2 Managing to Motivate

Understanding morale, job satisfaction and motivation

Job satisfaction, morale and motivation are not simple and straight-
forward to understand. They have been the foci of study from around
the 1930s and much research into what they are, as concepts, as well
as what influences them was carried out in the middle decades of the
twentieth century. Research evidence, which has been the basis of
management theory, challenges and contradicts the kind of com-
monsense reasoning and assumptions that attribute morale and
satisfaction levels to factors such as pay and professional status.
Below, I examine what research and scholarship in this field have
revealed about these three attitudes - which is how, in occupational
psychology terminology, they are known.

The concepts
Job satisfaction, morale and motivation are not obscure terms. They
are frequently used in contexts that involve consideration of people
at work. They are part of everyday, work-related vocabulary. Employ-
ers use the terms when discussing their workforces; managers use
them when discussing their staff; news reporters use them when
reporting announcements of pay freezes, pay rises, strikes and indus-
trial disputes; the general public uses them when discussing such
reports. Everybody seems to know what they mean. They do not
appear to be ambiguous. There does not appear to be anything
complex about them. But how many people could actually explain
precisely what morale is, or what job satisfaction is, or what the
difference between the two is?
There is, of course, no real need for most people to be able to define
these job-related attitudes, nor to develop anything more than an
understanding of them that is perfectly adequate for day-to-day use.
For those who have made them the focus of serious academic study,
though, morale, job satisfaction and motivation have been analysed as
concepts, examined, discussed and defined. This has been invaluable
in understanding these attitudes and what influences them, and those
who wish to foster high morale, job satisfaction and motivation
amongst staff will find the insight afforded by a greater understanding
of the concepts helpful.

Morale
Morale is the concept that, of the three, seems to have been the most
difficult to get to grips with. Within the research and academic commu-
nity in particular, those who take conceptual analysis and definition
seriously accept that morale is a very nebulous, ill-defined concept,
 Understanding morale, job satisfaction and motivation 3

whose meaning is generally inadequately explored. The concept was

being examined at least as early as the 1950s, mainly in the USA.
Guion (1958) refers to the 'definitional limb' on which writers about
morale find themselves and indeed, as Smith (1976) points out, some
writers avoid using the term in order to eliminate the problems of
defining it. Williams and Lane (1975), employing a chameleon
analogy, emphasize the elusiveness of the concept. Redefer (1959, p.
59) describes it as a 'complex and complicated area of investigation'
and one which lacks a succinct definition, while Williams (1986, p. 2)
writes that 'the attempts at defining and measuring morale in the
literature seem like a quagmire', and, 40 years ago, Baehr and Renck
(1959, p. 188) observed that 'literature on morale yields definitions
which are as varied as they are numerous'.
One source of disagreement has been whether morale may be
applied to individuals, or whether it relates only to groups. Many
writers focus exclusively on group morale and employ definitions
incorporating phrases such as 'shared purpose' (Smith, 1976),
'group goals' and 'feelings of togetherness' (Guba, 1958):
Morale can be defined as a prevailing temper or spirit in the individuals
forming a group. (Bohrer and Ebenrett, in Smith, c. 1988).

... a confident, resolute, willing, often self-sacrificing and courageous

attitude of an individual to the function or tasks demanded or expected of
him by a group of which he is part... (McLaine, in Smith, c. 1988)
My own work in this field (see, for example, Evans, 1992; 1997a;
1998) has led me to interpret morale as primarily an attribute of the
individual, which is determined in relation to individual goals. Indi-
vidual goals may be explicit as, for example, a clear set of ambitions,
but in many cases they are implicit in individuals' reactions to
situations which arise and responses to choices offered. Group
morale certainly exists, I believe, but it is merely the collectivization
of the morale of the individuals who form the group. Guion (1958)
appreciates the significance of individuals' goals in determining
morale. His definition of morale, also adopted by Coughlan, is close
to my own interpretation of the concept: 'Morale is the extent to
which an individual's needs are satisfied and the extent to which the
individual perceives that satisfaction as stemming from his total job
situation' (Coughlan, 1970, pp. 221-2).
Yet this definition falls short, I feel, in that it fails to distinguish
between morale and job satisfaction. Although they are often, in
everyday parlance, used interchangeably, morale and job satisfaction
are not the same thing. My interpretation of the distinction between
them is that job satisfaction is present-oriented and morale is future-
oriented. Both are states of mind, but I perceive satisfaction to be a