Exam 3 Essay Principles of Mgt (MGT-305)

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Exported for Ashwini Gurwale on Mon, 16 Nov 2020 20:05:54 GMT

Motivation in the Workplace

6.1 Learning Objectives & Introduction After finishing this chapter, you will:

Understand the motivation process and how it a�ects our actions.

Learn the di�erent perspectives of motivation and understand the di�erence between needs

perspectives, process theories, and job-design theories.

Gain a better understanding of how di�erent individual perspectives will enhance and hinder motivation

in organizations.

Understand how di�erent changes in the job or tasks can greatly a�ect how engaged an employee is in

their positions.

Understand how di�erent incentive and non-incentive plans work in organizations and what may be

more beneficial to the individual employees.

Why do people do the things they do? We are asking this question rhetorically because we don’t actually

expect you to provide some deeply metaphysical explanation. However, this is the basic question behind

motivation. Some psychologists may simply define motivation as the degree to which an individual cares

about a task, or desires a specific outcome, but for our purposes, we want to examine motivation as a process

Figure 6.1. What factors drive people to give their best e�ort or to push through a di�icult task? [1]

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and discuss what we, as managers, can do to impact the motivation of our employees. We define

motivation  as the process that directs our behavior toward certain goals. 

Using this basic model of motivation, we can see that individuals identify an unmet need or desire in their lives.

For some, this may be wanting a better job or more money. This recognition that you don’t make enough

money or are qualified for a better job creates a psychological tension that results in one of two outcomes.

First, it results in motivation to pursue the job or money, or you decide that you are actually fine with your

current job or income. When that tension results in motivation, you are then directed towards certain actions

or behaviors that are likely to help you reach that goal (better job/more money). The final aspect of the model

is to get feedback and evaluate whether or not our actions led to the goal that originally motivated us. Was the

need met or not? Then the cycle continues. If it was met, we begin fulfilling another desire. If not, we find a

different way to go about filling that desire.

This view of motivation is drastically oversimplified, though, and there are multiple individual and contextual

factors that must be considered. Motivation can vary based on individuals’ personalities and attitudes, the

organization's values, the physical environment, and the rewards that are offered. We can think about

performance as being a function of motivation, ability, and environment. Often, this relationship is represented

as [performance = motivation x ability x environment].   These factors are not additive but multiplicative, and

this is important. This means that if either ability or motivation or environment is equal to zero, then

performance will equal zero. When you think about it, it makes sense that if someone is unmotivated, or if they

don’t have any ability, or if they aren't ever placed in the proper environment (ex: given an opportunity), then

they won’t perform. Additionally, we must consider the nature of the reward or outcome that is desired.  

Figure 6.2. Basic Model of Motivation.

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Generally, we can identify these rewards and outcomes as being either

extrinsic or intrinsic. An extrinsic reward  is something that is external to

the individual, such as money or any other reward we might receive from

others. An intrinsic reward  is based on a feeling of satisfaction or

accomplishment.1 For example, I am motivated to learn the guitar

because playing for my children makes me feel good, rather than getting

paid for my performances (people might actually pay me to not play in

public).

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6.2 Theories of Motivation Motivation is important in the workplace because it drives behavior. From a management perspective, we

want to influence motivation because of its impact on such behaviors as performance, retention, engagement,

and organizational citizenship. To advance our ability to influence motivation, we should examine some

existing motivation theories and discuss how they might influence behavior in a work environment. These

theories are generally divided into four categories: (1)Need and Content theories, (2)Process theories, (3)Job

Design, and (4)Reinforcement theories. In addition to these four groups, we will also briefly discuss some

relatively new ideas in the area of workplace motivation.

6.2.1 Needs Theories

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

We begin with the content theories, which are also referred to as need-based theories, the most famous of

which is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You have probably seen this before, and possibly so many times that you

are internally screaming “not this again!” Maslow’s hierarchy is discussed in the context of psychology,

sociology, education, and business.2 You can see the breakdown of Maslow’s five basic needs and their

descriptions in Figure 6.4. Important for our discussion, though, is how this theory applies to the workplace. 

Figure 6.3. Are you motivated by satisfaction

of winning or the gold medal that comes with

it? [2]

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Maslow hypothesized that individuals are motivated by their lowest order (bottom of the pyramid) unmet

needs. If John is struggling to pay his rent, then he would be motivated to pursue actions that would allow him

to meet that safety need. John would try to find a better job so he could pay his bills more easily. 

