Motivational Concepts

• the term motivation can be traced to Latin word Movere, which means ‘to
move’. In order to understand the concept of motivation, we have to examine
three terms: motive, motivating and motivation and their relationship.
• Motive:
• ” A motive is an inner state that energizes, activates, or moves towards goal.
• Motive causes restlessness
• What is the difference in needs and wants
 Motivation:
According to McFarland, “Motivation refers to the way in which urges,
drives, desires, aspirations, striving, or needs direct, control, or explains
the behavior of human beings.”
The Incentive Theory of Motivation
A reward, tangible or intangible, is presented after the occurrence of an
action (i.e. behavior) with the intent to cause the behavior to occur
again
Rewards can also be organized as extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic rewards
are external to the person; for example, praise or money. Intrinsic
rewards are internal to the person; for example, satisfaction or a feeling
of achievement
• Intrinsic motivation
• intrinsic motivation is the motivation that comes from inside the
performer. That is, the athelete competes for the love of the sport.
• Students try to improve performance for a better
future
• Extrinsic motivation
• comes from outside of the performer. Money is the most obvious
example, but fear and threat of punishment are also common
extrinsic motivations.
• Motivational Theories
• . The Drive Reduction Theory grows out of the concept that we have certain
biological needs, such as hunger. As time passes the strength of the drive
increases as it is not satisfied. Then as we satisfy that drive by fulfilling its desire,
such as eating, the drive’s strength is reduced
• Cognitive dissonance theory
• example of cognitive dissonance is when a belief and a behaviour are in conflict.
A person may wish to be healthy, believes smoking is bad for one’s health, and
yet continues to smoke.
• Need Achievement Theory
• David McClelland’s achievement motivation theory envisions that a person has a
need for three things, but differs in degrees to which the various needs influence
their behavior: Need for achievement, Need for power, and Need for affiliation.
• Need Hierarchy Theory
• Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs theory is the one of the most widely discussed
theories of motivation.
• The theory can be summarized as follows:
• • Human beings have wants and desires which influence their behaviour: Only unsatisfied needs
influence behavior, satisfied needs do not.
• • Since needs are many, they are arranged in order of importance, from the basic to the complex.
• • The person advances to the next level of needs only after the lower level need is at least
minimally satisfied.
• • The further the progress up the hierarchy, the more individuality, humanness and psychological
health a person will show.
• The needs, listed from basic (lowest, earliest) to most complex (highest, latest) are as follows:
• • Physiological
• Safety
• belongingness
• Esteem
• Self actualization
• The main criticisms of the MASLOW theory include the following:

• (i)  The needs may or may not follow a definite hierarchical order. So to say, there
may be overlapping in need hierarchy. For example, even if safety need is not
satisfied, the social need may emerge.

• (ii) The need priority model may not apply at all times in all places.

• (iii) Researches show that man’s behaviour at any time is mostly guided by
multiplicity of behaviour. Hence, Maslow’s preposition that one need is satisfied
at one time is also of doubtful validity.

• (iv) In case of some people, the level of motivation may be permanently lower.
For example, a person suffering from chronic unemployment may remain satisfied
for the rest of his life if only he/she can get enough food.
• Herzberg’s two-factor theory
• Fredrick Herzberg’s two-factor theory, i.e. intrinsic/extrinsic motivation,
concludes that certain factors in the workplace result in job satisfaction, but if
absent, lead to dissatisfaction.
• He distinguished between:
• • Motivators; (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give
positive satisfaction, and
• • Hygiene factors; (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) that do not
motivate if present, but, if absent, result in demotivation.
• The name Hygiene factors is used because, like hygiene, the presence will not
make you healthier, but absence can cause health deterioration.
• The theory is sometimes called the “Motivator-Hygiene Theory.”
• According to Herzberg, the opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction. The
underlying reason, he says, is that removal of dissatisfying characteristics from a
job does not necessarily make the job satisfying. He believes in the existence of a
dual continuum. The opposite of ‘satisfaction’ is ‘no satisfaction’ and the opposite
of ‘dissatisfaction’ is ‘no dissatisatisfaction’.

