Application of motivation concepts in a modern organization

 

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN 

INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF BUSINESS

 

“Management and Marketing” Chair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C O U R S E P A P E R

 

for the “Personnel Management” course

 

on the topic:

 

«APPLICATION OF MOTIVATION CONCEPTS IN A MODERN ORGANIZATION»

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepared by:

4^th year student

Full time, group МN - 0901

Sankova K.A.

 

Checked by:

Senior Lecturer,

Lipovka A.V.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almaty

2012

CONTENTS

 

Pages

 

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………….3

 

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF MOTIVATION IN AN ORGANIZATION

 

1. Content theories of motivation……………………………………………….....4
2. Process theories of motivation………………………………………...……….7
3. Motivation aspects in modern organization ……………………………..…...10

 

CHAPTER 2. ANALYSIS OF MOTIVATION CONCEPTS APPLICATION IN “ADIDAS GROUP” LTD

 

2.1 Analysis of business activities in “adidas Group”…………………….………12

2.2 Assessment of motivational concepts application in “adidas Group” Ltd. Kazakhstan ……………………………………………………………………….16

 

CHAPTER 3. DEVELOPMENT OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATIONAL PROGRAM FOR “ADIDAS GROUP” KAZAKHSTAN

 

3.1 Design of the employee motivational program……………………………….21

3.2 Implementation of employee motivational program………………………….24

 

CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………….……..29

 

LIST OF REFERENCES………………………………………………...……….30

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

Employee motivation has always been a central problem for leaders and managers of any organization. Unmotivated employees are likely to spend little or no effort in their jobs, avoid the workplace as much as possible, exit the organization if given the opportunity and produce low quality work. On the other hand, employees who feel motivated to work are likely to be persistent, creative and productive, turning out high quality work that they willingly undertake.  

The reality is that every employee has different ways to become motivated. Employers need to get to know their employees very well and use different tactics to motivate each of them based on their personal wants and needs. Salary or monetary compensation is no longer serving as a motivator but just enough to satisfy some of employees’ needs. In fact, the general norm today is that no organization can pay the worth of a worker and there must be other means devise to keep the best brains from looking outside or putting forth application letters while on the job.

All this confirms the relevance of the theme of motivation in the world today and in the activities of any company.

Motivation comes from within us such as thoughts, beliefs, ambitions, and goals. The people who are most interested in motivation studies are managers of people because they may provide insights into why people perform at work as they do, and as a result provide managers with techniques to improve worker productivity. 

The main objective of this course paper is to improve motivation program of the company. Goals of the work are to investigate employee motivation tools and methods in modern organization basing on content theories of motivation and provide possible solutions to problems occurred.

The object of the research is represented by “adidas Group” Kazakhstan Ltd. and particularly of Human Resource Department of the company.

The subject of the research is employees of the organization.

The first chapter of the work highlights theoretical aspects of motivation in organization. Such aspects as content, process, and modern theories of motivation are considered.

The second chapter is focused on analysis of motivation concepts application by the example of “adidas Group” Kazakhstan Ltd. The analysis performed on the basis of Maslow hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s two-factor theory, and Alderfer’s ERG theory of motivation. All necessary information about functioning of company’s HR Department also included in the second chapter.

The third chapter of the course work reveals the proposal of development incentive program of motivation for “adidas Group” Kazakhstan by improving the old one, basing on various theories of motivation. Another issue considered in the chapter is the ways, methods and tactics that should be used in order to guarantee successful implementation of new motivational program in the company.

CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF MOTIVATION IN AN ORGANIZATION

 

1.  Content theories of motivation

 

Motivation can be defined in a number of ways. It is a word used to refer to the reason or reasons for engaging in a particular behavior - especially human behavior that involves hard work and effort. Such as a need, a drive, a state of being, a desire to achieve a goal or an ideal. 

The term motivation is derived from the Latin word “movere”, meaning "to move." Motivation can be broadly defined as the forces acting on or within a person that cause the arousal, direction, and persistence of goal-directed, voluntary effort. Motivation theory is thus concerned with the processes that explain why and how human behavior is activated.

