Custom essays: Motivation case study

Motivation is the process of influencing on person to induce him to action by encouraging certain motifs in him. Depending on the goals the motivation we can distinguish two types of motivation: external and internal. (Latham 2006)
1. External motivation is a kind of process of administrative action or control: the Head directs the work of the employee who performs it. In this type of motivating the employer must know what motives may motivate a particular employee to make him perform quality work on time. This can be either payment and premium, or praise, or some form of moral encouragement.
2. Internal motivation is more complex and involves formation of a particular motivational structure in person. In this case, the head or manager should find a psychological way to gain desirable qualities of a worker and reducing the negative factors, such as reducing the monotony of work, etc. The second type of motivation requires much more effort, knowledge and abilities from the manager.
One of the major tasks of management is to determine the motives of each employee and to coordinate the motifs with the objectives of the enterprise.

Theories of motivation
Managers were always aware of the need to encourage people to work for the organization, and believed that financial reward is not enough. Modern theories of motivation of staff and their use in practice proves that is not always tangible incentives that encourage people to work harder.
The process of motivation is very complex and ambiguous and there are many different theories of motivation, trying to explain this phenomenon. All of them are trying to find the answer to the question of how to make people to work effectively.
Most of theories of motivation are based on identification of those inner impulses (called demand) that make people act the way they do. These theories are based on the works of Abraham Maslow, David McClelland and Frederick Gerzberg. The more modern theories of motivation are based primarily on how people behave in accordance with their perception and cognition. It is important to understand that although these theories disagree on some issues, they are not mutually exclusive. Development of theories of motivation was clearly evolutionary, but not revolutionary and all of them are used effectively in solving daily problems of encouraging people to work effectively. (Beck 2003)
The theory of hierarchy of needs of A. Maslow. According to his theory different needs form groups that are presented in a hierarchical relation to each other. Maslow identified five such groups and placed them in the form of a pyramid: this form is explained by the fact that the needs of lower levels must be met at first , and so they affect human behavior before then needs of the higher levels of motivation. At any given time a person will strive to meet the need which for him is more important or strong. Before the need of the next level will become powerful determinant of human behavior, the needs of lower level must be satisfied.
At the lowest level there are basic physiological needs. The highest are the need for self-expression and personal growth – they can never be satisfied in full, so the process of human motivation through these needs is endless.
The task of every manager is to carefully monitor his subordinates to find out what active demands drive each of them, and make decisions on their motivation to improve the efficiency of employees.
The theory needs of David McClelland. This model of motivation focuses on the needs of the higher levels, that are based on three main factors: the desire to succeed, the desire for power and recognition.
If such theory success is considered not as praise or recognition from colleagues, but as a personal achievement, as a result of active work and willingness to participate, making difficult decisions and taking personal responsibility for them. Striving for power should not only show personal ambitions, but also a person’s ability to successfully work at various levels of management, and the desire for recognition must show his ability to be the leader, to have own opinion and be able to convince others.
Another concept is two-factor model of F. Herzberg. The author showed that human behavior is influenced not only by satisfaction, but also with dissatisfaction of needs. On the basis of their model, Herzberg proposed two kind of “scales” one showed changes in the state of satisfaction (from complete satisfaction to the lack of satisfaction), but on the other – from dissatisfaction to no dissatisfaction. The needs Herzberg divided into two groups: motivational (for recognition, success and creative growth, promotion, etc.) and “hygiene”, that are relating to working conditions (wages, the state of the internal environment, etc.).
Herzberg has shown that the ability to meet the needs of motivational factors increases the efficiency of labor. But dissatisfaction with the hygiene factors cause in people considerable frustration and dramatically reduces the incentive to be active. Thus, hygiene factors do not motivate employees, but only prevent the sense of dissatisfaction with their work and its conditions. This led Herzberg to the unexpected at first glance conclusion: with the help of wages it is impossible to stimulate work, but to motivate people it is necessary to include more motivational factors. (McInerney 2000)

Expectancy theory. The last theory to consider is the Victor Vroom theory based on the position that the presence of active need is not only necessary condition for the personal motivation to achieve a certain goal. Man must also hope that the selected type of behavior will actually lead to the satisfaction or purchase desired.
Theory of expectations determines that the conduct of employees is determined by the behavior:
• manager who, under certain conditions, stimulates the employee;
• an employee who believes that under certain conditions, he will receive remuneration;
• employee and manager, admitting that for a certain improvement in the quality of work employee will receive certain compensation;
• an employee, who gets a premium that he wants to meet certain needs.
This means that this theory emphasizes the need to improving the quality of work and confidence that it will be noted by the head and will help to really satisfy some need.
Based on the expectations theory, we can conclude that the employee should have the needs that may be largely met by the anticipated rewards. A leader must give such incentives, which can meet the anticipated needs of the employee. For example, in a number of commercial structures reward is made in the form of certain goods, knowing that the employee needs them.



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