Major Motivational Theories - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages This is because one needs highly motivated employees to get the work done. Well motivated employees are those who are keen to do excellent jobs because they feel that they have to. Their goal is to do their job, and that’s what managers need. Intrinsic motivation is the type of motivation that is driven by interest. The interest of the person itself is the drive to make the work his goal. The people who are intrinsically motivated jump on the task to improve their skills. The other type of motivation is the extrinsic kind. The interest of the person to complete the goal if he is extrinsically motivated is usually the things he might get after the goal is achieved, like rewards or punishment. For example, grades and winning are extrinsic motivational factors while studying something because one is indeed interested in that particular area is intrinsic There are many motivation theories that are practiced to have motivated employees. Three of them are discussed in this paper. These theories are: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, and McGregor’s X/Y theory. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is perhaps the most popular and the most basic motivational theory. It was first discussed in Maslow’s 1943 study called A Theory of Human Motivation. It discusses the levels of human needs and how it is important in understanding these needs in order to manipulate the conditions of one’s employees for them to be good employees. It is often represented by a pyramid, with the needs starting from the bottom and ending at the tip with self actualization. The primary needs of a person are at the bottom of the pyramid, and that’s the physiological need. Then it progresses to safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. According to the hierarchy, one cannot achieve self-actualization if he did not fulfill the previous rung of the pyramid. This means that one should fulfill the physiological need, then the safety need, then the love need and then the esteem need in order to achieve self-actualization. Criticism of the theory is largely based on the postulate that the ranking of the “needs” aren’t really that accurate. Critics argue that food, shelter and other “physiological” needs are naturally instinctual and should not be included in the pyramid theory. They also say that the needs of a person referred to in this pyramid are largely for the American man. However, this information on motivation is quite important to managers as they would know what their people need, especially in an intercultural atmosphere. Since values and traditions differ, their needs as humans would definitely put a common thread on them, making them easier to motivate based on those commonalities. And even if the criticisms say something common on them, they are not as powerful. The second theory is the Herzberg’s two factor theory. According to this theory, there are two kinds of motivations: the one that causes satisfaction and the one the causes dissatisfaction. It is also called-hygiene motivation. It is also called content theory motivation. He interviewed 200 accountants and engineers for this who were then asked to recall when they felt good or bad at their offices. From this, he concluded that the motivation of the employees lies on the hygiene factors and motivation factors. Hygiene factors are those things which are needed by ...Download file to see next pagesRead More