Theory of Motivation - Essay Example

Does motivation to work vary from culture to culture? Discuss the applicability of one content theory of motivation and of one process theory of motivation to your national culture. Introduction Human resource is considered to be the most valuable of all the assets that a business possesses. It is the factor of production that turns a dream into a reality. An entrepreneur dreams, while the employees of that company make it possible to turn that dream into a reality and hence help the entrepreneur to live his/her dream. So in order to live their dream, entrepreneurs need to know what drives workers to work. Once they know about these, employers should help workers in achievement of these factors. The better a manager understands the employees’ behavior, the more able the manager will be in influencing subordinates’ behavior to make it more consistent with the organization goals and objectives. Definition of motivation Human beings are driven by one thing or another, in order to do something. This driving force is the reason why they would do something. This driving force is basically what we term as ‘motivation’. Motivation is the desire to do anything. It is one of the most important of the factors that lead us to perform a task. It is the inner state that causes an individual to behave in a way that ensures the accomplishment of some goal (Certo and Certo, 2013). Motivation is also seen as a set of processes that stimulate, direct and maintain human behavior towards achieving a particular goal (Di Cesare and Sadri, 2003) Persuaded individuals are the individuals who have settled on a conscious choice to dedicate significant exertion to attaining something that they esteem. What they esteem will vary enormously starting with one singular then onto the next. Some individuals might be motivated by monetary factors involved in accomplishing a task while others might be driven by non-monetary factors (Erez et al, 2012). Monetary factors are those elements in a job that result in the individual getting rewarded in form of money such as salary, bonuses, fringe benefits etc. Non monetary factors are also called intrinsic factors and are those that are closely linked to a person’s satisfaction and hence these include appreciation, recognition, delegation and relationship with colleagues (Lehto and Landry, 2012). Both of these factors play an important role in motivating a person to perform a job. If the right motivators are used to stimulate individuals to work, there is a high probability that the work performed will be effective and efficient. This is because the individual is happy and wants to show the same love and affection towards the job and the organization. The token of appreciation from the individual’s side is mainly, in the form of the work performed well. Definition of Culture: Motivation to work varies from individual and individual, and hence culture to culture as well. A culture is a way of life pertaining to a particular group of people. According to Geert Hofstede (1984) and Peng (2014), Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another. National culture: Different cultures that exist within the boundaries of a country, when combined make up the national culture. The national culture of country is a set of norms, behavior, beliefs and practices that exist within a country and differentiates from other countries. It makes the country unique (Stowe, 2008). Motivation and culture The reason why worker motivation differs from culture to culture is simple yet a crucial one. This is because a society is formed by individuals who have similar mindsets and who are involved in persistent interpersonal relationships. As a result, the motivating drivers are similar in a society and hence a culture. The variance in factors that motivate individuals to work is because of the development that is taking place all over the world, followed by the changes in the mindset of the societies (Hoosain & Salili, 2007). The culture differences in motivation elements are because of a revolutionary change in the structure of the economy. This is because as countries move from food producing countries to offering various services. As the structure of the economies changed, this lead to a change in the desires that made people to work. The revolution across the world has deep down effects on the ideology of the people and as result the factors that drive them to perform a job changed as a result. In the developed parts of the world people are now motivated by the non monetary factors and are no longer motivated by just bonuses. This is because as they move towards the tertiary sector employment, their desires moves towards the intangible needs and wants (such as appreciation, satisfaction, co-worker relationship etc), being in line with the services (that too are intangible) provided by them. As the world turns into a global village and businesses expand across the shores, the need to understand the cultural differences that exist in motivating factors of people belonging to employees belonging to various cultures is ever increasing. Organizations need to understand these differences so that they can motivate employees pertaining to various backgrounds, in the right manner. This is because, what might motivate people to perform a job in one part of the world, might prove to be ineffective in another part of the world. Theories of motivation In order to better understand, how individuals were driven