavior as the intent of competition towards standards of excellent. The early motivation theories largely focused on the difference in individuals’ role that calls for different motivation. Some of the early motivation theories argue that work motivation is profoundly influenced by the job’s intrinsic challenges and these challenges usually provide opportunities for reinforcement and recognition (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2007 p86). According to Herzberg, the surrounding of a job that is hygiene factors to be temporal in satisfying individual’s needs as well as determining future motivation. He later noted that job enrichment is a key work motivation factor as it influences attitude towards job; thus, influencing the job performance (Landy & Conte, 2007). The 1960 motivation theories sharply contrasted the motivation theories. Unlike the early theories that focused on identifying relatively static environmental motivation factors, the 1960 theories viewed work motivation from a more dynamic perspective. Additionally, they looked for casual relationship between time and event that would affect human behavior in the workplace (Steers & Ed, 2004 p25). They were geared to determine human though and how they could streamline them towards improving job performance. Vroom in 1964 came up with pectancy theory in which he prompted that employees often have the tendency of rationally evaluating various on-job work behaviors and choose behaviors that they believe will lead the to work related rewards and other related outcome. Psychologists of this era speculate that the extent and quality of reward determines the performance and subsequent job satisfaction, and the mediated quality and extent of reward that is offered to the employees determines the quality of job performance. Notably, they as well related the past work performance and the expected employees’ current or future performance (Erez & Ed, 2001p112). This indicates that if the past superior performance of employees was not rewarded, then the future performances affected in employees may reflect how they suffered incentive and reward, thus losing credibility of the system (Landy & Conte, 2007 p202). Conclusion The current motivation theories include the social learning theory that emerged from the development of the ancient theories. The recent theories focus on goal setting, reward system, job design, procedural justice, innovation, creativity, punishment, and cross culture work behavior influences. In the 1990s, the motivation work place theories did not have any boost. Interestingly, scholars of this era are only doing a review of the motivation theories of up to late 1970s. This means that the work place motivation theories are not developing. Moreover, most of the early theories that had been discredited are forming content of such books. One may think that scholars have lost interest in the work motivation issues (may be because organizations are no longer impressed by subject) or the work place motivation had been solved long ago; thereby, eradicating the need for adding information on the subject. Nonetheless, these assumptions may not be convincing enough, but the reason of the null development on this subject may be due to change the trend of the economy. That is, the introduction of e-commerce, dotcoms, and increased globalization as well as increased service and traditional manufacturing firms. The introduction of these new economies has left motivated workforce for a mare citation that is a hallmark competition advantage. Once Thurow stated that in the future, success of companies will depend on quality of both human resource and technology and motivation will play a critical role in competition of industries. Therefore, the future motivation theories will need a break through in the understanding of these new economies especially the understanding of the applications of information and technology in the economy. The future theories should address motivation, while regarding the challenges that are associated with diversity of all new form of economy and globalization. References Best F. (2003). The Future of Work. New York: Prentice-Hall,. Erez M, Kleinbeck U, Thierry H. (2001). Work Motivation in the Context ofaA Globalizing Economy. London: Routledge. Hellriegel D. W, Slocum J. (2007). Organizational Behavior. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Landy F. M, Conte J. (2007). Work in the 21st Century: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology. JW: Wiley-Blackwel. Steers R. M, Mowday R. T, Shapiro D. L. (2004). Introduction to Special Topic Forum. The Future of Motivation Theory , 7. Read More