Unit5.docxGeorge Curtis has been the chief of police for two years in a community that has a population of 83,751 in the southern part of the state. The department has an authorized strength of 105 full-time sworn police officers.
Chief Curtis is anxious to fill a new position that calls for a lieutenant, and the incumbent of the position will function as the home defense expert for the department and liaison with other agencies. For three years, federal funding will be used for this new position, and then it will become a regular budget position. The city has a nearby nuclear power plant that could be a prime target. The new lieutenant would work out of the chief’s office. This position is not covered by civil service, and the chief had the authority to pro-mote whoever he chose, subject only to the advice and consent of the mayor. But rather than doing this, the chief wants to promote someone off of the lieutenants list.
After a very careful review of the situation, Chief Curtis concluded that Raymond Charles, a 12-year veteran, was the best person for the job. Sergeant Charles was an amiable, energetic, and capable man with excellent investigative skills. He is a natural leader with a strong commitment to the department. Charles was always a go-getter and respected by departmental members. He was number one on the eligibility list that had been in place for two years. As far as the chief was concerned, he really had no alternative but to offer the position to Sergeant Charles. All the time that Charles had been with the department, he remained in the local National Guard Unit, as signed to a military intelligence unit located in a nearby metropolitan area. He currently holds the rank of Major. The chief felt that he and Charles were simpatico and would complement one another.
After securing the mayor’s authorization to fill the vacant position, Chief Curtis asked Sergeant Charles to stop by his office. They exchanged pleasantries and then the chief told Officer Charles he would be promoted to the rank of lieutenant effective the first of the month. Much to the chief’s surprise, Charles declined the promotion. The chief did everything he could to get Sergeant Charles to change his mind, but the sergeant maintained he was simply not interested in functioning as a staff person and wanted to remain in his position as a field operations sergeant, supervising 15 evidence technicians. Charles enjoyed responding to various crime sconces involving homicides, sexual assaults, officer-involved shootings, and armed robberies. He said he would rather be operational and not work in an office. Additionally, he pointed out that he was heavily involved in his National Guard assignment. He thanked the chief, left the office, and returned to work.
Chief Curtis was surprised—actually shocked. He felt Sergeant Charles was not being loyal to the department. He felt that Sergeant Charles should “stand up and be counted” and decided where his loyalties were. Although he was unhappy with the situation, Chief Curtis promoted another officer on the promotion list.
The chief’s unhappiness with Sergeant Charles led to him being transferred to a less desirable position in field operations. Over a period of time, Sergeant Charles became increasingly dissatisfied with his job. He became a chronic complainer. Poor morale reduced his performance and led to increased absenteeism and an increased effort for his National Guard assignment. Charles found himself in a box and never worked at a level above average.
Describe the motivations that are present in this case. What actually happened in this particular situation? What assumptions did Chief Curtis make, and why did he become so upset with Sergeant Charles? If you were the chief of police, how would you deal with an officer who does not seek promotion per se as the preferred path to job satisfaction and/or career advancement? What position would you take when officers want to remain in a National Guard or Reserve position? If you could, would you support a policy that would prohibit police officers from serving in military units? Why or why not?
Pursuing Excellence Leading others as they pursue an organization’s mission, vision, core values, and goals is the essence of police management. Leadership does not exist in a vacuum, however. There is a symbiotic relationship between leadership, motivation, and performance in complex goal-oriented police departments. Most management theorists believe that highly motivated individuals, working smarter, are more productive and produce a better-quality product or service than their less motivated co-workers.2
Human motivation is a fascinating topic. Motivating people to work has become one of the most pervasive concerns in contemporary management theory—a buzzword in industry and an “in” term in the lexicon of police management. Increasingly, it is ad-opted as the goal of staff development. There is probably no other topic in which police administrators express more interest. The motivation of police personnel is viewed as an antidote for poor performance, a magic key to productivity, and the answer to all sorts of organizational problems—even the external constraints, like funding limitations, under which police agencies operate.3 However, the application of simplistic solutions to very complex social problems rival’s baseball as America’s favorite pastime.
The motivation perspective just discussed is not the panacea it was made out to be by the theorists and practitioners who argued that it had ushered in a new era of enlightened human resources management. After nearly a half-century of rigorous scientific inquiry, we still do not know, beyond a general way, what motivates a human being to act in a certain way. It is very difficult to tell why some police officers are self-starters and seem to be high achievers in almost everything they do, whereas other police officers eed prodding and external incentives to do anything productive. It is hard to explain why activities that generate enthusiasm and energy in one person might well trigger boredom and apathy in someone else. Research suggests that there are several types of motivation. Some officers are best described as achievement motivated. Moderate challenges and risks are acceptable to them, and they seem to be attracted to fairly difficult tasks. These officers are best described as strivers and work diligently at improving themselves and honing skills resulting in task accomplishment. Other officers are best described as competence oriented, based on their own belief that they can master confronting and confounding problems. It is a process of self-efficacy and striving for excellence. In the latter case, the officers really believe in themselves and the impetus that causes them to accept a challenge can be either intrinsic or extrinsic.4 Motivation to Work
Motivating human beings to work, produce more, and seek excellence is one of the simplest yet most complex tasks in management. It is simple in the sense that people are hedonistic. They have been programmed socially as well as genetically to minimize pain and to maximize pleasure. Consequently, motivating them should be easy. It is up to management to determine what a person wants and to use it as a reward or incentive. Whenever people act in any way, good or bad, it is because they have been motivated to act. In earlier days, extrinsic rewards such as pay, specialized assignments, or promotion motivated officers, but in more recent years, intrinsic rewards have assumed a prominent place and officers find themselves developing self-management skills. Intrinsic rewards as they become more viable are the satisfaction of a job well done, such as making a significant arrest, successfully completing a complex case, saving a child, or performing some other action that emanates from actual work. With this type of intrinsic reward, officers become more energized and goal oriented, and they readily see that the work they do is making a difference not only to themselves but also to others. Reward people for appropriate behavior, and you usually get desired results. Fail to reward the right kind of behavior, and you will most likely get the wrong results. Things are not as simple as they may appear at first glance, however; different people have different desires and needs. Rewards one police officer considers important may be viewed by others as undesirable or merely superfluous. In some cases, the needs of employees are not the same as those of the organization; if the differences are irreconcilable, they can lead to dysfunctional conflict, disorganization, and deterioration in performance. Even an enticing reward is not a surefire motivator. Rewards, in themselves, do not ordinarily motivate people unless there is a belief that an effort on their part will lead to a payoff. Police personnel, like all other human beings, differ from one another in how they size up their chances of earning meaningful rewards or achieving their own personal goals.
Police administrators have a managerial responsibility to recruit, screen, select, and develop human resources with the potential to be efficient, effective, and productive employees. Unless these individuals are motivated to draw on this potential, however, they are not likely to achieve the level of performance that is desired from them. Managers at all levels are faced with the problem of motivating subordinates to unleash their potential so that the mission, goals, and objectives of the organization can be accomplished. One way to deal with the so-called motivation problem is to create conditions in which people satisfy personal needs and achieve their own goals and act in such a way that the work desired by the organization gets done as well.8 Police managers must learn to recognize symptoms of flagging motivation and to design jobs and reward systems to alleviate the problem. Failure to act will only compound the motivation problem and could eventually harm the organization.
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is one of the most widely investigated job attitudes, as well as one of the most extensively researched subjects in industrial/organizational psychology.9 Research on job satisfaction among criminal justice personnel is relatively new compared to similar research conducted among employees of other occupations; however, some does exist.10 Job satisfaction is noteworthy because a person’s attitude and beliefs may affect his or her behavior in the workplace. Job satisfaction has been linked to a multitude of behaviors and attitudes. This includes, but is not limited to productivity, motivation, absenteeism/ tardiness, accidents, mental/physical health, general life satisfaction, and even commitment to the organization.11 According to some studies, satisfied employees tend to be more committed to their employers.12 Other researchers assert job satisfaction is so important, its absence often leads to reduced organizational commitment.13 For example, there is a relationship be-tween job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. Affective commitment refers to the degree to which an employee becomes emotionally attached, associates with, and trusts in the organization.14 There is also an inverse relationship between affective commitment and intent to leave a position and stress in that position.15 In light of recruiting issues in law enforcement today, one can see how important job satisfaction is to employees in the profession and the organization as a whole. The breadth to which the needs and values of employees are sustained by the working environment and the individual’s reaction to that environment constitute job satisfaction.16 When assessing the level of employee satisfaction with his or her job, con-sideration of numerous factors is necessary to determine which are most important to each individual employee. Job satisfaction is conditional and particular to every employee and every situation being appraised. Mueller and Kim characterize two types of job satisfaction: (1) global job satisfaction and (2) job facet satisfaction.17 They further delineate global satisfaction as an employee’s overall satisfaction with their job while describing job facet satisfaction as ad-dressing specific aspects of the job such as salary, benefits, etc. When assessing job facet satisfaction, each employee evaluates job aspects differently. In law enforcement, satisfaction can be considered differently by individual officers depending upon factors such as assignment, rank, seniority, gender, and age. For example, a key factor in job satisfaction for millennials is to find fulfilling work. They want work to provide them the opportunity to make new friends, learn new skills, and bond to a larger purpose.18 This feeling of purpose is a primary factor in a millennial’s satisfaction with their job. Another example of job satisfaction relates to supervision. Research indicates that job satisfaction is increased when supervisors impart a supportive environment where employees are reassured to interact and voice issues related to the workplace.19 Improving management can be as effective as reforming the work of of-ficers.20 Similarly, job satisfaction is increased when there is a progressive environment both vertically between supervisors and employees and horizontally between personnel.21 There is also a positive relationship between employee’s job satisfaction and commitment and a participative management style utilized by managers.22 With limited resources in terms of fiscal funding, equipment, and most importantly, human capital, much of the focus of reform in law enforcement organizations has been efficiency and effectiveness. These reforms, for the most part, have been positive. However, organizational effectiveness is primarily determined by employees’ level of job commit-ment.23 If leaders and managers in law enforcement endeavor to make their agencies more effective, they will be prudent to address issues which negate employee commitment and strive to increase job satisfaction.