Generally, we would define safety and physiological needs as being lower order (and to a certain extent

belongingness), while esteem and self-actualization would be considered higher-order needs. From a

management perspective, we would want to identify where our employees fall within the hierarchy to

determine which needs our employees are attempting to meet and offer rewards that are related to those

needs. For lower-order needs that might mean offering monetary bonuses, while for higher-order needs

employees could be more motivated by recognition or opportunity for advancement. Maslow’s hierarchy, as

you will see, acts as the basis for many of the motivational theories we will discuss moving forward.

Alderfer’s ERG Theory

Clayton Alderfer developed a related needs-based theory called ERG

theory. ERG stands for existence, relatedness, and growth.3 We can directly compare Maslow’s hierarchy to ERG theory. Existence needs are

related to physiological and safety needs and relatedness is associated

with belongingness. Growth is connected to self-esteem and self-

actualization. The advance that Alderfer offered to Maslow’s work was the

addition of a frustration-regression component to his

theory. Frustration-regression is the idea that if an individual is unable

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Figure 6.4. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…again.

Figure 6.5. Frustration is a legitimate cause for lack of motivation. [3]

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to fulfill a higher-order need, that they will regress and concentrate on an already-met need. So if I find that I

am not meeting my relatedness needs by having fulfilling relationships, I might throw myself into work to make

more money.

McClelland’s Acquired Needs Theory

The next step in the development of these needs-based theories is the work of David McClelland. McClelland

proposed an acquired needs theory comprised of achievement, affiliation, and power needs. The need for achievement is a desire to be good at what you do. The need for affiliation is like Maslow’s belongingness and Alderfer’s relatedness, in that it is a recognition of the need for fulfilling social relationships. The need for

power is divided into two different types of power.  Personal power is the need to dominate others, while

institutional power  is the need to have control for more beneficial ends, such as furthering organizational

goals.4 You might notice some significant differences between this acquired need theory and both Maslow and

Alderfer. First, McClelland ignores the lower-order needs such as physiological and safety because they are less

important in the work context. He also proposes that all of these needs are not biological in nature, but instead

are learned from social and environmental factors. This means that everyone’s environment and connections

to others will help determine which of these needs actually motivate their actions and behaviors. Some people

might have a very low need for power, but be very motivated to pursue social interaction or personal

achievement. Each of these needs can be activated at different levels for each of us! Again, the key from a

management perspective is to identify where are our employees are in this framework and provide rewards

and opportunities accordingly.

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Deci & Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory

The work of Deci and Ryan can be compared to McClelland in that they also ignore the importance of lower

order needs, but their self-determination theory also has some significant differences. Self-determination theory (SDT) is based on the assumption that employees are essentially driven to “behave in effective and healthy ways.” Unlike McClelland, SDT proposes that all individuals have basic innate needs for competence,

autonomy, and relatedness rather than socially learning these needs.5

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 Competence is similar to the need for achievement. There is a drive in people to master tasks in which they

participate. We typically don’t enjoy doing tasks where we continue to be average. We want to be good at what

we do. Autonomy is the need to be self-directed and independent. Employees want to feel as though they

have some control over the type of work they do and how that work is done. Relatedness can be seen as we have discussed previously. However, another way of looking at this concept is to think about how the tasks

relate to the bigger picture. Is there a purpose that I can relate to what I am accomplishing? The more people

find a purpose in what they do, the more engaged they become in their jobs.

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Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

We finish our discussion of the need-based theories with Fredrick Herzberg and his two-factor theory. The

Two-factor theory says that the things that satisfy, or motivate, us; and the things that dissatisfy, or demotivate, us are related to two different factors. Herzberg discovered that employees are motivated by

things related to competence and achievement, and are demotivated by things such as working conditions

and the pay associated with the job.6  

Hygiene factors are the aspects of the job that don’t actually motivate employees, but the lack of these factors can lead to dissatisfaction. A good way to think about this is that there are expectations for each of

these factors. You expect your company to have a clean and safe working environment, the fact that they do

have a good environment doesn’t motivate you, but if your workplace is dirty, dangerous, or unpleasant, then

it decreases your job-satisfaction. 

The motivational factors are the aspects of the job that increase employee’s job satisfaction. These factors tend to be more aspirational in nature. Challenge, opportunity, and employee recognition are all things that

Figure 6.6. A few of the basic factors.