to perform their jobs in efficient and effective manner, many theorists have put forward their motivation theories. These theories have been categorized into two main types: process theories and content theories. Process theories of motivation are an explanation of motivation that focuses on how individuals are motivated. Process theories focus, essentially on the steps that occur when individuals are motivated. On the other hand, content theories tend to focus on the internal characteristics that people have. So these theories focal point is to understand the needs that people have and how these can be fulfilled and satisfied (Robert, 2003). As I belong to Romania, the driving factors that workers have, are different from what exist in other parts of the world. In Romania, people are friendly yet some might think that Romanians are a bit held. It takes a while to earn trust, but once gained, it opens many doors. Romanians are generally shy and quiet initially. Romanians like to direct business with individuals who are practical and dont gloat about their achievements or budgetary accomplishments. They highly esteem utilizing legitimate behaviors within all circumstances and anticipate that others will do the same. Process theory In order to understand the driving factors of motivation among Romanian employees, organizations need to understand the process theories put forward by the various theorists such as Victor Vroom, J.Stacy Adams, Porter and Lawler etc. I believe that the process theory of motivation that can be applied in Romania’s situation is Porter-Lawler Theory of motivation (Bhagat et al, 2012). This theory was put forward by Porter and Lawler and they argued that the individual’s performing and completing a task is based on the rewards that they expect to get in return. They categorized the rewards into its two basic types: Intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards are the positive feelings that individual’s experience when they complete a task e.g. satisfaction, sense of achievement. Whereas extrinsic rewards are the ones that are extraneous to the task such as bonus, commission and pay increases. The extent to which an individual effectively accomplishes a task depends on the individual perceptions of what is required from the job and their ability to perform that job. The reason why this theory is applicable to Romania’s scenario is due to the fact that Romanian’s tend to do jobs in organization which are employees friendly and which do not brag about the compensation paid. As mentioned earlier, Romanians are friendly people but they tend to be shy at first. If the organizations want to build a warm and positive relationship with their Romanian employees, then they need to be quite realistic and open to what they will be offering to their employees. This is because a good relationship is based on trust and mutual understanding. If employees feel that the management is actually working on what it beliefs and vowed to do, then they will open up and feel comfortable in the working environment. The communist past of Romania has created a culture in which the group is more important than the individual. Therefore, relationships are more important in business culture and therefore Romanians value positive co-workers relationship. Once adjusted in the working environment Romanians will as a token of their loyalty and compassion towards the organization. As humans, Romanians too work for money but they also have other interests that motivate them to work. They want to feel happy in what they do and as a result are more likely to want intrinsic rewards rather than extrinsic rewards. However, this does not mean that they work solely for intrinsic rewards. It is just that they are not money motivated people. Their down to earth nature reflects in the work that they do. In terms of their expectations, Romanians believe in some distant positive outcome, but they have learnt it the hard way not to expect anything for free and not to take anything for granted. So they expect to work hard for what they would like to achieve. Another important point to be made here is even if social and economic improvement is extremely visible in the last two decades; Romanians are still struggling with the perception of themselves as not being capable to do things well on their own and not seeing themselves as winners. So the organizations should focus, as part of implementing the Porter Lawler theory, on improving the self esteem level of its Romanian employees through recognition and continuous encouragement, so that they remain motivated to do the job effectively (Miner, 2005). Critism of Porter Lawler theory The organizations should regularly appraise the performance of the workers in order to ensure that they are on the right track and this can’t be deduced by the Porter-Lawler Theory. Content theory of motivation Content theories of motivation focus on the internal characteristics of individuals. This is done to understand what needs people have and what can be done to satisfy these needs. Popular content theories put forward include Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Aldefer’s ERG theory and Mc Clelland’s acquired needs Theory. The content theory which fits in the scenario of Romania, Aldefer’s ERG theory seems the most appropriate. This theory was put forward by Clayton Alderfer in response to the criticism of Maslow’s work. Unlike Maslow’s five staged hierarchy of needs, Alderfer identified