Organizations as Social Entities Organizations are unique social entities that are created by human beings in order to accomplish certain goals that require cooperative effort. A formal organization is a social unit that has been designed to achieve a common objective or set of objectives. As instruments created for a specific purpose, all formal organizations have similar structural characteristics, including (1) a fairly distinct division of labor; (2) built-in mechanisms to regulate, coordinate, and control the activities of members; and (3) the capacity to replenish depleted human resources. Healthy organizations have the ability to adapt to changes in the environment, alter internal processes, reconfigure job assignments, and withstand the influx of replacement personnel. Consequently, a typical formal organization acquires an identity independent of its members, a distinctive persona of its own that—while it will change based on situational factors—tends to perpetuate itself from one generation
to the next.24 An unhealthy organization, like an unhealthy animal, is very likely to wither away and risks death. In order for a police department to survive and thrive, management personnel must learn to deal effectively with the behavioral requirements of every officer and civilian employee. In order to become effective managers, police administrators must learn to understand and appreciate the importance of their role in the motivation process. They must also de-velop a repertoire of motivational techniques that will encourage qualified people not only to join and remain in the police department but also to perform their duties in an enthusiastic, competent, consistent, and professional manner. Motivation is the pin that connects employee needs and job performance within organizations. It is the key to a productive and satisfying life. In particular, highly motivated, productive, and satisfied employees are the mainstay of quality police service. As Whisenand notes, “The supervisor-as-leader is in a pivotal position to recruit, get the best out of, and retain police employees.”25 Organizations should be viewed as living organisms rather than inanimate things. Police departments, for example, are deliberately constructed social systems, with structures and processes designed to coordinate the activities of workers as they seek to accomplish group-shared goals and objectives. An organization is a coalition of many participants with diverse needs, values, attitudes, and behaviors.26 Organizations are social entities in which members take part and to which they react.27 An organization consists of people with formally assigned roles who work together to achieve stated goals.28 For the purpose of our discussion, motivation is the energizing force that brings people together and that serves as the springboard to individual effort as well as goal-oriented group interaction.
Motivation and the Motivation Process The study of motivation and the motivation process can be traced back to antiquity. There have always been attempts to describe, explain, and predict goal-oriented human behavior. The ongoing interest in motivation is based on the assumption that those in authority need to know what turns people on or off about their work. Until quite recently, the emphasis was on the use of coercive power to increase individual productivity and/or organizational output. Things began to change several decades ago. Most police administrators now subscribe to the old adage, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Defining Motivation “Motivation” is not a particularly easy term to define. While just about everyone agrees that it has something to do with human behavior, no one has been able to formulate a single definition that is acceptable to all of the behavioral scientists and management personnel with an interest in this topic. Some writers avoid definitions altogether. They are content to focus their attention on the consequences of human behavior. Others, in the classical tradition of Frederick W. Taylor (see Chapter 1), explain motivation in terms of economic rationality. As years have gone by, the vice-like grip of the rational–economic paradigm has slowly eroded as its weaknesses have become more apparent and its assumptions have not been able to provide an adequate explanation of human behavior.29 They see human beings as goal-oriented individuals who have been programmed to avoid pain (punishment) and to seek pleasure (rewards). Still other organization/management theorists reject utilitarian views and contend that motivation is a subconscious psycho-logical process that evolves in people as the result of personality, background, environment, and cultural factors. Motivation is defined as the intensity of a person’s desire to engage in some activity.30 The process of motivation is often described in terms of a simple stimulus–response model.31 But the process is not that simple: Between the stimulus and the response are a number of mediating factors that differ with each individual worker. There are a number of mediating factors that intercede between the stimulus and the response, resulting in a highly variable situation. It can readily be seen from Table 5–1 that these elements call for a variance from individual to individual
Personality (as presented in Chapter 4). The characteristic and distinctive traits of each individual. It is also viewed as the unique combination of the way of thinking and acting that makes someone the distinctive individual that he or she is. Abilities. The set of work-related knowledge and skills that employees bring to the job. These interact with motivation to create technical and contextual performance. Self-concept. The perceptions people have of themselves and their relationships to people in other aspects of their life such as their view of the environment and their interaction with the community. It includes an interpretation of their strengths and weaknesses. Perception. The way our personalities and experiences cause us to decipher stimuli. Meaning and structure are given to information as filtered by one’s experience or memory. Attitudes. Predisposition, based on a person’s beliefs and values, to respond to objects, people, ideas, or events in either a positive or negative way. Job satisfaction is one ex-ample of an attitude. Again, it must be emphasized that these factors differ with each individual. The law of individual differences states that people differ in their personalities, abilities, self-concept, perception, values, and needs.32 Still others are convinced that motivation is a conscious and continuous process in which individuals make choices about what they will or will not do in given situations.33 There are conflicting definitions of motivation based on etiological considerations. In much simpler times, motivation was thought of as the means, methods, and techniques used by management to stimulate workers to engage in activities designed to achieve the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives. Over the years, managerial leaders and other authority figures were expected to use extrinsic motivators (motivators external to the person) such as pay, promotion, fringe benefits, and camaraderie as carrots to induce employees to increase their output and to upgrade overall quality of their service. On the other side of the coin, the famous Hawthorne experiments conducted during the mid-1920s clearly demonstrated that intrinsic factors also motivated people to behave in certain ways. Intrinsic innovators like instinct, drives, desires, values, feelings, emotions, and needs are internal to the individual and, as such, are largely unaffected by environmental stimuli. An intrinsically focused officer strives to achieve, to be competent, to contribute, and to derive real satisfaction from work. The theorists, researchers, and practitioners who subscribe to this human relations school of thought place most of their emphasis on internal, as opposed to external, variables. The primary function of management is to create a situation in which worker needs and organization needs are not only congruent but mutually reinforcing.34 Police officers, like all other human beings, are motivated in reality by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Both are necessary. According to Stephen P. Robbins,35 the motivation to work is caused by a set of energetic forces, originating within and be-yond the individual, which initiates work-related behavior and determines its form, direction, intensity, and duration.
Motivated employees are in a state of tension created by an unsatisfied need. This tension leads to creation of drives until the need is satisfied and tension is reduced. Motivated behavior is aimed at reducing these tensions. Thus, motivation to work can be described as dynamic forces within an individual that account for the strength, direction, and relative persistence of the energy expended at work.36 Researchers have found a direct link between motivation and effort. In fact, motivation is a predictor of overall effort. In the long run, effort, individual ability, and organizational support determine the level of an officer’s job performance. Motivation is the drive within people to alleviate the discomfort caused by internal tensions. Thus, a drive is an energetic force fueled by human needs. These needs become a motivator for action. Mental and physical actions are conscious and unconscious efforts to achieve goals. Goals are desired outcomes an individual feels will lead to a reduction in internal tension. Once their needs, desires, and wants are fulfilled, people experience a measure of individual satisfaction. Related Terminology Before proceeding with a discussion of the motivation process itself, let us review some basic terminology, one more time. A precise vocabulary is very important because ambiguity leads to confusion and helps perpetuate misunderstanding.
1. Needs. Something within people that moves them to engage in work-related behavior in an effort to accomplish personal goals.
2. Drives. Dynamic inner forces created and energized by needs.
3. Tension. The frustration or discomfort caused by unfulfilled needs.
4. Motives. Inner impulses, drives, needs, and abstract values that energize, activate, move, and direct behavior that is designed to achieve specific goals.
5. Goals. Objects, conditions, or activities toward which a particular motive is directed.
6. Incentives. Internal and external stimuli, such as anticipated satisfaction (positive as well as negative), social reinforcement, and financial rewards, that bring about goal-oriented behavior designed to reduce the tension caused by unfulfilled human needs.
7. Performance. The purposeful activity that results from an individual’s goal-oriented behavior and that is normally evaluated in terms of specific outcomes.
8. Motivation. A psychosocial process that produces an attitude that results in an action leading to a particular result.
9. Internal motivation. Motivation that comes from within a person (based on needs, drives, feelings, desires, and values) and that activates certain conscious and un-conscious behaviors designed to produce satisfaction.
10. External motivation. Motivation resulting from the application of incentives to encourage patterns of behavior that will contribute to accomplishment of an organization’s mission, goals, and objectives.
While there is no simple answer to the question of what “turns on” human beings or motivates them to act as they do in a given situation, police administrators will be ahead of the game if they learn to view motivation as a dynamic interactive process rather than as a collage of marginally related managerial tasks. It is through knowledge and the skillful use of motivation that modern police leaders endeavor to mold their people into productive units capable of achieving new and much higher levels of performance.37
Motivation Cycle
According to Calvin Swank and James Cosner,38 the motivation cycle or process consists of needs setting up drives to accomplish goals. They argue that the intensity of the drive toward a goal is always proportional to the severity of the need. A police officer’s absolute need for peer acceptance, for example, could supersede his or her desire to be considered a professional, leading him or her to elect to conform to the “code of silence” rather than testify against a fellow officer involved in a brutality case.
Unsatisfied Need Tension Drives Search Behavior Satisfied Need Reduction of Tension Again, Stephen Robbins39 describes the motivation process in terms of unsatisfied needs (see Figure 5–1). He sees unsatisfied needs as a motivator that prompts people to engage in work-related behaviors that are directed toward the attainment of goals they feel are capable of satisfying their needs.
Thus, the motivation process consists of six sequential steps:
(1) unsatisfied need,
(2) tension,
(3) drives,
(4) search behavior,
(5) a satisfied need, and
(6) reduction of tension.
