INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOR

Group 1

Nguyễn Thị Minh Ánh – IELSIU18180

Nguyễn Thành Long – IELSIU18073

Hà Xuân Trường – IELSIU18164 (Leader)

CHAPTER 7: MOTIVATION CONCEPTS

Lecturer: Mr. Mai Ngoc Khuong

Class: Saturday Afternoon

Semester 2 2020 – 2021

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This chapter provides us with insights about Early Theories of Motivation and their application. Besides
understanding clearly about the popular theories, we also know how to apply the useful knowledge to practical
examples and maybe in future careers.

Definition of motivation is the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence
of effort toward attaining a goal - narrowed down to organizational goals.
Intensity describes how hard a person tries. The effort is channeled in a direction that benefits the
organization, or we consider the quality of effort as well as its intensity. Effort directed toward, and consistent
with, the organization’s goals is the desired effort. Motivation also has a persistence dimension. This measures
how long a person can maintain effort.

The Hierarchy of needs: Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of five needs—physiological, safety, social, esteem,
and self-actualization—in which, as each need is substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant.So
if you want to motivate someone, you need to understand what level of the hierarchy that person is currently on
and focus on satisfying needs at or above that level.

The Two-factor theory so-called motivation-hygiene theory: a theory that relates intrinsic factors to job
satisfaction and extrinsic factors to dissatisfaction. The hygiene factors that when sufficient in a job, would
placate their workers but not satisfy them - such as company policy and administration, supervision, and salary.
According to Herzberg: the opposite of “satisfaction” is “no satisfaction,” and the opposite of “dissatisfaction”
is “no dissatisfaction”.  To motivate people on their jobs is to emphasize factors associated with the work itself
or with outcomes directly derived from it.

McClelland's theory of needs: A theory that states achievement, power, and affiliation are three important
needs that help explain motivation. Need for achievement (nAch) - the most focused: is the drive to achieve
in relationship to a set of standards. Need for power (nPow) is the need to make others behave in a way they
would not have otherwise. Need for affiliation (nAff) is the desire for close interpersonal relationships. High
achievers perform best when they take their success as 50–50 chances. Predictions arederived for relationships
between nAch and job performance. First, jobs have a high degree of personal responsibility, feedback, and an
intermediate degree of risk, high achievers are strongly motivated. Second, a high nAch does not necessarily
make someone a good manager, as people with a high nAch are interested in how well they do personally.
Third, nAff and nPow tend to be closely related to managerial success. Considering a high achievement need
as an internal cause indicates two cultural characteristics—willingness to accept a moderate degree of risk (not
applied for countries with strong uncertainty-avoidance characteristics), and concern with performance
(applied for countries with strong achievement characteristics). Afterall, the three needs are helpful but
difficult to measure, and are not often used objectively.

According to the study, in general, there are six contemporary theories of motivation which supported
managers to explain or deeper understanding motivation behaviour in workplace: 
 Self-determination theory: the theory states that people prefer to have control over their actions to be
required in doing something. In other words, in the workplace, the presence of extrinsic rewards may
decrease the intrinsic rewards, and managers need to make use of goal setting and verbal rewards to
increase motivation effectively.  
 Goal-setting theory: which is developed by Edwin Locke reveals the importance of specific and
effectively difficult goals by suggesting that self-generated feedback. As a result, people increase
persistence and force people to perform more effectively and efficiently. Three personal factors
influence the goals–performance relationship: goal commitment (the more public, the more better), task
characteristics (simple, well-learned), and national culture.

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  Self-efficacy theory: is the social cognitive which believes that yourself can do it., or have an ability to
handle tasks. The higher self-efficacy, the more confident you are, the greater persistence in the face
of difficulties, and responding to negative feedback with working harder, not shutting down. It is
significant to aware your capacity and well perform any task. So, it is some several ways to enhance:
enactive mastery, vicarious modeling, verbal persuasion, arousal
 Reinforcement theory: is based on the goal-setting theory; however, it focuses on behaviors instead of
cognitive factors. This theory believes that reinforcement conditions behavior and by reinforcing
certain behaviors we can increase the types of behaviors that impact organizational effectiveness in a
positive way.  Moreover, it also is based on the idea that behavior is environmentally caused.  Behavior
is believed to be based on the consequences and not on thoughts, feelings, or attitudes. There is a
process to define their impact on an individual: attention process, retention process, motor reproduction
process, reinforcement process.
 Equity theory: supposes that employees compare the ratio between what they get from their job (called
as Output) and what they put into the job, to others who are relevant to them. When they see the ratios
as equal, there is a perceived state of equity and no tension arises.  However, when they perceive the
ratios to be unequal, they may experience anger or guilt, depending on the result of the equity analysis,
and then tension can arise.  This tension can motivate people to act in a way to bring the situation into a
more equitable state. Some options which they consider to act: change inputs, change outcomes, distort
perceptions of self, distort perceptions of others, choose different referent, leave the field.
 Expectancy theory: which claims that the tendency to act in a certain way is dependent on the
expectation that they will receive a desirable outcome. Hence, employees are willing to work harder if
they believe that being hard-working will result in an outcome they desire. According to the text, this
theory is interpreted by three relationships: effort-performance relationship, performance-reward
relationship, rewards-personal goals relationship.

There are two key factors that make people to be more engaged in their jobs: Degree of meaningful
engagement in work and match between the individual’s values and those of the organization. When
employees clearly know their goals, objectives, and the significance of the job they are doing, their emotions,
thoughts, and behavior are all directed toward their job and have a high level of commitment which is
associated with high task performance and citizenship behavior. 

All mentioned theories in part 4 can be tied together to create the big picture about the relationship between
theories and personal goals. There are four main steps that begin with individual effort, which leads to
individual performance, then affect organizational rewards, and the final is to reach the personal goals.
However, the individual effort also has another arrow leading to it, from the personal’s goals. Consistent with
goal-setting theory, the goals-effort loop is meant to remind us that goals direct behavior. In the goals-effort
loop, each theory plays a significant role. Expectancy theory predicts employees will exert a high level of
effort, reinforcement theory enters the model by recognizing that the organization’s rewards reinforce the
individual’s performance. The integrated model also considers achievement motivation, job design,
reinforcement, and equity theories / organizational justice. A high achiever is not motivated by an
organization’s assessment of performance or organizational rewards.

In conclusion, this chapter provides us a clear knowledge and comparison among popular theories of
motivation. By applying these concepts, managers or employees can design the work for employees so that
they become more motivated, perform better and to be more engaged. Personally, this chapter helps me
understand more about myself and pave the way for proactively self-motivating.