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have been related to higher job satisfaction. We can tie this back to Maslow and the earlier needs-based

theories by seeing that satisfying lower order needs are hygiene factors while the motivating factors are all

related to the higher order needs.

As a manager or an organization, you want to try to eliminate the dissatisfaction of the hygiene factors and

improve the motivational factors as much as possible. The better you are at this, the more motivated

employees will be.

6.2.2 Process Theories

The process theories of motivation focus on the psychological processes that drive individuals toward certain behaviors. These theories, rather

than identifying unmet needs to explain motivation, examine the thought

processes that lead to a specific action. 

Equity Theory

The first of these theories is equity, or justice theory. However, before we

get too far into this theory, we need to be clear about what equity actually

is. Many people think of equity and equality as being the same. Not so

fast, my friend. When we mention equality, this means that everyone gets the same thing—treatment, pay,

benefits, whatever it may be. Equity, on the other hand, is the idea of being fair to everyone. 

Suppose that I have a reward system in place for achieving goals. For this

certain goal, the award is a pair of size 8, Jimmy Choo heels. Some of the

ladies out there (and some men as well) think this is phenomenal and the

reward is outstanding. However, if you are a man or a woman who doesn’t

wear a size 8, the heels don’t do you a lot of good. The reward I am

providing is equal, though, because everyone is getting the same thing.

The equitable reward would be to get anyone who reaches the goal a pair

of shoes that fits them. This option would be the fair and just reward.

Now that we have covered that, equity theory is based on the idea that we all have a basic desire for fairness in relation to our inputs and outcomes in the workplace when compared

with our peers. We can use a simple equation to show what this looks like.

This theory rests on the assumption that people want fairness in the workplace, and our peers that have

similar levels of knowledge, skill, and ability that exert similar effort deserve similar compensation (

Figure 6.7. What’s going on up there to drive

you to do something? [4]

Figure 6.8. ...but those straps make my ankle look fat! [5]

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outcomes ) for their efforts (inputs ). When this is not the case, we are motivated to change the equation so

that it comes back into balance. Equity theory also depends heavily on the concept of cognitive dissonance

that was addressed in the organizational behavior chapter. As a reminder, cognitive dissonance is when our

attitudes and our behaviors don’t match. This dissonance between attitude and action causes an

uncomfortable psychological state that we are motivated to try and correct.7

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In this case, that means that if I notice that I work just as hard as my coworkers, but receive less money for my

efforts, I will change my behavior or attitude to bring this back into balance. How do we achieve balance in that

situation? We might reduce our effort so that we don’t feel cheated by earning less, we might be motivated to

ask for a raise, or in extreme cases, I might be motivated to affect my coworkers’ inputs or outcomes. When we

perceive that there is a balance between our inputs and outcomes compared to those of our peers, we are not

motivated to change our behavior.

Organizational Justice

Other researchers used the work of J. Stacy Adams to develop related theories on organizational

justice. Organizational justice is the perception that individuals are treated fairly in the workplace. This perception is based on three elements: distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice. 

Distributive justice is how fair employees consider the distribution of rewards. In other words, is

everyone paid the same wage, and is that fair given their level of e�ort, skill, and experience? 

Procedural justice has to do with how decisions are made regarding those allocations of rewards. Do

we feel that the process that managers use to reach those decisions are fair?

Interactional justice is based on the perception that we feel the interaction between employees and

managers is fair and equitable. Does the manager treat everyone with respect? Do they yell at certain

employees in public, but are more discreet with others? If this is the case, then there may be a lack of

interactional justice. Managers should have a consistent pattern of behavior with all employees.8

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A few final thoughts on equity theory should be included. First, you may

have heard the saying “perception is reality,” and while we don’t want to

belabor an abstract concept, it is important to understand. When it comes

to equity and justice, reality isn’t important, only the perceptions of the

employees really matter. If an individual perceives that they are being

treated or compensated unfairly, they are going to be motivated by that

perception rather than any objective reality. So, perception is reality when

it comes to motivation. Second, we need to understand that much of

employee perception is driven by the behavior of managers or

supervisors. If managers or supervisors enact a “do as I say, not as I do”

mentality, it will directly influence employee perceptions of the fairness of

the workplace. Finally, using equity theory, we need to be sure that

employees have a method of voicing their concerns and some form of

due process to question decisions. Having a system of due process allows

us to address concerns before employees are motivated to action

themselves.

