Assignment of Organization behaviour subject

Transcript 3.3 Process.docx

Motivation: Process Theories

Hi, and welcome to Organisational Behaviour. I’m Dr Jennifer Spoor. This video will overview some of the main process theories of motivation. Process theories seek to understand how people develop work motives and transform those motives into action. There are a large number of process theories, though a few dominate the field. In this video, we will draw on a heuristic model to illustrate the process of transforming motives into action, and show how each of the main process theories contribute.

Model of Motivated Action Phases

Early theorists in management and psychology, including Max Weber and Kurt Lewin, recognised the role of action and volition in understanding motivation. Many years later, Heckhausen, Gollwitzer and colleagues developed a general model of motivated action phases.

This action phases model seeks to clarify how people select their goals, how they plan the execution of selected goals, how they enact those plans, and how they evaluate their efforts and outcomes. These are also the basic questions that process theories attempt to answer, but most process theories generally only focus on one or two of these questions. Thus, this motivated action model provides a good heuristic for organising the various process theories and their unique areas of emphasis.

We will focus on expectancy theory, goal setting theory, self-regulatory theories and organisational justice theories.

Choosing: Expectancy Theory

At the choosing phase, people have to decide which of many goals and activities to pursue. Employees may decide which project to work on now, and which ones to put off for later. Within a project, the project leader has to decide whether to focus on scheduling, working on evaluation, sourcing materials, etcetera. People looking for a job have to decide which opportunities to pursue, or even whether to actively engage in a job search.

Vroom’s expectancy or VIE theory helps to explain how people make these choices. The model assumes that people’s choices are fairly rational and based on their perceptions of how effort, performance and outcomes are linked.

Let’s walk through an example to explain these concepts. Let’s assume you are thinking about putting in 8 hours per week studying for a class. This if your level of effort.

First, there is the expectancy, or perceived relationship between effort and performance. That is, if you put in those 8 hours per week, how likely is it that you will perform well on assessments?

Let’s assume that you have good study skills and generally do well in similar subjects. So you probably have the basic skills and knowledge to do well, if you put in extra effort. So let’s say the probability is .75, or there is a 75% chance that 8 hours per week will lead to a good result on the assessment. Note that if you don’t have the required study skills, general knowledge, and so forth, this expectancy will be lower but might be improved with more training and so forth.

There are also many outcomes that could happen if you do well on the assignments. Let’s assume that these are the possible outcomes.

Now, these outcomes each have a valence, which is essentially how desirable they are to you personally. Some outcomes, like a good mark or completing the final degree, might be very positive. Outcomes like getting a recommendation might be nice, but may not rate as highly. Valence depends on your personal preferences. Another student might place a higher value on the reference and a lower value on the internship. Note that valence can also be negative. Bad things could happen as well, such as having less time to socialize with friends.

So these are all these potential outcomes and valences, just for the purpose of this example, but how likely are they to happen and does it actually matter how you perform on the assessments? This is where perceptions of instrumentality become important. Instrumentality refers to the perceived relationship between performance and outcomes. In the example, it refers to the extent to which attaining an outcome actually depends on performance on the assessments. For example, one potential outcome might be getting an internship, but if internships are based partly based on previous experience, then better performance on the assessments won’t have a big effect on whether you get the internship, so instrumentality is low. If you can get a good final mark only if you do well on assessments, then instrumentality is high.

To determine motivation, instrumentality for each outcome is multiplied by its valence. These products are added together to produce a total valence score, and this score is then multiplied by the expectancy.

This results in a Motivational Force (F), which is the amount of pressure to engage in the activity (in this case: studying 8 hours per week).

The main point of Expectancy or VIE theory isn’t that people actually engage in these complex calculations before choosing, but it is as if this what they were doing. So the VIE model helps to explain why an employee finds a particular action or goal more desirable than another, and may help us to predict the kinds of behaviours that employees will engage in.

For managers, expectancy theory also suggests clear guidelines for improving motivation. For example, offering valued rewards will improve valences. Offering training and improving other skills might increase the effort to performance expectancy. And ensuring that rewards are provided based on performance will increase instrumentality perceptions.