The simplicity of the diagram is somewhat deceptive, however. Behavioral scientists and experienced police administrators know that human behavior is “multi-motivated,” in that any number of conscious, subconscious, and at times conflicting needs demand satisfaction simultaneously. It is the intensity of a need or the relative mix of needs that determines behavior in a given set of circumstances. We will never know, for example, exactly what motivates an otherwise passive police officer to become a supercharged hero in a dangerous or life-threatening situation involving very young children; it is always difficult to isolate a single causal factor in relation to job-related behavior in complex law enforcement organizations. While many police administrators still believe that motivation is something they do to their subordinates, they are wrong. Motivation is a dynamic and goal-oriented internal process. It is—in essence—what individual officers feel and do in relation to their particular needs. Seen from this standpoint, the only true form of motivation is self-motivation.40 Almost all successful police managers have the unique ability to elicit self-motivation in their employees and reinforce it. They do this by creating environments in which police personnel are able to satisfy needs through affiliation, competence, recognition, and productive police work itself.41 Motivating Yourself and Others Motivated people continuously set new goals because their needs, desires, and wants are nearly insatiable. It is only human nature to want more, to strive to progress. People want to improve themselves and their condition, to acquire new things, and to improve their position vis-à-vis others within their organizations. Robert B. Denhardt and his colleagues have raised the issue of motivating public-sector workers. Motivation in the public sector, they say, is aimed at the achievement of public purposes, and it is critical if public workers are to fulfill their responsibilities to the citizens and communities they serve.42 The “conventional wisdom,” however, is that public-sector workers are fundamentally lazy and un-motivated. Denhardt and colleagues suggest three basic reasons for this popular belief:43
1. Rewards and incentives available for use by public-sector managers, particularly in terms of pay and promotion, might be limited.
2. People who pursue public-sector careers may be less achievement oriented than people in the private sector, that is, they may by their very nature be a not very highly motivated group, primarily attracted to public service by job security.
3. Motivation in public organizations may be complex because of ambiguous goals (unlike the private sector, where the clear and fundamental goal is profit). Of course, these authors do not adhere to such beliefs; in their view, public employees are clearly the equals of their private-sector counterparts. Whisenand squarely puts the job of motivation in the lap of police managers: “When I encounter unmotivated police employees, inevitably I see an unmotivated.
supervisor.”
He defines worker motivation as the psychological forces within a person that determine the following:
• The direction of a person’s behavior in an organization
• A person’s level of effort
• A person’s level of persistence in the face of obstacles Additionally, it would seem appropriate to add conscientiousness, dependability, and hard-working as other elements in this equation. If these forces are present in an employee, then it is the job of supervision to facilitate and sponsor employee motivation. Even though motivation is something inside each person, police administrators activate and guide the motivation process as they seek to improve the performance of a department’s human resources. Performance—the results of workers’ positive behavior—is the bottom line in management. Motivation is only one of the factors that contribute to that results.45 Based on the preceding discussion, it is evident that there is no satisfactory simple answer to the question, “What motivates people to act as they do in a given set of circum-stances?” Behavioral scientists have developed an array of different theories to explain the dynamics involved in human motivation. Fortunately, most of these theories tend to reinforce each other to some degree. We devote the remainder of this chapter to categorizing and describing some of the major theories. Our purpose is to provide information, not to say a particular theory is right or wrong. It is, in the final analysis, up to each police administrator to abstract, synthesize, and reconfigure this information in such a manner that it will work in a given environment with a specific clientele. Broad generalizations usually lack substance and are of little or no real value in motivating personnel to work in law enforcement organizations. Approaches to Motivation Theory As noted earlier, the motivation to work has been the subject of serious scientific inquiry for more than a half century. Behavioral scientists normally approach the study of human motivation from two general perspectives—content theory and process theory: 1. Content theories. Content theories endeavor to explain what motives (needs, desires, and wants) are and how they influence human behavior. In addition, these theories provide ways to profile and analyze people in order to identify their motives. They have little or nothing to say about the process by which needs arise and are manifested in actual behavior. As seen by these theories, understanding motivation is primarily a matter of recognizing basic needs and the process by which they are satisfied. The centerpiece of content theory is that unmet needs motivate people to act. People seek to reduce inner tension by fulfilling these needs. Satisfied needs do not motivate. While content theory does not explain how people are motivated to do some particular thing, it does provide some insight into individual needs and may help police administrators understand what their subordinates will or will not value as work incentives. Content theory helps us understand what people want.46 2. Process theories. Process theories explain how people are motivated. These theories examine goal-oriented behavior based on the degree of satisfaction associated with particular rewards used to initiate it. Process theories focus on the motivation process rather than on motives per se. They strive to shed light on the cognitive (mental) processes by which human beings choose to engage in certain behaviors designed to satisfy their own needs. While content theories emphasize needs themselves, process theories zero in on decision-making as it relates to job performance. Process theories are built on the assumption that people make conscious and subconscious evaluations of contemplated behavior and assess the consequences of their actions. These personal expectations are critical in determining how a person is motivated to perform in any given situation.47
These theoretical approaches are not mutually exclusive. In fact, most content and process theories reinforce one another and provide police administrators with an information base which can be transformed into action designed to help subordinates become more efficient, effective, and productive workers. The theories provide clues about people, explain why people (do or do not) work, and examine how the psychosocial environment influences job performance. Job performance is the bottom line in management and is the key factor in determining the long-term health of any complex law enforcement organization.
Content and process theories represent a radical departure from the classical concept of motivation advocated by Frederick W. Taylor in the early 1900s, as discussed in Chapter 1. Taylor was a utilitarian looking for practical ways to increase the productivity of available human resources. He believed identifying the one best way to do each particular job and segmenting each task into a series of simple operations or steps that could achieve maximum organizational efficiency. Each worker would be trained to perform a few task-related operations. The combined efforts of all workers would then maximize efficiency and productivity. Taylor also believed that workers were not capable of self-motivation. They had to be motivated by external forces (managers) in order to over-come their natural inclination for “soldiering” (his word for doing just enough to get by). Increased productivity would be achieved by creating incentives (in the form of financial rewards) to work harder during a specific period of time. Taylor devised a bonus system to reward and reinforce the behavior of those who exceeded the minimum expectations set for them. In a Pavlovian sense, improved performance and increased productivity reflect a conditioned response activated by external reward systems.
Content Theories Interest in content theory can be traced back to the Hawthorne studies conducted in Chicago during the mid-1920s. The researchers wanted to know how productivity is affected by negative environmental factors, but they found fewer negative effects than they expected. They concluded that unanticipated “psychological factors” had somehow influenced the productivity of the experimental group. While the researchers were unable to find a direct relationship between physical working conditions and worker outputs, it became clear that organizations do not exist for production alone. They are organic social settings in which people seek to satisfy their own intrinsic psychological and social needs. The experiment itself became a motivator. The assembly workers felt they were being treated as people rather than machines. Management’s interest in their situation made them feel special. It was a recognition of their worth as human beings. The researchers concluded that when human needs are met, workers develop a very positive attitude to-ward work, management, and their organization. The need for achievement often leads to greater job satisfaction, improved performance, increased productivity, and commitment to the goals and objectives of the organization.49 Content theories attempt to explain what motivates people to behave as they do in relation to their work. While most of the theories are consistent with one another, there are some important differences. The theories presented here are representative of this genre. Hierarchy of Needs Theory Abraham Maslow’s “progression” theory of employee needs is one of the best-known content theories. As a positive humanistic theory of motivation, it stresses the importance of both biological drives and psychosocial needs. According to Maslow,50 five basic human needs activate, fuel, and shape the internal drive to overcome inertia affiliated with the status quo. He classes them as physiological (survival) needs, safety (security) needs, belonging (social) needs, self-esteem (ego) needs, and self-actualization (fulfillment) needs. These terms are ordinarily defined as follows:
1. Survival needs. The most basic of all human needs is to sustain life. Biological maintenance requires food, water, air, shelter, sex, and so on. Due to the nature of the life cycle, the satisfaction of physiological needs is of limited duration. As soon as
one need is satisfied, another replaces it. When police managers concentrate on meeting survival needs to motivate personnel, they are operating on the assumption that most people work based on economic incentives (the rational–economic assumptions discussed earlier). This model created reward systems (extrinsic) that served as an attainment platform that created the desired behavior. This was done by emphasizing such things as pay increases, improved working conditions, and better fringe benefits as the best way to motivate their personnel.51
2. Security needs. Security needs emerge once basic survival needs have been met. People have an intrinsic need to be relatively free from fear, to feel safe, and to have some stability in both the physical and interpersonal events involved in day-to-day living. According to Frank Goble,52 these needs can be grouped into two categories: (1) the need for order and stability and (2) the need for freedom from anxiety and insecurity related to personal safety, job security, financial survival, and the capricious actions of others. Police administrators who place primary emphasis on meeting the security needs of their personnel rely on policies, procedures, rules, and regulations to produce order, promote safety, improve performance, and increase productivity.
3. Social needs. Once physiological and security needs have been satisfied, social needs emerge as a very important source of motivation. Human beings have an inherent need to interact with significant others. People derive personal satisfaction from group membership. Groups fulfill their need for human companionship, love, affection, and a sense of belonging. Police administrators who understand and appreciate the importance of the social needs of subordinates know that employees have a strong tendency to identify with and internalize the norms and values of the work group. Effective managers facilitate communication, promote purposeful interaction, and encourage meaningful participation in order to improve job performance and the individual productivity of their human resources.53
4. Ego needs. Ego-esteem needs have two dimensions. First, people have a need to be respected by important others for who they are and what they can contribute to the work group. They have a desire to be competent, and they look to the work group as a source of recognition, acceptance, prestige, and status. Second, people have an absolute need for self-esteem. In other words, they need to feel they are worth something to themselves as well as to others. Self-esteem is manifested in feelings of adequacy, worthiness, fulfillment, and self-confidence. Managers who under-stand the importance of ego-esteem needs do everything they possibly can to ensure that their employees become competent and exhibit self-confidence, harbor few self-doubts, and have a good self-image. Effective police administrators help their subordinates to realize that “public service offers distinct opportunities for motivating people to do excellent and often extraordinary work.”54
5. Self-actualization needs. The need for self-actualization is triggered when people have to some extent satisfied their physiological, security, social, and ego needs. The need for self-actualization is the need to grow, to be creative, and to fulfill one’s potential. While this need varies from one person to another, in all cases it causes people to pursue interests and knowledge for their own sake and for the joy of be-coming the persons they feel they have the potential to become.55 Self-actualized people have successfully met a need to become increasingly competent and to gain mastery over their own life. All of their talents and potential are put to use. At this stage, motivation has become an internal process. External stimulation is un-necessary. Management’s job is to provide resources and to create an environment in which self-actualizing people are given the freedom to make truly significant contributions to the organization.