According to Motivation and Leadership at Work /1, p.35/, in the early twentieth century researchers began to examine other possible explanations for differences in individual motivation. Some researchers focused on internal drives as an explanation for motivated behavior. Others studied the effect of learning and how individuals base current behavior on the consequences of past behavior. Still others examined the influence of individuals' cognitive processes, such as the beliefs they have about future events. Over time, these major theoretical streams of research in motivation were classified into two major schools: the content theories of motivation and the process theories of motivation.

Content (or need) theories of motivation focus on factors internal to the individual that energize and direct behavior. In general, such theories regard motivation as the product of internal drives that compel an individual to act or move (hence, "motivate") toward the satisfaction of individual needs. The content theories of motivation are based in large part on early theories of motivation that traced the paths of action backward to their perceived origin in internal drives. Major content theories of motivation are Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Alderfer's ERG theory, Herzberg's motivator-hygiene theory, and McClelland's learned needs or three-need theory.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Abraham Maslow developed the hierarchy of needs, which suggests that “individual needs exist in a hierarchy consisting of physiological needs, security needs, belongingness needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs” /2, p.25/. All types of needs are represented in Figure 1. Physiological needs are the most basic needs for food, water, and other factors necessary for survival. Security needs include needs for safety in one's physical environment, stability, and freedom from emotional distress. Belongingness needs relate to desires for friendship, love, and acceptance within a given community of individuals. Esteem needs are those associated with obtaining the respect of one's self and others. Finally, self-actualization needs are those corresponding to the achievement one's own potential, the exercising and testing of one's creative capacities, and, in general, to becoming the best person one can possibly be. Unsatisfied needs motivate behavior; thus, lower-level needs such as the physiological and security needs must be met before upper-level needs such as belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization can be motivational.

 

Figure 1. Maslow’s Hierarchy  of Needs

 

Applications of the hierarchy of needs to management and the workplace are obvious. According to the implications of the hierarchy, individuals must have their lower level needs met by, for example, safe working conditions, adequate pay to take care of one's self and one's family, and job security before they will be motivated by increased job responsibilities, status, and challenging work assignments. Despite the ease of application of this theory to a work setting, this theory has received little research support and therefore is not very useful in practice.

Alderfer’s ERG theory

The ERG theory is an extension of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Alderfer suggested that needs could be classified into three categories, rather than five. These three types of needs are existence, relatedness, and growth. Existence needs are similar to Maslow's physiological and safety need categories. Relatedness needs involve interpersonal relationships and are comparable to aspects of Maslow's belongingness and esteem needs. Growth needs are those related to the attainment of one's potential and are associated with Maslow's esteem and self-actualization needs.

The ERG theory differs from the hierarchy of needs in that it does not suggest that lower-level needs must be completely satisfied before upper-level needs become motivational. ERG theory also suggests that if an “individual is continually unable to meet upper-level needs that the person will regress and lower-level needs become the major determinants of their motivation” /3, p.51/. ERG theory's implications for managers are similar to those for the needs hierarchy: managers should focus on meeting employees' existence, relatedness, and growth needs, though without necessarily applying the proviso that, say, job-safety concerns necessarily take precedence over challenging and fulfilling job requirements.

Motivator-hygiene theory

Frederick Herzberg developed the motivator-hygiene theory. This theory is closely related to Maslow's hierarchy of needs but relates more specifically to how individuals are motivated in the workplace. Based on his research, Herzberg argued that meeting the lower-level needs (hygiene factors) of individuals would not motivate them to exert effort, but would only prevent them from being dissatisfied /4, p.48/. Only if higher-level needs (motivators) were met would individuals be motivated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. Dependence of hygiene factors from motivation factors.