Expectancy Theory

The second of our process theories is expectancy theory. While

expectancy theory is used in a variety of contexts and disciplines, the

version of expectancy theory that we use in the workplace is based on the

work of Victor Vroom (I love that name, it sounds like a super villain.). 

Expectancy theory is based on the idea that people are motivated by how much they want something and how likely they think they are to get

that thing. There are three important elements to expectancy theory:

expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. Expectancy  is the belief that if you put forth effort, then that effort

will lead to the desired performance. If you study hard, do you believe you can make an “A” on the next exam?

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That belief is your expectancy. Instrumentality is the belief that if you perform, you will receive the reward

that has been promised. Suppose that your professor tells you that if you get an “A” on the exam, he will give

you $1,000! Do you actually believe him? If you believe him, that would mean that you have high

instrumentality. I wouldn’t believe him! That means I have low instrumentality. Valence is the value that

individuals put on the rewards they are pursuing. The higher the value, the more it is a motivating factor. If you

are offered an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii, it has greater value than a trip to the middle of nowhere, thus

the trip to Hawaii would have higher valence. 

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Figure 6.9. Justice looks at how fairly people are treated. [6]

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To effectively use expectancy theory to motivate our employees, we need

to pay special attention to the value that they put on the rewards that we

are offering, as well as monitoring the level of performance that we

require to get those rewards. According to Vroom, expectancy,

instrumentality, and valence are multiplied by each other to determine

motivation.9

This means that if any of those elements is missing, then employees will not be motivated. If they don’t believe

they can perform, they won’t try. If they don’t believe that their performance will result in the reward, then

there’s no point, and if they don’t value the reward, why put forth any effort.

Goal-Setting Theory

The final process theories that we will discuss focus on goals . We are all somewhat familiar with goals, but

we will look at them from a motivation perspective. There are many different theories associated with goals

and motivation, but we will focus on goal-setting and goal orientation.

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Goal-setting theory, based on the work of Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, states that employees are motivated by goals that are specific and challenging yet attainable. This theory proposes that goal-setting

motivates people through specific psychological mechanisms. It directs employee behavior toward associated

tasks while ignoring unimportant tasks.10 Goal setting helps us develop strategies to meet our goals, boost

persistence, and regulate how much effort we put forth based on how difficult the goal is to attain. This is also

Figure 6.10. Oh no! It’s the evil Victor Vroom and his expectancy theory! [7]

Figure 6.11. Expectancy theory model

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where we get the concept of SMART goals.11

This interactive image was created with ThingLink View this image on thinglink.com.

[8]

Goal orientation theory was developed primarily in relation to educational settings, but it does apply to the workplace as well. Instead of focusing on what people are attempting to achieve, this theory looks at why and

how people try to achieve a goal and the purposes behind their actions.12 This theory is based on the idea that

individuals have a predisposition toward either performance or mastery. Performance orientation means that individuals are motivated to meet the expectations established by managers or supervisors, while a

person with a mastery orientation is motivated by becoming good at, or mastering, the task that is assigned. This is important because those with a mastery orientation are more likely to be motivated to persist and

improve over time while those with a performance orientation simply want to produce an outcome and then

move on. For example, if your goal is to get an A in this class, is it because you want to perform better than your

classmates (performance) or is it because you want to master the content for the course (mastery)?13

Job Design Theory

In the human resource management chapter, we further discuss job analysis and job design . In basic terms,

job analysis is the gathering of information to describe a job as it currently exists. These two factors play a large

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part in job design theory, which is the process of changing a job or position to suit our needs. Suppose that we

have had high turnover for a particular job and we find out that the biggest issue is that the job itself is

monotonous and lacks challenge. We would need to design that job so that it is inherently more motivating for

our employees. So how do we go about doing this? 

One thing we may try is to increase the scope of the job to make it more interesting. Job enlargement  is the

process of increasing the number of tasks that are associated with specific jobs. This doesn’t involve changing

the tasks or making them more or less challenging, it is simply putting more on someone’s plate. By increasing

the number of tasks we can hopefully alleviate the boredom and dissatisfaction.

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Or perhaps instead of just piling more work on our employees, we offer them the opportunity to work on more

challenging and important projects or tasks. This approach is called job enrichment.  As you hopefully

remember, employees respond to opportunities to meet higher order needs such as autonomy and

competence much more positively than opportunities to more fully meet lower order needs. A final thought

related to job design is that rather than altering existing jobs, we instead focus on designing jobs that have

these motivational characteristics already included. 

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The job characteristics model identifies five important characteristics that drive three important psychological states to improve motivation.