The order in which Maslow listed his five human needs, shown earlier, amounts to a hierarchy ranging from the most basic instinctive drives to the most abstract psychosocial motives (see Figure 5–2). Maslow divided this hierarchy into lower-order (survival, security, and social) needs and higher-order (ego and self-actualization) needs.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, the effect of human needs on job performance is governed by three basic principles:
(1) countervailing needs,
(2) satisfaction deficit, and
(3) progressive fulfillment.
1. Countervailing needs. Human beings are viewed as multidimensional social animals that sort through, prioritize, and strive to satisfy a variety of competing (lower-and higher-level) needs on a simultaneous basis.
2. Satisfaction deficit. Unsatisfied human needs create a state of tension, a perception of deprivation, and an impetus to act in a way to satisfy those needs.
3. Progressive fulfillment. The five-level hierarchy of needs determines the order in which needs will serve as motivators: Needs at any given level can affect behavior only after needs at the lower level below have been satisfied.
An unmet need creates a satisfaction deficit that commands individual attention and determines goal-oriented behavior. When deficits at one level are reasonably well satisfied, they cease to act as motivators, allowing people to focus more attention on the next higher level of needs. As needs are satisfied, people move up the hierarchy, and this movement is known as “satisfaction progression.”56 The key to understanding the dynamics of this process lies in accepting the progression principle, the idea that people are motivated by the lowest level of unsatisfied needs. If all of a person’s four lower levels are reasonably well satisfied (in terms of that person’s expectations, personality, and past experience), he or she will move on to seek self-actualization. It should also be noted that once a need is satisfied, there is a natural tendency to reevaluate the definition of what is reasonable and to upgrade expectations. Consequently, people cycle back to lower-level needs when the reasonable level of satisfaction is defined upward or when the status of a previously satisfied need is jeopardized.57 A police officer who accepted a low starting salary to launch a career, for example, will likely redefine what is reasonable pay as he or she becomes more competent and moves up the career ladder. A new definition of what is reasonable may create a satisfaction deficit and motivate one to seek a promotion or look for another, higher-paying, position.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, police administrators should identify the unfulfilled needs of their subordinates. This will give them a better understanding of why police officers may or may not perform as expected. Management must find incentives that will stimulate and reinforce desired work-related behavior. In practical terms, po-lice departments should provide employees with sufficient financial compensation to meet their basic needs, a reasonably safe environment in which to work, and a nonmonetary reward system that reinforces individual self-esteem. Enlightened police administrators recognize the need for the personal growth of their subordinates and support it by providing opportunities for career advancement, encouraging self-development, and creating environments in which police officers are allowed to explore their own talents and dreams.58 While very few people (probably less than 10 percent of the general population) achieve self-actualization, most professional police officers are acutely aware of their higher-order needs. As they have moved in the direction of self-actualization, their need structure has changed. Growth needs (for competence, fulfillment, and respect) have dis-placed survival needs as primary motivators. Consequently, modern police administrators must be willing to de-emphasize their short-term goals and pay more attention to developing human resources. Failure to meet the growth needs of professional employees is certain to have a negative effect on the efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity of the police department. As Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman pointed out in their book, In Search of Excellence,59 outstanding companies go to great lengths to meet the higher-order human needs of professional employees. This type of proactive management strategy is designed to counteract the dysfunctional influence of stress, absenteeism, shoddy workmanship, interpersonal conflict, and poor morale. While there has been little or no scientific validation of Maslow’s theory, it is still accepted as an article of faith by organizational humanists and theoreticians who subscribe to the human relations school of management. Maslow’s concepts have been repackaged in many ways, and they serve as a foundation for most content theories.
E.R.G. Theory
While Maslow’s theory has a great deal of humanistic appeal, there is simply no consistent evidence to prove his contention that satisfying a human need at one level actually decreases the motivational importance of that need so that the satisfaction of a person’s needs is a process that becomes less and less concrete as time goes on.60 Consequently, some motivation theorists have attempted to modify the hierarchy of needs concept to make it more realistic in terms of its application to goal-oriented behavior. Clayton Alderfer’s “E.R.G.” (existence/relatedness/growth) theory has become one of the better-known content theories. Alderfer developed his E.R.G. theory in an effort to simplify Maslow’s hierarchical model. E.R.G. collapses Maslow’s five human need categories into just three and contends they are active in all human beings:
1. Existence needs. These include all of the drives, desires, and wants related to a per-son’s physiological and material well-being. Maslow’s survival and security needs are combined into a single category focusing on the need for food, water, shelter, safety, pay, fringe benefits, working conditions, and so on.
2. Relatedness needs. These involve the innate sociability of human animals as they search for meaningful and mutually satisfying relationships with significant others, individually, or in groups. The satisfaction of social (interaction) and ego (esteem) needs grows out of the process of sharing.
3. Growth needs. These are directly related to the psychosocial processes that pro-duce a sense of self-esteem (personal worth) and/or self-actualization (personal fulfillment). When growth needs are reasonably well satisfied, people exhibit confidence in themselves and engage in tasks that not only require the full use of their existing capabilities but may also require the development of new skills.
People are very complex social animals; they exhibit a myriad of behaviors as they consciously or subconsciously strive to satisfy a variety of competing (even, at times, conflicting) needs.
E.R.G. theory has no hierarchical progression component. There is absolutely no assumption that lower-level human needs must be satisfied before higher-level needs can be activated. In fact, any need may be activated regardless of whether or not any other needs are satisfied.62 As a result, people may be motivated at any given time. This makes it very difficult to tell exactly what motivates people to behave as they do in a particular situation.63 Alderfer’s E.R.G. theory is straightforward and simple to understand. It is built on three basic principles: the need–escalation principle, the satisfaction–progression principle, and the frustration–regression principle.
1.Need–escalation principle. The less any level of need has been satisfied, the more the individual will desire satisfaction at that level.
2. Satisfaction–progression principle. The more that lower-level needs have been satisfied, the stronger will be an individual’s desire for satisfaction of higher-level needs.
3. Frustration–regression principle. The less those higher-level needs have been satisfied, the more likely will be a renewed emphasis on previously satisfied lower-level needs.
E.R.G. theory is based on dynamic interaction between perceived needs. The combination of satisfaction–progression and frustration–regression can result in cycling as a per-son focuses on one need, then another, and then back again.64
Acquired Needs Theory
David McClelland, a psychologist, used the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) to identify and measure basic human needs. The TAT asks people to look at pictures and write about what they see. Based on extensive data, McClelland and his colleagues identified three basic human drives:
(1) need for achievement, (2) need for affiliation, and (3) need for power. He defined these needs in the following way:
1. Need for achievement (nAch). Human beings have a basic need for achievement. This relates to each person’s desire to be competent, to solve problems, to accomplish complex tasks, and to make a meaningful contribution to the organization. People with this need will want to do well no matter what goal they pursue. Individuals with this drive strive to excel and surpass others. When applied properly, it in-creases self-regard by the successful exercise of talent. It is the most widely investigated motivational trait and was initially addressed by H. A. Murray and his colleagues in 1938.65
2. Need for affiliation (nAff). The human need for interpersonal contact and group affiliation is insatiable. It is reflected in a person’s desire to establish and maintain meaningful social relationships with significant others. People rated high on nAff welcome tasks that require interaction with others; those rated less high prefer to work alone. This need will have important consequences for an individual with respect to teamwork or groups and impact on how one develops competence and creates value to a team.66
3. Need for power (nPower). People strive to acquire power in order to influence or control the behavior of others. People rated high on nPower might be overly concerned with personal power. Those with less of a need for power might not take the necessary actions if they could offend the group.67
These three needs (nAch, nAff, and nPower) exist in all people all of the time. One need is predominant in each person, however. It motivates people to act and shapes their job behavior. McClelland’s theory is based on the fundamental assumption that the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power are acquired over time and because of various life experiences. They are learned motives that are given substance by an individual’s personality, background, and values. People are normally motivated by their dominant need. This dominant need is usually translated into a person’s work preferences. People with a high nPower usually become much better managers than the high achievers. They have a sincere desire to influence others in an effort to accomplish the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives. They thrive on ambiguity, seek responsibility, and feel comfortable being involved in the executive decision-making process. McClelland’s theory encourages managers to learn how to recognize dominant needs in themselves and others and how to create work environments that are responsive to the personal need profile of each employee; managers are also encouraged to learn how to help identify the characteristics of people who may be best suited for particular kinds of jobs in the organization.68
McClelland’s nAch, nAff, and nPower are needs very similar to those identified by Maslow and Alderfer. They can help police administrators understand why people act the way they do and what determines their work preferences (see Table 5–2). Identifying an employee’s dominant need could give managers a unique opportunity to match the right person with the right job in the right set of circumstances—ideally taking much of the guesswork out of the motivation process and increasing the likelihood that management will achieve a harmonious balance between the psychosocial needs of the individual and the needs of the organization.69 Finding the right balance is critical in determining the productivity of a law enforcement agency. Taking his cue from Maslow and other content theorists, Douglas McGregor developed a different humanistic theory of management. It is based on two distinct sets of assumptions about human nature (he called them Theory X and Theory Y) and the idea that managers tend to fall into one of two groups depending on which of the two assumptions they make about their employees. Theory X (the traditional approach to direction, control, and management) is based on a negative view of people. Theory Y (a more modern humanistic view) sees people as innately motivated and improvable. According to McGregor, managers organize, control, and attempt to motivate employees based on one or the other of these assumptions. Theory X, the framework for much of traditional management thinking, includes the following negative assumptions. This theory stresses control and direction. Rules and regulations abound, and micro-management is viewed as the only way to accomplish department’s mission. The workers are viewed as drowns, and managers view themselves as the gifted. Officers are seen as possessing limited abilities and in need of constant supervision.