 

The implication for managers of the motivator-hygiene theory is that meeting employees lower-level needs by improving pay, benefits, safety, and other job-contextual factors will prevent employees from becoming actively dissatisfied but will not motivate them to exert additional effort toward better performance. To motivate workers, according to the theory, managers must focus on changing the intrinsic nature and content of jobs themselves by "enriching" them to increase employees' autonomy and their opportunities to take on additional responsibility, gain recognition, and develop their skills and careers.

McClelland's learned needs theory

McClelland's theory suggests that “individuals learn needs from their culture” /5, p.19/. Three of the primary needs in this theory are the need for affiliation, the need for power, and the need for achievement. The need for affiliation is a desire to establish social relationships with others. The need for power reflects a desire to control one's environment and influence others. The need for achievement is a desire to take responsibility, set challenging goals, and obtain performance feedback. The main point of the learned needs theory is that when one of these needs is strong in a person, it has the potential to motivate behavior that leads to its satisfaction. Thus, managers should attempt to develop an understanding of whether and to what degree their employees have one or more of these needs, and the extent to which their jobs can be structured to satisfy them.

 

1.2 Process theories of motivation

 

Process (or cognitive) theories of motivation focus on conscious human decision processes as an explanation of motivation. The process theories are concerned with determining how individual behavior is energized, directed, and maintained in the specifically willed and self-directed human cognitive processes. Process theories of motivation are based on early cognitive theories, which posit that behavior is the result of conscious decision-making processes. The major process theories of motivation are expectancy theory, equity theory, goal-setting theory, and reinforcement theory.

Expectancy theory

In the early 1960s, Victor Vroom applied concepts of behavioral research conducted in the 1930s by Kurt Lewin and Edward Tolman directly to work motivation. Basically, Vroom suggested that individuals choose work behaviors that they believe lead to outcomes they value /6, p.33/. In deciding how much effort to put into a work behavior, individuals are likely to consider:

• Their expectancy, meaning the degree to which they believe that putting forth effort will lead to a given level of performance.
• Their instrumentality or the degree to which they believe that a given level of performance will result in certain outcomes or rewards.
• Their valence, which is the extent to which the expected outcomes are attractive or unattractive.

All three of these factors are expected to influence motivation in a multiplicative fashion, so that for an individual to be highly motivated, all three of the components of the expectancy model must be high. And, if even one of these is zero (e.g., instrumentality and valence are high, but expectancy is completely absent), the person will have not motivation for the task. Thus, managers should attempt, to the extent possible, to ensure that their employees believe that increased effort will improve performance and that performance will lead to valued rewards.

In the late 1960s, Porter and Lawler published an extension of the Vroom expectancy model, which is known as the Porter-Lawler expectancy model or simply the Porter-Lawler model /7, p.93/. Although the basic premise of the Porter-Lawler model is the same as for Vroom's model, the Porter-Lawler model is more complex in a number of ways. It suggests that increased effort does not automatically lead to improved performance because individuals may not possess the necessary abilities needed to achieve high levels of performance, or because they may have an inadequate or vague perception of how to perform necessary tasks. Without an understanding of how to direct effort effectively, individuals may exert considerable effort without a corresponding increase in performance.

Equity theory

Equity theory suggests that individuals engage in social comparison by comparing their efforts and rewards with those of relevant others. The perception of individuals about the fairness of their rewards relative to others influences their level of motivation. Equity exists when individuals perceive that the ratio of efforts to rewards is the same for them as it is for others to whom they compare themselves. Inequity exists when individuals perceive that the ratio of efforts to rewards is different (usually negatively so) for them than it is for others to whom they compare themselves. There are two types of inequity under-reward and over-reward. Under-reward occurs when a person believes that she is either puts in more efforts than another, yet receives the same reward, or puts in the same effort as another for a lesser reward. For instance, if an employee works longer hours than her coworker, yet they receive the same salary, the employee would perceive inequity in the form of under-reward. Conversely, with over-reward, a person will feel that his efforts to rewards ratio is higher than another person's, such that he is getting more for putting in the same effort, or getting the same reward even with less effort. While research suggests that under-reward motivates individuals to resolve the inequity, research also indicates that the same is not true for over-reward. Individuals who are over-rewarded often engage in cognitive dissonance, convincing themselves that their efforts and rewards are equal to another's /8, p.167/.