The five characteristics are: skill variety, task identity, task significance,

autonomy, and feedback.14

Employees should engage in a variety of tasks at their job (skill variety), should be able to identify their contribution to a finished product or

service (task identity), and feel that their efforts matter to the organization and its customers (task significance). These three characteristics will affect the first state, which is whether employees feel

their work is meaningful or not.

The next psychological state we are concerned with is how responsible

employees feel they are for work outcomes. Employees want to feel as

though they are in control of the work that they do (autonomy). They more an employee controls their own schedule and the manner in which

the work is done, the more they will get that sense of responsibility.

Finally, how much information is given to an employee about how they are doing and why their jobs are

important (feedback)? How do they know if they are making a difference if we aren’t telling them? Positive, and even constructive, feedback helps employees to understand the actual results of their work and why it

matters. This sense of purpose and accomplishment is the third psychological state we are concerned with.

Figure 6.12. If your job is juggling, adding fire and balancing a bike on your face would

qualify as job enrichment. [9]

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The thought behind this theory is that the more we can create positive mental states in these areas for our

employees, the more we will see things like higher job satisfaction, better performance, higher levels of

motivation, and decreased turnover. As the saying goes, a happy worker is a productive worker.

Reinforcement Theory

Reinforcement theory is based on the idea that you can change people’s behavior by using rewards and punishment. Some of you may associate reinforcement with Pavlov’s classical conditioning (it may ring a bell

with some of you), but we are going to focus instead on operant conditioning, which is based on the work of

B.F. Skinner and Edward Thorndike.15 From the management perspective, we want to think about how we

provide rewards and punishments to motivate certain behaviors.

Whether in work or life, there are two basic outcomes that we would like to see after any kind of behavior

occurs: (1) We want the behavior to continue happening or (2) we want the behavior to stop happening. It’s as

simple as that. The harder part is how to get something good to keep happening or figuring out how to stop

something from happening again.

According to this theory, if we want a behavior to continue happening, we can try two things.

Positive reinforcement – We provide a desirable reward a�er we observe a behavior that we would like to see. If Cindy provides excellent customer service to one of our guests, we want to praise her

immediately. In this example, the reward is praise, but we could also o�er a monetary reward or anything

else that our employees might value.

Negative Reinforcement – We remove something unpleasant to encourage a desirable behavior. Suppose that you are continually late to work. Your manager gets on your case every single time and

gives you the same, awful speech about how you should understand the importance of punctuality that

Figure 6.13. An explanation of reinforcement theory.

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makes your eyes roll back into your head. However, once you start showing up on time, the speech goes

away. As long as you continue showing up on time, the awful speech is never heard from again. The

removal of the speech is encouragement to you to continue the behavior of showing up on time.

If we want a behavior to stop happening, we can try these two approaches.

Punishment – We add something negative following behavior we want to stop from happening again. If you are familiar with cats, you would know that they hate getting wet. So a good punishment for a cat is

to spray them with a water bottle whenever they jump on or scratch furniture. The cat doesn’t want to

keep getting sprayed, so they eventually stop scratching. Of course, cats are evil, so they would probably

just go pee in your closet or something to get back at you. But hey, at least they aren’t ruining your

furniture anymore!

Extinction – We eliminate undesirable behaviors by ignoring them or withholding reinforcement. The idea is that if we ignore certain behaviors, they will not be repeated. If a student in class continually raises

their hand to participate in class discussions, but I never call on them, eventually they will stop raising

their hand.

The major thing we want to watch when it comes to any of these methods is to be clear and consistent. Make

sure you are being fair and consistent with rewards and punishments. It needs to be clear what behaviors are

being rewarded or punished and explained properly. If there is confusion or unfairness in these methods, you

could cause more problems than what you started with.

6.2.3 Incentive-Based Options

While we have spent the majority of this chapter discussing motivation from theoretical and psychological

perspective, many of you may be thinking, “these are businesses, just give them (the employees) more money

and they will be motivated!” Some organizations do just that. There are multiple ways that companies use

money as a motivator. There are positives and negatives to each.

Piecework plans are compensation systems that base pay on the level of output. For manufacturing or service companies that have a quantitative measure of output, this plan might be used. The logic being

that if you are paid per unit of production, you are motivated to work faster. A possible issue is that

workers may focus on pushing out the most units possible, and this could cause quality to su�er.