CASE STUDY Chief Sam Avery
Avery is the chief of police in a middle-class suburban community of 92,000 located just outside a large Midwestern industrial city. Avery was the fourth officer to be employed in a community that was incorporated with a population of 10,250 some 27 years ago. He was appointed chief 21 years ago, and he watched the community grow to its present population. The community has a substantial residential area and has considerable commercial and light industry. Many of its residents commute and work in the industrial city that is 24 miles north of the community. Over the years, the chief has been re-sponsible for approving the hiring of everyone in the department and he looks upon the department as a big family. Currently, there are 108 sworn positions in the department, and 32 of those officers have been in the department long enough to assume positions in supervision, management, or specialized assignments. All of the investigators in the department (16 percent of the sworn strength) assumed their positions some 10 years ago. Fourteen percent of the officers are female, and most of them have been hired in the last eight years. The majority of the officers are Caucasian, and the next largest group is Hispanics.
The chief is a very powerful man in the community with an institutionalized political base that has been built up over the years. He has outstayed numerous members of the city council, and he attends every meeting of the council. He has always developed a positive relationship with the last four city managers, and once he served as an acting manager. Additionally, numerous business owners are his personal friends, and he belongs to three different civic groups.
Chief Avery is a laissez-faire leader in that he accepts reason-able judgment of his subordinates with whom he has worked for many years and at the same time makes virtually every decision that affects the police department; but each decision is paternalistic in the sense that he takes care of those officers who are trusted friends, especially those who have been in the department for more than 15 years. The older officers (who refer to themselves as “family”) are content to let the “old man” run the show. They are very protective of each other and view many of the newer officers as interlopers. Historically, the uniformed officers conduct a preliminary investigation, and the investigators conduct all follow-up investigations. Supervision in the Investigative Bureau is very lax, and many of the follow-up investigations receive only cursory examination. Some of the investigators have retired intellectually and avoid responsibility like the plague. They have absolutely no desire to jeopardize their lucrative pensions by making “decisions.” Some of the more senior investigators are ritualistically counting the days until they can “hang ‘em up.”
Younger officers—who are ordinarily better educated, more participative minded, and often risk oriented—have been challenging the status quo . They feel left out. They want more involvement. This is especially true for a number of the line personnel who want to do more than just conduct preliminary investigations. The chief has 18 months to go until he reaches mandatory retirement age, and many of the younger officers, both men and women, can hardly wait until that date arrives. They hope that the powers to be in the city will hire someone from outside to run the department, and the police as-sociation is calling for a nationwide search for a replacement for the current chief. Even after the chief retires, there will still be a significant split between those who remain and are comfortable in working under a system where internal motivation is stagnate and Theory X is acceptable. On the other hand, there are an increasing number of newer officers who are chomping at the bit for a new chief who has a Theory Y orientation. What is the real issue? Is it motivation? Why or why not? How would Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor describe the dynamics of the situation? If you were the new chief of police, how would you make effective use of expectancy theory? Explain in detail. What would you do to resolve this problem? What part could job enrichment play in this case?
1. The typical human being has a normal dislike for work and will take avoiding action whenever possible.
2. Because employees really have an aversion to work, the majority of people must be coerced, directed, controlled, and threatened with punishment in order to get them to work productively and achieve organizational goals and objectives.
3. Nearly everyone lacks ambition, avoids responsibility, and needs constant direction. Their paramount concerns are survival and job security. Consequently, employees are viewed as expendable resources (a necessary evil) with little or no value in and of themselves. They simply become a means to an end.
The tragedy of Theory X is that it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Theory X police administrators treat their subordinates in a suspicious and authoritarian manner. They threaten them, exploit them, and look down on them. The belief is that if an officer does not acquiesce to authority, they can be replaced or transferred to an undesirable assignment. New employees soon learn that their drive, ideas, initiative, and commitment are neither respected nor rewarded. They learn to behave the way they are expected to behave. Police officers who find themselves in Theory X environments adapt quickly. They adopt a non-productive, “What’s the use?” attitude. As poor morale robs an organization of vitality, the organization becomes progressively more dysfunctional. Theory Y represents the other end of the continuum and is based, in large measure, on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Theory Y assumes that once people’s lower-level needs (for survival, security, and belongingness) have been reasonably well satisfied, they are motivated by higher-order needs for self-esteem and self-actualization. If they are deprived of the opportunity to satisfy these higher-level needs at work, they become frustrated. They often react to this frustration by becoming indolent, passive, resistant to change, nonproductive, and unhappy. Poor morale creates a dilemma for proactive managers, and its resolution calls for a totally different set of assumptions about what motivates people to work. Douglas McGregor offered Theory Y as a “modest beginning for a new theory” with respect to the day-to-day management of human resources.7
Theory Y is built on the following set of assumptions:
1. The typical individual is not someone who inherently dislikes work. In fact, the expenditure of physical and mental effort is viewed as normal.
2. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means by which to elicit individual effort. Employees are capable of exercising self-direction and self-control in order to achieve goals to which they are committed.
3. Motivation, the potential for development, the capacity to assume responsibility, and the readiness to direct one’s behavior toward organizational goals are present in every person.
4. Commitment to goals is a function of the rewards that are associated with their achievement. The most important rewards are to be found in intrinsic rewards such as ego satisfaction, self-management, and the self-fulfillment aspects of commitment.
5. The most important function of management is to create an organizational environment so people can achieve their own goals by directing individualized efforts toward objective attainment. The manager’s job is to create opportunities, release potential, encourage growth, and provide guidance.
6. The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in seeking solutions to organizational problems is widespread throughout the population.
Intrinsic motivation is viewed as the key to improved performance and increased productivity. Theory Y, in sharp contrast to Theory X, emphasizes managerial leadership through motivation by objectives—that is, by permitting subordinate personnel to experience need satisfaction as they contribute to the achievement of the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives. If workers are not motivated, it is because of poor management practices that do not allow employees’ natural positive attitudes toward work to emerge.72 Theory Y managers respect their personnel and use rewards to enhance performance. They also seek to motivate their people through allowing them meaningful participation in the organization’s decision-making process. Police officers who feel like part of the team and who receive psychosocial satisfaction from their job are much more likely to invest time, talent, energy, and expertise in the organization.73 As with Theory X, Theory Y may have a Pygmalion effect. Assuming the best about people often results in their giving their best. All other things being equal, people learn to give what they are expected to give. By treating subordinates as mature, fully functional human beings who are capable of making a significant contribution to the police department, Theory Y administrators frequently motivate police personnel to achieve extraordinarily high levels of performance.74 Theory X and Theory Y are not mutually exclusive managerial strategies; they represent the assumptions on which managerial strategies are built. While McGregor did not argue that either Theory X or Y is always correct, he did suggest that managers tend to adopt Theory X assumptions more often than can be justified by the characteristics of their employees. He argued that where and whenever ap-propriate, management practices that are consistent with Theory Y would produce much greater personal and organizational benefits. His typology suggests that police administrators should tailor their managerial approach to meet the profile (X or Y) exhibited by police personnel. Perhaps the optimal theory would encourage the police administrator to employ either of the approaches at one time or another, depending on the behavior patterns of his or her personnel and the demands of the situation.75 Figure 5–3 explores the relationship between McGregor’s concepts and other content theories.
Motivation-Hygiene Theory Frederick Herzberg developed another view of human needs. His “motivation-hygiene,” or “two-factor,” theory was originally derived from an analysis of critical incidents re-ported by 200 engineers and accountants. They were asked to describe the times when they felt exceptionally good and exceptionally bad about their jobs. Based on the different things respondents identified as sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in their work, Herzberg identified two themes characteristic of all jobs: (1) “maintenance” or “hygiene” factors and (2) “motivational” factors. He explained these terms as follows:
1. Maintenance factors. Maintenance or hygiene factors are those things in the work environment that meet an employee’s hedonistic need to avoid pain. They include the necessities of any job (e.g., adequate pay, fringe benefits, job security, appropriate working conditions, supervision, interpersonal relations, managerial practices, and realistic policies, procedures, rules, and regulations). Hygiene factors do not satisfy (or motivate); they set the stage for motivation. On the other hand, they are the major source of job dissatisfaction when they are perceived to be inadequate.
2. . Motivational factors. Motivators are those psychosocial factors in work that pro-vide intrinsic satisfaction and serve as an incentive for people to invest more of their time, talent, energy, and expertise in productive goal-oriented behavior. The primary human motivators are (1) achievement, (2) recognition, (3) advancement, (4) the work itself, (5) the potential for growth, and (6) responsibility. The absence of motivators does not necessarily produce job dissatisfaction.
While these concepts are obviously related, they represent completely different dimensions of satisfaction. In terms of motivation, hygiene factors provide the milieu within which motivators (or satisfiers) function. They create a neutral state by meeting lower-level human needs and preventing negative or dysfunctional behavior. Actions designed to improve hygiene factors can prevent or help to eliminate job dissatisfaction but cannot increase job satisfaction per se. Whisenand offers the following suggestions based on needs theory Do not assume that all police employees are motivated by the same needs or values. • To determine what will motivate any given worker, determine what needs that individual is trying to satisfy on the job. • Make sure that you have the authority and power to administer or withhold consequences that will satisfy a person’s need. • Design job situations so that the officers and civilians can satisfy their needs by engaging in behaviors that enable the department to achieve its mission.
The least-desirable situation from a management point of view is to have police officers experiencing low satisfaction (of higher-level human needs) and high dissatisfaction (with the organization’s efforts to meet lower-level survival, security, and social needs). The best mix involves high satisfaction and low dissatisfaction (see Figure 5–4). The police administrator’s goal under the two-factor theory is to minimize job dissatisfaction and to maximize job satisfaction. Once improved hygiene factors reduce job dissatisfaction, managers must be prepared to shift their attention to motivational factors if they are to create more job satisfaction
The best way to motivate workers (to be more efficient, effective, and productive) is to give them a bigger stake in the job itself. In fact, upgrading the job itself is the core component of Herzberg’s theory. According to Herzberg, managers motivate their subordinates by eliciting their input, encouraging participation, involving people in the decision-making process, and enlarging or enriching the job
Frederick Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory draws heavily on Maslow, Alderfer, and McGregor. It emphasizes the importance of dynamic interaction between maintenance needs (hygiene) and motivation needs (satisfiers). Like all other content theories, it has been criticized for its methodological imprecision. A major debate concerns Herzberg’s contention that hygiene factors function only as dissatisfiers, not as satisfiers. Researchers have found little or no support for this position. Nevertheless, there does seem to be some substance to the rest of Herzberg’s theory. According to Lyman Porter and Raymond E. Miles,79 much of the evidence supports the conclusion that job content factors are considered to be critically important to those workers who are asked to report their most highly satisfying job experiences.
