15000 words for bussiness managements assignments
daxiongdi
leadership10.pptxLeadership for SMEs
LD9616
Week Ten
Motivation
Learning Objectives
On completion of this session, you will be able to:
Explain 4 motivation theories
Explain how each of these is culturally variable
Discuss how individual and cultural differences can affect motivation
Explain 2 different approaches to international human resource management
Theories of Motivation
There are many theories, we shall focus on 4 of them:
Content – satisfying employee needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory
Process – employees make rational choices
Adam’s Equity Theory
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
NB. All these theorists are American
Why be concerned about employee motivation?
Generally, motivated employees leads to organisational success eg. Ritz-Carlton
But…
Motivated employees does not necessarily lead to organisational success eg. Cadbury
Unmotivated employees does not necessarily lead to organisational failure eg. Amazon
Concern with motivation was part of the Human Relations school of management thinking – itself a reaction to the extreme mechanistic thinking of Scientific Management (Taylorism)
Personal growth and fulfilment
Status, responsibility, reputation, respect and confidence
Belonging to a group, trust and acceptance
Security, structure and stability
Shelter, warmth, food and drink
Each level depends on satisfaction of the level below
Does not have to be full satisfaction e.g. 85% physiological needs and 40% esteem needs
Maslow admitted variation according to individual and culture
Never empirically tested
Useful as a heuristic
Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory
Herzberg’s Two factor Theory
Hygiene Factors Shortfalls in these cause dissatisfaction but only up to the point where people have enough. Extrinsic to the work e.g. safety, pleasant work environment and money
Motivation Make people want to do the work. Are not limited. Intrinsic to the work eg. satisfaction in doing the work well
Based on Maslow – the lower needs are hygiene factors and the higher ones are motivators
Herzberg’s Two factor Theory
Job Enrichment
Employee is hired to do more than they are actually capable of doing at the beginning so that they ‘grow’ into the job
Training is a big motivator – the more someone is able to do, the more they want to do
A way of increasing control over employees?
Self-actualisation means different things in different cultures
Content Theories and Culture
Assume people are motivated by needs
Influenced by attitudes and values
Upper layers of Maslow’s pyramid are influenced by individualism
Self-actualisation may mean basket weaving and cycling holidays in the West and traditional religion in the Middle East
Adam’s Equity Theory
Deals with two questions:
What do people think is fair and equitable?
How do they respond when they feel they are getting far more or far less than they deserve?
Referent Others
People with whom the individual employee compares themselves
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
Motivational force comes from expectation that certain behaviour leads to certain rewards and the amount that the employee values the reward
Assumes
Effort leads to performance, eg. employee has the ability to achieve high performance
Expectation of reward is linked to performance
The employee values the reward
Allows for individual differences since the manager has to know what each employee wants
Work Orientation
Theories of motivation tend to leave out people’s fundamental attitudes towards work
Work orientation is about what different people expect to get from their work
Goldthorpe et al. (1968) - Employees at a car assembly plan in the UK
Found 3 different work orientations:
White collar workers concerned with career advancement (bureaucratic orientation)
Factory floor workers – given up opportunity of more satisfying work for higher wages (instrumental orientation)
Others mainly wanted a feeling of belonging (solidaristic orientation)
Bourdieu – habitus: the deeply ingrained assumptions and attitudes that we acquire in early childhood that help us to orientate ourselves in the world
Empirical Research
Empirical studies have identified many differences in motivation between cultures
Chinese rate importance of interesting work less highly than Americans and rated personal loyalty as more important (Silverthorne, 1992)
Involvement in the job is important for Bulgarian employees but not so important for Hungarian employees (Roe et al., 2000)
Need for achievement important for US employees but Japanese employees rate affiliation as more important (Sagie et al., 1996)
Human Resource Management
What is HRM?
Employees are the organisation’s most significant resource
HRM is responsible for hiring, firing, developing and general welfare of employees e.g. remuneration structure
It is a strategic function – i.e. it is part of the long-term planning of the organisation
International HRM
Best practice vs best fit
Best practice
MNCs that try to leverage economies of scale and therefore identify the best way of doing things, as defined by the head office, and apply it everywhere
Best fit
MNCs that try to identify the best way of doing things in the specific context and allow local management to decide what that is
Conclusion
Different approaches to employee motivation all have a cultural aspect
What employees expect to get from their work is individually and culturally variable
HRM practices can use the ‘best practice’ or ‘best fit’ approach