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This is similar to companies that use commission systems for sales performance. Commission is a system of compensation that gives the salesperson a percentage of the sale’s value. The problem with

these types of compensation programs is that it only motivates a single behavior. Employees that receive

commission are motivated only to make sales, not collaborate with coworkers or focus on excellent

customer service. 

Profit sharing is giving employees a certain percentage of company profits. This encourages employees to not only focus on the revenues of the organization but also the costs. 

Gainsharing is similar to profit sharing, but instead of a percentage of profit, it o�ers employees a percentage of improvement. If employees help increase revenue or reduce costs, employees receive

some monetary reward for that improvement. 

Stock options are opportunities for employees to purchase an ownership interest in their organization in the form of stock. The logic is that if the employees are also the owners of the company, then they will do

whatever is in the best interest of the organization because they can benefit from its performance.

United Airlines has recently attempted to re-vamp their company-wide bonuses. If monetary incentives are

used, it is important that the reward system is handled properly and does not create more motivational issues

due to a flawed process.

Figure 6.14. Many retail positions o�er a commission on sales to motivate employees. [10]

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The problem with all of these monetary based incentive programs has already been discussed. They still only

meet lower-order needs, and may not be the motivators that employers are hoping for. Because of that, other

organizations may use nonmonetary incentives.

Nonmonetary incentives are benefits that the organization can provide that are not directly tied to pay. These types of incentives are meant to motivate employees by addressing the higher order needs we

discussed previously. Employers might offer paid-time-off so that employees can have a better work-life

balance. They can offer training and development opportunities to improve their employees’ knowledge and

skills. This could include special training, professional conferences, or tuition reimbursement to enroll in

classes at local colleges or universities. Depending on the culture and types of employees, there are several

ways you can incentivize your employees to work their hardest.

So What Else Is Out There?

Research has consistently shown that those who have the greatest success in life tend to have high levels of

willpower . Willpower exists when people resist tempting urges in an effort to demonstrate more

commendable behaviors. The good news is that willpower can be developed. In fact, when people engage in

high levels of self-discipline in certain areas of their life, they are more like to exhibit high levels of self-

discipline in other areas of their life. Have you ever gone on a diet and found that in addition to resisting

yummy chips and sugary sodas, you start to exercise more? Or perhaps in addition to improving your diet and

exercise, you also make goals to be a better son or daughter, or to be a more productive employee. This is

willpower at work. When you increase your self-discipline, this good habit transcends multiple areas of your

life.16

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However, there’s a catch. A person’s willpower can become depleted. Let’s say you have a very important work

deadline, one that could secure you that coveted big promotion. Within a few days of the important deadline,

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both of your children become sick, so you have to stay home from work, your sister calls and tells you she’s

getting a divorce, and you wake up with pink eye! Willpower is like a muscle. Even though it can be

“strengthened” and can improve multiple areas of our life, there are also times when circumstances become so

physically or emotionally trying that we essentially lose control of our self-discipline and give in to that big bag

of chips because we don’t have what it takes in the moment to keep it together.

What does this mean for you as a future manager? Giving your employees

opportunities to strengthen their willpower will most likely make them

more productive employees. It’s no wonder why big corporations across

the country have recognized the benefits of offering employees

opportunities to lead healthy lifestyles. When people do yoga over their

lunch breaks, this disciplined practice likely produces benefits on the job.

However, managers need to be mindful that employees may eventually

experience a breaking point, in which they may not have what it takes to

produce high-quality work, simply because they are too overwhelmed.

When this happens, managers can help by providing social support—by

reaching out to employees to temporarily help them with their workloads, or to reset deadlines, for the sake of

giving them the breather they need to get back on track.

6.3 Conclusion As we hope you have gathered from this chapter, there is no one perfect way to motivate employees. The

research has consistently shown however that money is not the best motivator, and that instead, we should

address the higher order psychological needs of our employees. 

Figure 6.15. Do you give in to the dark side of temptation or demonstrate the willpower of a

Jedi? [11]

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Management: A Modern Perspective In- Chapter Feedback (Optional)

Please con�rm which chapter you're in.* 1

What did you like best about this chapter?* 2

How could this chapter be improved?* 3

6.4 References 1. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new

directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 54-67.

2. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological review, 50(4), 370.

3. Alderfer, C. P. (1969). An empirical test of a new theory of human needs. Organizational behavior and human

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4. McClelland, D. C., Atkinson, J. W., Clark, R. A., & Lowell, E. L. (1953). The achievement motive.

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