Content Theory Revisited While it is virtually impossible to tell exactly what motivates people to act as they do in a given situation, theorists such as Maslow, Alderfer, McGregor, and Herzberg have made important contributions to our knowledge of the psychosocial processes that produce goal-oriented human behavior. They have provided us with food for thought and a springboard to further inquiry. In sum, the content theories address the following “bottom-line” requirements for managing employee motivation:
Assess employee needs. • Identify the most active needs of employees. • Develop specific strategies to satisfy active employee needs. • Implement strategies. • Evaluate the plan.
Process Theories
Many behavioral scientists have been frustrated by the seeming subjectivity and introspectiveness of the content theories.81 They are much more interested in how people are motivated to engage in goal-oriented behavior. Some of them subscribe to behavior modification approaches based on classic reinforcement theory. With Pavlovian zeal and Skinnerian logic, they believe workers can be trained to be more efficient, effective, and productive through the use of stimulus–response techniques, with money as the primary reward. Some behaviorists recommend the use of what they call “operant conditioning” to make people operate in a certain way to receive a certain reward. They contend that people are what they are and do what they do because of environmental factors rather than internal drives, needs, or abstract intellectual calculations.82 Operant conditioning theory is based on the assumption that when an operant response (the desired behavior) is followed by a pleasant incident (a reward), it causes people to associate that pleasant out-come with the desired behavior. What is needed is to target specific variable that rewards significant behaviors. Since human beings are hedonistic animals who prefer pleasure to pain, people usually behave in a way that brings them pleasure. Operant conditioning theorists encourage managers to avoid the use of punishment as the primary means of motivation; more effective, they say, is the following approach:
1. Specify the desired behavior in clear operational terms.
2. Use positive reinforcements (rewards) whenever possible. 3.
3. Minimize the time lag between desired behavior and reinforcement. 4.
4. Use a variable-ratio schedule as opposed to continuous reinforcement.
5. Determine the response level, and use shaping techniques to obtain appropriate behavior.
6. Manipulate environmental factors so that they will all reinforce the desired behavior.
7. Keep the positive reinforcement at the lowest level needed to maintain Performance.
While the operant conditioning process has been recognized for some time, there are is-sues that challenge its use. Managers within law enforcement agencies frequently utilize formal and informal rewards (and punishments) to motivate police officers. To encourage an explicit behavior, rewards are utilized to influence the likelihood the behavior will take place. A reward is what an individual perceives as desirable. In order for these rewards to motivate employees, they must be valued by the recipient. Not all employees view rewards (or punishments) equally. In fact, a reward by one employee might be viewed as such by another.84
Richard Johnson conducted research on police officer perceptions of agency rewards and punishments. While there are some limitations to the study in applying the results to all police agencies, there are some interesting findings of which leaders and managers should take note. The most notable finding of Johnson’s research was that officers viewed rewards (and punishment) in a hierarchal arrangement.85 Another interesting finding is that the standing of rewards is associated with how they impact the officer’s off duty quality of life. For example, promotion or transfer was minimally ranked in value by officers. Finally, differences in rewards were determined depending upon gender, tenure, and education.86
Leaders and managers should be cognizant of rewards and punishments, and how they can differ from employee to employee. By doing so, rewards and punishments can be interrelated to officer work behaviors leaders and managers seek to motivate and amend.87
The operant conditioning process became the centerpiece of Frederick W. Taylor’s scientific management and is still popular in some management circles. Most new process theories stress the decision-making dimension of work performance. Newer process theories represent a dynamic alternative to the more descriptive content theories dis-cussed in the last section. They have been designed to help police administrators under-stand the cognitive (thought) processes by which individual workers choose to engage in specific behaviors in order to satisfy their personal needs. Two of the most popular process theories are expectancy theory and equity theory. Both are based on the assumption that people make conscious and subconscious assessments of contemplated actions and the consequences of those actions. Personal expectations of the outcomes associated with goal-oriented behavior are critical variables in determining how people are motivated to perform at work. Let us take a closer look at these two theories.
Expectancy Theory
Expectancy theory assumes not only that people are driven by intrinsic needs but that they also make subjective decisions about what they will or will not do based on what they think will result from their effort. The motivation to work is determined, in large measure, by what the individual believes about effort-to-performance relationships and about the desirability of the work outcomes (rewards) associated with different potential levels of performance. In other words, police officers will evaluate behavioral alternatives and choose the one they believe will lead to the best ratio of reward to effort. The greater the expectation that a given behavior will pay off (in terms of an anticipated reward), the more likely people are to invest their time, talent, and expertise in order to do it well. Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory is designed to explain the dynamics involved in this type of choice behavior.88 Vroom, a well-known management consul-tant, introduced his expectancy theory in the early 1960s. He identified five critically important variables: (1) expectancies (beliefs about performance capabilities), (2) valences (beliefs about outcome desirabilities), (3) outcomes, (4) instrumentalities (beliefs about outcome contingencies), and (5) choices. Vroom discussed these variables as follows:
1. Expectancy. Expectancy is a probability estimate made by a person concerning the likelihood that a particular behavior will be followed by a particular outcome. The degree of expectancy ranges from zero (none) to one (absolute certainty). There are two levels of expectancy: Expectancy 1 (E S P) is a person’s perception of the chances that a certain level of effort (E) will lead to first-level outcomes that result in adequate job performance (P). Expectancy 2 (P S O) is a person’s perception of the chances that performance (P) will lead to desired second-level outcomes (O).
2. Valences. A valence is the strength of one’s preference for a particular outcome. Unlike expectancies, valences can be positive or negative and are measured on a scale from -1 (very undesirable) to +1 (very desirable). The level of motivation will depend on how much someone wants the ends (goals) of work effort as well as the means (or tools) needed to achieve these ends.
3. Outcomes. An outcome or reward is any need-related consequence of a behavior. First-level outcomes are the outcomes of successful job performance (a sense of accomplishment, feelings of competence, goal achievement, and so forth). Second-level outcomes are the consequences to which first-level outcomes are expected to lead (a pay increase, promotion, professional status, and so forth). Some outcomes are intrinsic to the person; others are extrinsic.
4. Instrumentality. An instrumentality is the belief that if the necessary level of performance is achieved, the anticipated outcome (reward) will be forthcoming. The overall strength of an instrumentality ranges from zero (none) to one (certainty).
5. Choice. A choice concerns the selection of a particular pattern of behavior. People weigh the potential value and consequence of each action they contemplate in order to estimate the probability that certain outcomes can be attained by choosing a particular behavior.
These variables interact with each other to affect motivation. The interactions of three of them in particular—expectancy (E), instrumentalities (I), and valence (V)—determine the extent of the motivation to perform (M). All three must have high positive values to pro-duce goal-oriented choices. If the value of any one of these three variables for a person approaches zero, the probability that he or she will be motivated to perform well also approaches zero. Vroom contends these factors are interrelated multiplicatively, as expressed in the equation M = E * I * V. When people believe they have the ability to accomplish a certain task if they perform at a particular level, their self-confidence may produce a high level of expectation (expectancy).89 This belief will not, in and of itself, motivate goal-oriented behavior, however. They must also have a high level of confidence that if they put forth the necessary effort and perform at a high level, they will be rewarded (instrumentality), and they must place high value on the reward or other anticipated outcomes (valence). A patrol officer, for example, may have the skill, steady performance, and the intradepartmental support for appointment to the SWAT team but may turn the opportunity down because this special assignment is far less important to him than maximizing the amount of time he can spend with his terminally ill wife.
Managers play a key role in operationalizing expectancy theory in the workplace. The multiplier effect (just discussed) requires police administrators to attempt to maximize expectancy, instrumentality, and valence when they seek to use work-based rewards to create high levels of work motivation among their subordinates. In order to make effective use of expectancy theory in motivating their personnel, police administrators should perform the following:
1. Establish reasonably high expectations and a climate of police professionalism that encompasses high ethical standards.
2. Recruit, screen, select, and retain well-qualified personnel.
3. Create an incentive system based on equal access to meaningful rewards.
4. Supervise subordinates in such a way that they are always learning, developing, and expanding their horizons.
5. Implement an effective in-service training program keyed to the concept of employee development. 6. Forge a direct linking pen between job performance and positive reinforcement.
7. Analyze the total situation for conflicting expectancies and take appropriate action to minimize conflict that is injurious to the organization.
