CHAPTER SUMMARY
LO 5-1
Define motivation and explain how drives and emotions influence employee motivation.
Motivation is defined as the forces within a person that affect the direction, intensity, and
persistence of effort for voluntary behavior. Drives (also called primary needs) are hardwired
characteristics of the brain that attempt to keep us in balance by correcting deficiencies. Drives
do this by generating emotions, which put us in a state of readiness to act. Needs are the
motivational forces of emotions channeled toward specific goals and associated behaviors.
Individual differences-including self-concept, social norms, and past experience-influence which
goals and behaviors are chosen to direct the motivated effort. Individual differences also affect
the intensity of experienced emotions.
LO 5-2 Explain through four-drive theory the process of human motivation, and summarize
Maslow's needs hierarchy, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and learned needs theory.
Four-drive theory states that emotions are the source of human motivation and that these
emotions are generated through four drives: to acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend. These
drives produce emotions, which become conscious needs. The employee's personal
characteristics and experiences (mental skill set) direct emotional energy to goals perceived to
have a high probability of achieving the goal of fulfilling those felt needs. Four-drive theory's
two recommendations are that organizations should help employees fulfill all four drives and
that fulfillment of the four drives must be kept in balance. Maslow's needs hierarchy groups
needs into a hierarchy of five levels and states that the lowest needs are initially most important
but higher needs become more important as the lower ones are satisfied. Although popular,
needs hierarchy theory lacks research support, mainly because it wrongly assumes that
everyone has the same hierarchy. The emerging evidence suggests that needs hierarchies vary
from one person to the next, according to their personal values. However, Maslow transformed
how we think about human motivation by emphasizing that theory needs to be holistic,
humanistic, and positive-oriented. Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation controlled by the
individual and experienced from the activity itself, whereas extrinsic motivation occurs when
people are motivated to receive something that is beyond their personal control for
instrumental reasons. Intrinsic motivation is anchored in the innate drives for competence and
autonomy. Some research suggests that extrinsic motivators may reduce existing intrinsic
motivation to some extent and under some conditions, but the effect is often minimal.
McClelland's learned needs theory argues that needs can be strengthened through learning.
The three needs studied in this respect have been need for achievement, need for power, and
need for affiliation.
LO 5-3 Outline the expectancy theory model, and prescribe how to improve employee
motivation through the elements of this model.
Expectancy theory states that work effort is determined by the perception that effort will result
in a particular level of performance (E-to-P expectancy), the perception that a specific behavior
or performance level will lead to specific outcomes (P-to-O expectancy), and the valences that
the person feels for those outcomes. The E-to-P expectancy increases by improving the
employee's ability and confidence to perform the job. The P-to-O expectancy increases by
measuring performance accurately, distributing higher rewards to better performers, and
showing employees that rewards are performance-based. Outcome
LO 5-4 Describe organizational behavior modification (OB Mod) and social cognitive theory, and
explain their relevance to employee motivation.
extinction. The schedules of reinforcement also influence behavior.
valences increase by finding out what employees want and using these resources as rewards.
Organizational behavior modification takes the behaviorist view that the environment teaches
people to alter their behavior so that they maximize positive consequences and minimize
adverse consequences. Antecedents are environmental stimuli that provoke (not necessarily
cause) behavior. Consequences are events following behavior that influence its future
occurrence. Consequences include positive reinforcement, punishment, negative reinforcement,
and
Social cognitive theory states that much learning and motivation occurs by observing and
modeling others, as well as by anticipating the consequences of our behavior. It suggests that
people typically infer (rather than only directly experience) cause-and-effect relationships,
anticipate the consequences of their actions, develop self-efficacy in performing behavior,
exercise personal control over their behavior, and reflect on their direct experiences. The theory
emphasizes self-regulation of individual behavior, including self-reinforcement, which is the
tendency of people to reward and punish themselves as a consequence of their actions.
LO
5-4 Describe organizational behavior modification (OB Mod) and social cognitive theory, and
explain their relevance to employee motivation.