 

Inequity (underrewarded)       Equity     Inequity (overrewarded)

 

Figure 3. Equity Theory equations of underreward inequity, equity and overreward inequity.

According to the equity theory, individuals are motivated to reduce perceived inequity. Individuals may attempt to reduce inequity in various ways. A person may change his or her level of effort; an employee who feels under-rewarded is likely to work less hard. A person may also try to change his or her rewards, such as by asking for a raise. Another option is to change the behavior of the reference person, perhaps by encouraging that person to put forth more effort. Finally, a person experiencing inequity may change the reference person and compare him or herself to a different person to assess equity. For managers, equity theory emphasizes the importance of a reward system that is perceived as fair by employees.

Goal-setting theory

The goal-setting theory posits that goals are the most important factors affecting the motivation and behavior of employees. This motivation theory was developed primarily by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham. Goal-setting theory emphasizes the importance of specific and challenging goals in achieving motivated behavior. Specific goals often involve quantitative targets for improvement in a behavior of interest. Research indicates that specific performance goals are much more effective than those in which a person is told to "do your best." Challenging goals are difficult but not impossible to attain. Empirical research supports the proposition that goals that are both specific and challenging are more motivational than vague goals or goals that are relatively easy to achieve /9, p.113/.

Several factors may moderate the relationship between specific and challenging goals and high levels of motivation. The first of these factors is goal commitment, which simply means that the more dedicated the individual is to achieving the goal, the more they will be motivated to exert effort toward goal accomplishment. Some research suggests that having employees participate in goal setting will increase their level of goal commitment. A second factor relevant to goal-setting theory is self-efficacy, which is the individual's belief that he or she can successfully complete a particular task. If individuals have a high degree of self-efficacy, they are likely to respond more positively to specific and challenging goals than if they have a low degree of self-efficacy.

Reinforcement theory

This theory can be traced to the work of the pioneering behaviorist B.F. Skinner. It is considered a motivation theory as well as a learning theory. Reinforcement theory posits that motivated behavior occurs as a result of reinforcers, which are outcomes resulting from the behavior that makes it more likely the behavior will occur again. This theory suggests that it is not necessary to study needs or cognitive processes to understand motivation, but that it is only necessary to examine the consequences of behavior. Behavior that is reinforced is likely to continue, but behavior that is not rewarded or behavior that is punished is not likely to be repeated. Reinforcement theory suggests to managers that they can improve employees' performance by a process of behavior modification in which they reinforce desired behaviors and punish undesired behaviors / 8, p.192/.

1.3 Motivation aspects in modern organizations

 

Motivation in a modern organization considered to have a wide range of meaning and embrace huge amount of aspects. However, one that can unite all of them is dependence of customer satisfaction from employee motivation. In the modern world, the service sector is developing everywhere and in incredibly awesome pace. This situation requires a special approach by employers to their subordinate 

According to Harvard professors Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria, people are driven by the need to acquire, bond, comprehend and defend. In the workplace, employees are driven to acquire things that boost their self-image, which may include pay, status and reputation. The drive to is the desire to feel they belong to the organization and have connections with their co-workers and department. The drive to comprehend is about making sense of the workplace and how their work affects the organization and its customers. They also want jobs that challenge them and give them opportunities to develop new skills. The drive to defend is more commonly known as resistance to change. Employees want to hang onto the processes and tools with which they are most familiar /10, p. 113/.

Motivational techniques that meet workers' drive to acquire are most effective when rewards are linked to performance. It proposed that rewards may not necessarily be bonuses or raises. The most effective ones were considered such as recognition of superior performance; announcement of individual and team achievements in staff meetings; providing high-performing employees with opportunities to learn new skills or mentor new workers, and have a "hire from within" policy.