8. Check to make sure there is an equitable distribution of rewards based on actual performance.
9. Keep the motivation system in a state of dynamic equilibrium.
From an expectancy perspective, the things that get rewarded get done! Establishing the proper link between job performance and meaningful rewards is the single most effective way to improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity.90 Expectancy theory has evolved into a very complex explanation of motivation, which is built around the assumption that human beings are rational animals who voluntarily choose to engage in those behaviors that their expectancy calculation tells them will consistently produce anticipated rewards (see Figure 5–5). The complexity of the expectancy model has made it very difficult to validate it through applied research. The lack of supportive data does not invalidate the concept, however. Common sense tells us that motivation depends on the dynamic interaction between our expectations, opportunities, desired outcomes, and the intensity of our desire for particular rewards. While they may not be able to explain it in technical terms, most effective police administrators have incorporated expectancy theory into their overall philosophy of management. Equity Theory One of the most sensitive issues confronting modern management is achieving equity in rewarding individual workers for their job performance. Equity means fairness. From a motivation standpoint, equity refers to the perceived fairness of rewards and of the reward system itself. J. Stacy Adams91 formulated one of the best-known equity theories. He contends that a feeling of inequity is a motivating state of mind. In other words, when people feel that there is an inequity in the way they are being treated, they will be moved psychologically to eliminate the discomfort and to restore a sense of equity to the situation. Inequities are perceived when people believe the rewards or incentives, they receive for their work output are unequal to the rewards other workers appear to be getting for comparable output. This violates the widely accepted norm that people should be treated equitably (not equally). Workers expect meaningful rewards that commensurate with their job performance. In law enforcement, equity is still a critical issue in some agencies. This is especially true in rural areas where monetary rewards are considerably less than those in urban areas, and in numerous instances, a rural deputy will have minimal health insurance for himself and members of his or her family. Equity theory is based on the idea that people want to maintain a sense of balance. They are especially interested in maintaining distributive fairness. This exists when employees think people are getting what they deserve—not more, not less.92 According to Adams’s equity theory, a key element in determining the fairness of a particular relationship lies in this type of social comparison. A perceived inequity in-volves the comparison of an existing state or condition with a given standard. Employees instinctively compare themselves and their particular situations with others in the workplace. It is common for officers to compare the work their jobs require of them with the work of other employees—for example, sergeants assigned to what are often perceived as “rubber gun squad,” details requiring little or no real police work. Comparisons of this type tend to lower morale. It is often impossible for management to justify the allocation of work. It does not matter what managers believe is fair and equitable, because pay and equity are in the minds of those affected. Even if police officers and sergeants were rewarded in exactly the same way, inequities would still be found. Inequity exists when unequal are treated as equals as well as when equals are treated as unequals. The bottom line is that perceived inequities are inevitable whenever large numbers of people interact with one another in complex law enforcement organizations. They are caused by factors such as the following:
1. Pay differentials and discretionary incentives
2. Racial, religious, sexual, and social discrimination (actual or perceived)
3. Unpredictable access to organizational resources
4. Political as opposed to merit-based promotion
5. Favoritism 6. Selective communication
7. Preferential assignment based on seniority
8. Differential status and the distribution of perquisites
Equity theory is based on the assumption that all workers have been socially programmed to compare themselves and other employees in terms of what they get out of their job (outcomes) and what they invest in their job (inputs). Outcomes include pay, fringe benefits, prestige, feelings of achievement, a sense of personal satisfaction, and so on. Inputs are factors such as special skills, training, ingenuity, perseverance, and hard work. These comparisons are then translated into ratios that reflect their inputs and outcomes vis-à-vis those of others within the workforce. A negative inequity exists when a police officer feels that he or she is receiving relatively less of a valued outcome than other officers in proportion to work inputs. A positive inequity, on the other hand, exists when an officer feels that he or she is receiving relatively more of a valued outcome than others doing the same type of work. If an individual’s input/outcome ratio is equal to that of the others, the person will experience a sense of equity. Both negative and positive inequities are motivators.93
When the reward for performance equals or exceeds what is considered fair, the satisfaction will produce repeat behavior.94 If a reward falls short of perceived equity, dissatisfaction will reduce the motivation to continue the effort. Adams noted that when employees perceive either positive (overpayment) or negative (underpayment) inequity, they will suffer cognitive dissonance and disequilibrium; to reduce these psychosocial discomforts, they will consciously or subconsciously engage in one or more of the following behaviors:
1. Increase performance, workload, and other kinds of inputs to justify higher re-wards when they perceive a positive inequity.
2. Decrease performance, workload, and other kinds of inputs when they perceive a negative inequity. 3. Change outcomes (or rewards) through personal persuasion, collective bargaining, legal action, or dysfunctional behavior such as misappropriation, employee theft, and outright corruption.
4. Change comparisons by persuading low performers with equal pay to increase their efforts and by discouraging high performers from being rate busters. Ramon J. Aldag and Loren W. Kuzuhara95 contend that managers can maintain control of the equity dynamic in their work unit if they follow these rules:
1. Assess employee perceptions of equity in their work situations.
2. Identify employees who perceive inequities.
3. Identify the basis for employee perceptions of inequity. Openness is critical because it tends to reduce suspicion and helps defuse the perception of inequity.
4. Evaluate management policies and practices to determine the validity of employee perceptions.
5. Identify specific changes that can be made to address employee equity concerns. Work with human resource experts, unions, and community administrators to re-solve concerns.
6. Implement changes and communicate them to employees. This is a very important step, and it has been found that there are few instances of overcommunication.
While these relatively simple rules will not cure all of the very complex problems associated with psychosocial equity comparisons, they should help to make the process more objective. Since most Americans equate objectivity with fairness, there could be a genuine reduction in labor–management conflict.
Even though recent research has consistently demonstrated that the perception of inequity leads to reduced output, more absenteeism, and higher employee turnover, some motivation theorists feel that equity theory is of limited value because it is a special-purpose theory rather than a general theory of motivation.96 They argue that equity theory does not explain how people select a person to compare themselves with or how they arrive at the value placed on inputs and outcomes. Nevertheless, equity theory pro-vides police administrators with an intellectual framework for thinking about issues such as equity, fairness, and justice in the allocation of rewards. In fact, feelings of inequity and injustice have served to motivate human beings throughout all of recorded history.
Implications for Police Management
Police administrators today must come to grips with one simple fact of life—they are dealing with a new breed of employee. Modern police personnel are more sophisticated than their predecessors. They are better educated, more participative, and much less resistant to change. They demand respect and expect to be treated as professionals. While money is still a magical word in the police subculture, it has a much different meaning than it did a generation ago. Salaries and fringe benefits have been improved to the point where more money, in and of itself, no longer serves as the primary motivator in many agencies, while other agencies lag behind in salaries and benefits. Police officers demand more than just money. Most of them want to do meaningful work that meets their conscious and subconscious higher-order needs for growth, self-esteem, and a sense of fulfillment.
Police managers, who are expected to get things done through others, are in a position to help satisfy the higher-order needs of their subordinates. Their job is to translate individual effort into collaborative action. Effective managers tend to be people developers who subscribe to the Theory Y assumptions of Douglas McGregor. They emphasize the importance of (1) participation, (2) job design, (3) job enlargement, (4) job enrichment, and (5) job rotation.
1. Participation. As police officers move up the professional ladder, they have an increased need to become involved in charting the course of an enterprise. They experience a strong desire to help shape its mission, set its goals, and determine its objectives. Meaningful participation in the organization’s decision-making process gives them a sense of ownership in, and a strong commitment to, the decisions it produces. Since collective decisions are often superior to those made by a single individual, managers should solicit input from their personnel and employ strategies designed to facilitate full participation. A police department will be much stronger when management is comfortable sharing power with, rather than exercising power over, its professional employees.98
2. Job design. A job consists of a task or series of tasks a person performs in support of the organization’s mission (purpose). Job design involves deliberate and purposeful planning in order to bring both the structural and psychosocial aspects of the activity together in one basic process. It is the police administrator’s responsibility to design the task and the work setting so that employees will have intrinsic motivation to perform and will derive satisfaction from a job well done. Properly designed jobs are interesting, challenging, achievable, and rewarding. Managers usually prepare job descriptions that spell out the duties, processes, authority, responsibility, and accountability inherent in a given job.99 Police managers can sometimes address morale and motivation problems by designing jobs to make them more meaningful. This is especially true for the area of discretion.
3. Job enlargement. One of the first modern methods of motivating employees through job design was job enlargement.100 This involved injecting some variety into a fairly repetitive, boring job by introducing different, yet related, kinds of tasks. Instead of doing just the same repetitive task for eight hours, police patrol personnel might do three or four different, but related, tasks requiring the same level of skill. The “police agent” concept in law enforcement represents another practical application of this idea. Police agents are patrol personnel who have responsibility of performing many of the routine duties usually assigned to detectives. Patrol officers are often allowed to conduct prelimiy investigations in misdemeanor and lower-level felony cases. These job enlargement strategies are built on the assumption that variety is the spice of life. Job enlargement motivates employees to improve job performance and increase their productivity.
4. Job enrichment. Job enrichment is a different job design strategy, which aims to counteract the negative aspects of specialization by building motivating factors into job content. Frederick Herzberg called this “vertical loading”; it is calculated to meet higher-order human needs for autonomy, growth, and self-actualization. Both job enrichment and job enlargement add variety to a job by introducing new tasks, but enlargement adds them “horizontally,” at the same skill or decision-making level, whereas enrichment adds them “vertically,” requiring higher levels of skill or decision-making ability. According to Herzberg,101 the purpose of job enrichment is to motivate people by the following ways:
1. Removing some controls while maintaining overall accountability
2. Increasing the accountability of each person for his or her own work
3. Assigning responsibility to employees for performing a natural and complete unit of work
4. Granting additional authority to people in their area of responsibility
5. Encouraging autonomy in decision-making as it relates to the task being performed
6. Introducing new and more difficult tasks not previously handled by employees at a particular level 7. Assigning individual police officers to enhanced or highly specialized tasks to help them become experts
Because of the rigid bureaucratic structure of most American police departments, job enrichment programs have not been widespread. Where such programs have been implemented, they have produced encouraging results. They motivate police personnel by targeting their higher-order needs for achievement, responsibility, recognition, advancement, and personal growth. As police departments’ personnel become more and more sophisticated, it will take innovative strategies like job enrichment to motivate them to become team players whose personal goals coincide with those of the organization.
5, Job rotation. Job rotation is a motivation strategy in which people are moved into different jobs, usually on a temporary basis, in order to give them additional experiences, understandings, and challenges. It is most often used to cross-train employees so that they gain a better appreciation for the importance of different jobs and the relationships between jobs in an organization. Employees who become involved in job rotation pro-grams are usually more valuable to themselves and their employers because they develop the ability to perform more than one limited function.102 Job rotation tends to give employees more self-confidence and helps prepare them for promotions and transfers. While many police departments have experimented with job rotation programs, they have not been as effective as originally envisioned. The enemies are bureaucracy and the lack of good management. Bureaucracy prevents police administrators from becoming leaders by turning them into paper shufflers rather than people developers.