that there were three basic categories of needs and these included the existence need, Relatedness need and growth need. The first letters of these needs form the acronym ERG, by which the theory is known. Existence need are the need for physical well being while relatedness need catered the need for satisfying the interpersonal relationships and growth need relate to the need for continuous personal growth and development. The reason that this theory is applicable in the case of Romania is quite clear. Unlike Maslow’s hierarchy, ERG theory has classified all the employee’s needs into three categories, in which an absolute direction is not a must (Aswathappa, 2005). People sometimes satisfy their higher level needs before they cater to their lower level needs. In ERG theory the order of needs is not as important, as it varies from individual. In addition, the ERG model admits that if a higher level need is not met then, individuals can move towards the lower level needs that appear to be easier to achieve. Once these lower level needs such as existence needs can be satisfied, the individual can then move back to fulfill his higher level needs. Also in Romania’s situation, these needs easily relate to the needs that exist in Romanians. Their need for interpersonal relationship and personal development is quite apparent, along with the obvious need for physical well beings. Firms can use this to their advantage. By helping workers to satisfy their needs, organization can achieve its own targets. By using simple yet effective strategies, companies can motivate their employees. If an employee is unable to fulfill his achievement needs, then the company can engage him in other activities that can actually help him to achieve his other needs, say the growth needs, which will help him to socialize with other co-workers (Wentland, 2009). This will help in creating a home-like and friendly working environment, which is of grave importance to Romanians. By using job enrichment strategies and encouraging co-working relationship and team work, they can not only motivate employees but use them to their advantage. If however, the company does not pay attention to grooming and helping the employee in achieving these needs, this can demotivate the employee and s/he may feel left out and at the hands of utter complexion, resulting in a bad experience. So in order to build a strong relationship with the employees the organization needs to understand the utter desires that people have, so that use them in that particular manner. The reason why I choose Aldefer’s theory is due to its covering of the short comings of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The management can use this theory to help people achieve their higher level needs such as recognition, appreciations and team work etc. By offering token of appreciation such as giving flowers o a bottle of liquor to employees for a good job done, can actually make the employee a loyal and trust worthy stakeholder. If management can recognize these conditions early, steps can be taken to satisfy the frustrated needs until the subordinate is able to pursue growth again (Berryman-Fink & Fink, 1996) Drawbacks of Alderfer’s theory However, Alderfer’s Theory of motivation is not without its share of critics’. Firstly, Alderfer’s ERG Theory is not easy to use, as it tends to approach a set of experiments that are so general. As the world develops in a way that no one perceived to be, there has been a change in the desires of individuals (Kreitner & Kinicki, 1989). The theory is vague enough that it no longer seems easy enough to to identify the differences in needs that different individuals possess or have developed through this course of development (Aswathappa, 2005). Secondly, the given situation makes it difficult to test with the tools and research methods available, the needs of individuals. It is difficult to assess on which stage the individual is and which stage(s) s/he has already accomplished. Thirdly, we are unable to associate a value for each motivator. Companies cannot always be sure, whether the strategies that they are applying will bear the results that they want to achieve (Koontz & Weihrich, 2007). They cannot guarantee or ensure the degree, to which a stage means to an individual. People are not always welcoming and open and considering the nature of Romanians, it would be rather misleading and unrealistic to think of it otherwise (Janakiraman & Sarukesi,  1999). Conclusion It is the management’s duty to recognize the needs of the employees so that correct strategies can be adopted, to ensure that employees are motivated (Baldwin et al, 1999). If the organization remains negligent of these, then the probability of inefficiency and ineffectiveness, coupled with low morale will be unavoidable. Not only identifying the most appropriate theory of motivation but devising an action plan to put it into effect is of grave importance. Or else, the theory will remain just a theory and not bring any good for the organization. Considering the increasing competition among firms and innovation blasts, companies can use their employees as the secret to an edge over its competitors. A good,co-operative, motivated workforce can prove to be the most precious asset that the company has (Lincoln & Kalleberg, 1985). If the managers are smart enough, they will certainly try their level best to turn them into their most treasured asset. 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