Planning: Goal Setting

Once a desired action and level of effort is chosen in the choosing stage, the mindset shifts to action, or planning how to act.

Goal setting fits in this phase, and it is one of the most dominant theories in the field of motivation. The main idea of goal setting theory is that our conscious intentions, or goals, affect our level of performance. Goals are what we are consciously trying to attain. They help to channel our energy and effort.

Research has shown that goal setting is more effective under these conditions:

First, goals should be challenging or somewhat difficult. Goals should be attainable but are not too easy. You might think of them as goals in which there is a roughly a 50/50 chance that you can attain them.

Goals should also be specific, with clear and measurable outcomes. Specific goals clarify what needs to be done to accomplish the goal.

There should also be feedback about performance. Employees need to be able to assess their progress toward the goal, determine if they need to change anything, etcetera.

Employees should also be committed toward achieving the goal. Commitment can be increased through public displays of the goal, or when a legitimate authority sets the goal.

Finally, goal achievement should be effort-based, meaning that goal accomplishment should be within the employees’ control, and they should have the necessary skills, ability, and resources to accomplish the goal.

Execution: Self-regulation Theories

Examples include control theory, regulatory focus theory and Bandura’s self-regulatory theory.

The basic idea across these theories is that people monitor and compare their current performance and achievements to some standard. In control theory, this is might be the goal itself. In regulatory focus theory it is either an ideal standard or a standard representing duties and responsibilities. In Bandura’s theory, it might be comparison to self-standards that are developed through social learning and observational learning.

The results of this comparison process may be positive, leading to positive emotion, increased feelings of self-efficacy and personal mastery, and a continuation of current behaviour. If there is a mismatch, negative emotions will result and trigger behaviour to reduce the discrepancy.

Evaluation: Organisational Justice

Once the actions are complete, the evaluation phase is relevant. In this phase, the emphasis shifts to evaluating the consequences and effectiveness of the actions that have been completed. At this phase, perceptions of justice may be particularly important.

Organisational justice refers to overall perceptions of what is fair in the workplace. Overall perceptions of justice are drive by three types:

Distributive justice refers to perceived fairness of how outcomes are distributed within the workplace. If you are familiar with equity theory, distributive justice is essentially the same as perceived equity. Perceptions of distributive justice are generally high if people receive a favourable outcome, such as receiving a pay increase after good performance. In many cases, this is sufficient to produce overall feelings of high organisational justice.

However, other forms of justice can be important to certain people or in certain contexts. Procedural justice refers to perceived fairness of the policies and procedures that are used to make decisions and distribute outcomes. Procedural justice concerns are often triggered when perceptions of distributive justice are low. For example, if we don’t receive a pay increase that we were expecting, we may question how the decision was made. If the procedures are transparent and applied equally across employees, procedural justice is likely to be high and contribute to feelings of organisational justice, even if we aren’t happy with the outcome itself.

A third form of justice is interactional justice, which refers to perceptions of the dignity and respect of interactions. For example, when our supervisor explains why we didn’t receive the pay increase, is he polite and courteous or rude and short-tempered?

All of these forms of justice are related to job attitudes and satisfaction. Procedural and interactional justice are also associated with trust, withdrawal behaviours, and both task and organisational citizenship behaviours. Thus, if employees feel the workplace is just, they respond with more positive workplace behaviours. But if they perceive injustice, they are motivated to reduce the injustice, which could be in the form of reducing their own effort and performance, or attempting to change the system in some way.

Model of Motivated Action Phases

Thus, while there are several process theories of motivation, the model of motivated action phases helps to organise the unique contributions of each theory at various points in the overall motivation process.

Note that this does not suggest that there aren’t common points or that the motivation theories only apply at these phases, and most of the process theories of motivation were developed independently of this model of motivated action phases. Remember that we are just using this model of action phases as a heuristic to help organise the various process theories.

Motivation: Process Theories

This is the end of the video. I’m Dr Jennifer Spoor, and thanks for listening.