Almost all of the available evidence suggests that these motivation strategies work if managers are careful about when, how, and with whom they are used. Their success in improving efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, and morale will depend on the composition of the workforce, the managerial skill of the police administrator, and the dynamics of the situation. These motivational strategies will probably have more influence on quality than on quantity.
CASE STUDY Captain Shirley Carr
Captain Carr is the commander of a Field Operations Division in the City of Rogersville that has a population of 101,603, and the community covers 65.4 square miles. Captain Carr has worked her way up through the ranks achieving the position of captain after 18 years of service. She is the first woman to hold this high of a position in the department. Prior to this she served as Lieutenant of Administrative Services. The preponderance of her service has been in patrol, where she served as a sergeant and then a watch commander.
Within the department, 65 percent of the officers are white, and the next largest ethnic group is Hispanic, at 27 percent. Seven percent of the force is women. Based on tradition and operational policy, the department has a definitive chain of command and is keyed to job specialization. Patrol officers are assigned to a specific beat and respond to calls, conduct preliminary investigations (when minor crimes are involved), and engage in preventive patrol when time allows. The Bureau of Criminal Investigations conducts all other investigations. Job descriptions are definitive, and everyone follows them religiously. Deviation from a job description results in immediate supervisory action that usually calls for being written-up. The Division handles 62 percent of the police department’s measurable workload and has 58 percent of the manpower.
Within the Division, there is a lieutenant who serves as an adjutant, three lieutenants who serve as watch commanders, a traffic sergeant who supervises six officers, a sergeant who supervises the Neighborhood Police unit that has a complement of 10 officers, three school resource officers, and 71 patrol officers. Officers in the specialized assignment have higher morale and seem well satisfied with their assignments. They have an opportunity to interact with each other and create meaningful and satisfying relationships. Almost all patrol officers feel that their workload is excessive and complain that all they do is go from one incident to the next and spend an inordinate amount of time creating police reports. In fact, they feel that they are unable to complete their preliminary investigations and, in many instances, have to cut corners in order to complete a shift. Except for backup in certain cases, they never get to interact with fellow officers apart from coming and going to roll-call sessions. Every patrol officer in the department works solo, and departmental police prohibits more than two officers eating meals or taking coffee breaks at the same time in the same restaurant.
The dehumanizing aspect of an excessive workload has taken its toll on the personnel assigned to the patrol division. A survey con-ducted by a member of the chief’s staff indicates that patrol officers feel in the following ways:
1. The job is viewed as dissatisfying.
2. Morale is low.
3. Response time is long.
4. The number of citizen-initiated complaints is up.
5. More officers are filing disability claims.
6. Employee turnover is exceeding projections.
The situation has become critical and imperils the division’s ability to function efficiently, effectively, and productively and has to be dealt with as soon as possible.
The solution is to design a program that meets the needs of both the department and the employees.
What philosophical approach do you believe Captain Carr should take in carrying out this project? What specific motivational strategies would you recommend that she consider? Would E.R.G. theory be applicable in this instance? Why or why not? Give several concrete examples. Would job enlargement or job enrichment be applicable in this case? Explain.
SUMMARY
Management can be defined as getting things done with and through the efforts of others. Thus, it is the police administrator’s job to create an environment within which professional employees motivate themselves. This can be done by establishing a concrete link between appropriate job behavior and meaningful rewards. Motivation is a psychosocial process. It produces an attitude that generates actions that lead to anticipated results. All other things being equal, well-motivated police officers are more efficient, effective, productive, and satisfied than unmotivated ones. Most motivation theories are based on the assumption that psychosocial tensions caused by intrinsic and/or extrinsic factors are translated into human needs. Needs elicit instrumental behaviors, and these are designed to reduce the tension. Of course, different needs generate different and unique adaptive responses. The intensity of a felt need (or needs) activates and energizes people as they interact with one another in the workplace.
Abraham Maslow’s “progression” theory of employee needs is one of the best-known content theories. As a positive humanistic theory of motivation, it stresses the im-portance of both biological drives and psychosocial needs. According to Maslow, five basic human needs activate, fuel, and shape the internal drive to overcome inertia affiliated with the status quo. He classes them as physiological (survival) needs, safety (security) needs, belonging (social) needs, self-esteem (ego) needs, and self-actualization (fulfillment) needs. While Maslow’s theory has a great deal of humanistic appeal, there is simply no con-sistent evidence to prove his contention that satisfying a human need at one level actually decreases the motivational importance of that need so that the satisfaction of a person’s needs is a process that becomes less and less concrete as time goes on. Consequently, some motivation theorists have attempted to modify the hierarchy of needs concept to make it more realistic in terms of its application to goal-oriented behavior. Clayton Alderfer’s “E.R.G.” (existence/relatedness/growth) theory has become one of the better-known content theories. Alderfer developed his E.R.G. theory in an effort to simplify Maslow’s hierarchical model. E.R.G. collapses Maslow’s five human need categories into just three and contends they are active in all human beings. Taking his cue from Maslow and other content theorists, Douglas McGregor de-veloped a different humanistic theory of management. It is based on two distinct sets of assumptions about human nature (he called them Theory X and Theory Y) and the idea that managers tend to fall into one of two groups depending on which of the two as-sumptions they make about their employees. Theory X (the traditional approach to direc-tion, control, and management) is based on a negative view of people. Theory Y (a more modern humanistic view) sees people as innately motivated and improvable. According to McGregor, managers organize, control, and attempt to motivate employees based on one or the other of these assumptions. Frederick Herzberg developed another view of human needs. His “motivation-hygiene,” or “two-factor,” theory was originally derived from an analysis of critical incidents reported by 200 engineers and accountants. They were asked to describe the times when they felt exceptionally good and exceptionally bad about their jobs. Based on the different things respondents identified as sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in their work, Herzberg identified two themes characteristic of all jobs: (1) “maintenance” or “hygiene” factors and (2) “motivational” factors. We all covet meaningful work. Victor Frankl, a philosopher, asserted that the pursuit for meaning is so great in human nature, people search for their purpose in life, even under the most extreme conditions.103 Currently, researchers have exhibited the significance of meaningfulness to be crucial to employees even more so than any other factor relating to employment, to include pay and rewards, promotion, or environmental conditions at work.104 Byproducts of meaningful work include motivation, job satisfaction, commitment, and enhanced performance. To the contrary, meaningless work can devastate employees and ultimately the organization. Most times, according to research, work that is meaningless is a consequence of treatment from managers and leaders toward employees.105 Bailey and Madden conducted a study of 135 people who worked in 10 different occupations. Interviews were conducted and, as a result, those interviewed noted several things that leaders did to generate a feeling of meaninglessness.106 These items are ranked from most to least serious.
1. Take your employees for granted. Not recognizing employees for the work they do. Not acknowledged by managers or leaders for contributions.
2. Treat people unfairly. Being unfair or unequal treatment. Procedural injustices.
3. Give people pointless work to do. Required to do tasks that did not fit with job duties. This included bureaucratic tasks and completing forms not directly related to their primary job purpose. 4. Over-ride people’s better judgment. Disempowerment or disenfranchisement over an employee’s work and how it was done. In other words, where people believed their opinions and experience did not count, or that they could not have a voice in their work, they were more likely to feel work to be meaningless.
5. Put people at risk of physical or emotional harm. Unnecessary exposure to physical or emotional risk.
6. Disconnect people from supportive relationships. Feelings of isolation or marginalization at work through deliberate ostracism on the part of managers or through feeling disconnected from co-workers and teams. Camaraderie and relations with co-workers were viewed as important.
7. Disconnect people from their values. Disconnect between employees’ personal values and those of their employer or work group. Tension between an organizational focus on the bottom line and the employee’s focus on the quality or professionalism of work.107
The aforementioned items affect employees and their feeling of meaningful work. One should be aware that these items may appear and work individually or in combination and, where present, meaningfulness can be assumed to be significantly lower in the organization.
The motivation theories discussed in this chapter fall into two very distinct cat-egories: (1) content theories and (2) process theories. Content theories attempt to explain exactly what motivates people to act as they do in a given set of circumstances. Process theories, on the other hand, deal with how people are motivated. While none of these theories provides a complete explanation of motivation or the motivation process, they tend to supplement one another and provide the police administrator with a comprehensive perspective on this very complex psychosocial phenomenon. Police administrators today must come to grips with one simple fact of life—they are dealing with a new breed of employee. Modern police personnel are more sophisticated than their predecessors. They are better educated, more participative, and much less resistant to change. They demand respect and expect to be treated as professionals. While money is still a magical word in the police subculture, it has a much different meaning than it did a generation ago. Salaries and fringe benefits have been improved to the point where more money, in and of itself, no longer serves as the primary motivator in many agencies while other agencies lag behind in salaries and benefits. Police officers demand more than just money. Most of them want to do meaningful work that meets their conscious and subconscious higher-order needs for growth, self-esteem, and a sense of fulfillment.
DISCUSSION TOPICS AND QUESTIONS
1. What do social scientists mean when they say that all hu-man behavior is caused? Why is this important to the study of motivation?
2. Define the term motive. What are the basic steps in the motivation process, and what role do motives play in this process?
3. Explain the difference between content theory and pro-cess theory. Why is this distinction important? Are these theories mutually exclusive?
4. Explain Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and show how this theory has been factored into other major content theories. What contribution did the Hawthorne experiments make to Maslow’s thinking?
5. What, from Herzberg’s perspective, is the difference be-tween a hygiene factor and a motivator? Give an example and explain why poor hygiene leads to dissatisfaction but good hygiene does not serve as a motivator.
6. Discuss the basic assumptions on which the Theory X and Theory Y continuum is built. How does the theory’s self-fulfilling prophecy influence job performance? Is Theory Y always superior to Theory X? Explain your answer.
7. What are the five elements in expectancy theory? What do expectancy theorists mean when they say that the three key elements interact multiplicatively to determine the intensity of motivation? Give an example.
8. How do people ordinarily adapt their job behavior to compensate for a perceived inequity in the way they are being treated vis-à-vis others in the workforce? What can police administrators do to control the equity dynamic in their work unit?
9. Identify the major strategies—beyond “more money”—that have developed for motivating police officers. What do you feel would be best for motivating police personnel? Why?