Organizational behavior modification takes the behaviorist view that the environment teaches
people to alter their behavior so that they maximize positive consequences and minimize
adverse consequences. Antecedents are environmental stimuli that provoke (not necessarily
cause) behavior. Consequences are events following behavior that influence its future
occurrence. Consequences include positive reinforcement, punishment, negative reinforcement,
and extinction. The schedules of reinforcement also influence behavior.
Social cognitive theory states that much learning and motivation occurs by observing and
modeling others, as well as by anticipating the consequences of our behavior. It suggests that
people typically infer (rather than only directly experience) cause-and-effect relationships,
anticipate the consequences of their actions, develop self-efficacy in performing behavior,
exercise personal control over their behavior, and reflect on their direct experiences. The theory
emphasizes self-regulation of individual behavior, including self-reinforcement, which is the
tendency of people to reward and punish themselves as a consequence of their actions.
LO 5-5 Discuss the characteristics of effective goal setting and feedback.
Goal setting is the process of motivating employees and clarifying their role perceptions by
establishing performance objectives. Goals are more effective when they are SMARTER (specific,
measurable, achievable, relevant, time-framed, exciting, and reviewed). Effective feedback is
specific, relevant, timely, credible, and sufficiently frequent. Strengths-based coaching
maximizes employees' potential by focusing on their strengths rather than weaknesses.
Strengths-based coaching tends to be effective because people are more receptive to
information about their strengths rather than flaws, and because a person's motivation and
ability becomes more stable over time. Employees usually prefer nonsocial feedback sources to
learn about their progress toward goal accomplishment.
LO 5-6 Explain how equity theory, procedural justice, and interactional justice influence
employee motivation.
Organizational justice exists in several forms, the main three of which are distributive,
procedural, and interactional. Distributive justice refers to the perception that appropriate
decision criteria (rules) have been applied to calculate how various benefits and burdens are
distributed. These rules relate to equality, need, of equity. Equity theory has four elements:
outcome/input ratio, comparison other, equity evaluation, and consequences of inequity. The
theory also explains what people are motivated to do when they feel inequitably treated.
Procedural justice is the perception that appropriate procedural rules have been applied
throughout the decision process. These rules include that the decision maker is unbiased,
considers the full complement of accurate information, considers the interests of all groups
affected, applies ethical principles, applies decision criteria and procedural rules consistently,
allows employees to present their views, and allows appeal of decisions. Interactional justice is
the perception that appropriate rules have been applied in the way employees are treated
throughout the decision process. These rules include that employees are treated with respect
and politeness, that employees receive explanations that are thorough and logical, and receive
honest and timely information about the decision. Lack of procedural and interactional justice
results in negative emotions (ranging from anger to shame) as well as a variety of behaviors that
harm the organization
(such as lower performance and higher incidence of turnover, aggression, and theft).
LO 5-7 List the advantages and disadvantages of job specialization and explain how to improve
employee motivation through job design.
Job specialization subdivides work into separate jobs for different people. This increases work
efficiency by requiring fewer skills and less knowledge to learn (jobs are mastered more
quickly), enabling more frequent practice (shorter cycle time), having less attention residue
from changing tasks, and enabling easier person-job matching. However, job specialization may
reduce work motivation, create mental health problems (tedious, socially isolating, and
cognitively dysfunctional work), and increase costs through discontentment, absenteeism, and
turnover. Job specialization can improve output quality because jobs are mastered more quickly.
But job specialization can also reduce work quality because of decreasing attentiveness and
motivation, and because of lower awareness
of the overall product or service.
The job characteristics model is a template for job redesign that specifies core job dimensions,
psychological states, and individual differences. The five core job dimensions are skill variety,
task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job feedback. Two other sets of job
characteristics are social characteristics (social interaction requirements and social feedback)
and the information processing demands of task variability (predictability of work activities) and
task analyzability (degree of work procedure clarity). Contemporary job design strategies try to
motivate employees through job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment. Organizations
introduce job rotation to reduce the incidence of repetitive strain injuries, increase employee
multiskilling, improve quality through knowledge of the overall work process, and improve
motivation and satisfaction. Job enlargement involves increasing the number of tasks within the
job. Two ways to enrich jobs are clustering tasks into natural groups and establishing client
relationships.