• Criticism for Herzberg theory

1. People generally tend to take credit themselves when things go well. They blame failure on the
external environment.

2. The theory basically explains job satisfaction, not motivation.

3. Even job satisfaction is not measured on an overall basis. It is not unlikely that a person may
dislike part of his/ her job, still thinks the job acceptable.

4. This theory neglects situational variable to motivate an individual.

• McClelland’s Need Theory

• McClelland’s need-theory is closely associated with learning theory, because he

believed that needs are learned or acquired by the kinds of events people
experienced in their environment and culture.
• They are defined as follows:
• Need for Achievement
• This is the drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standard, and to strive
to succeed. In other words, need for achievement is a behaviour directed toward
competition with a standard of excellence. McClelland found that people with a
high need for achievement perform better than those with a moderate or low need
for achievement, and noted regional / national differences in achievement
motivation.
• Through his research, McClelland identified the following three characteristics of
high-need achievers:
• High-need achievers have a strong desire to assume personal responsibility for
performing a task for finding a solution to a problem.
• 2. High-need achievers tend to set moderately difficult goals and take calculated
risks.
• 3. High-need achievers have a strong desire for performance feedback.
• Need for Power
• The need for power is concerned with making an impact on others, the desire to
influence others, the urge to change people, and the desire to make a difference in
life. People with a high need for power are people who like to be in control of
people and events. This results in ultimate satisfaction to man.
• People who have a high need for power are characterized by:
• 1. A desire to influence and direct somebody else.
• 2. A desire to exercise control over others.
• 3.maintaining leader follower relations
• Need for Affiliation
• The need for affiliation is defined as a desire to establish and maintain friendly
and warm relations with other people’. The need for affiliation, in many ways, is
similar to Maslow’s social needs.
• The people with high need for affiliation have these characteristics:
• 1. They have a strong desire for acceptance and approval from others.
• 2. They tend to conform to the wishes of those people whose friendship and
companionship they value.
• 3. They value the feelings of others.
• Self-determination theory grew out of the work of psychologists Edward Deci and
Richard Ryan, who first introduced their ideas in their 1985 book Self-Determination and
Intrinsic Motivation in Human Behavior. They developed a theory of motivation which
suggested that people tend to be driven by a need to grow and gain fulfillment.

• Two key assumptions of the theory

• (i) The need for growth drives behavior

• the first assumption of self-determination theory is that people are actively directed
toward growth.
• ii) Autonomous motivation is important
• While people are often motivated to act by external rewards such as money, prizes, and
acclaim (known as extrinsic motivation), self-determination theory focuses primarily on
internal sources of motivation such as a need to gain knowledge or independence (known
as intrinsic motivation).
• Imagine a person who fails to complete an important project at work. If this
person is high in self-determination, they will admit their fault, believe that they
can do something to fix the problem and take action to correct the mistake.

• If that same person was low in self-determination, they might instead look for
other things that they can blame. They might make excuses, assign blame, or
refuse to admit that their own role. Most importantly, perhaps, is that this person
won’t feel motivated to fix the mistake. Instead, they might feel helpless to
control the situation and believe that nothing that they do will have any real
effect.
2. Self-efficacy Theory

• (i) Experience

• If you performed a similar task well in the past, then you are more likely to be
confident that you can complete similar tasks well in the future.

• (ii) Vicarious Experience

• If you watch someone similar to you perform a task and succeed at that task then
your self-efficacy will increase. Conversely, if you watch someone similar to you
perform a task and fail then this can have a negative effect on your self-efficacy.

• (iii) Social Persuasion

• You can increase your self-efficacy if others give you encouragement that you can
perform a task.
• iv) Physiological Feedback
• For example, if you are due to perform a presentation to a large crowd of people you might
experience butterflies in your stomach.

3. Vroom’s expectancy Theory

• Vroom’s Expectancy Theory was proposed by Victor. H. Vroom, who believed that people are
motivated to perform activities to achieve some goal
• Vroom’s Expectancy Theory is based on the assumption that an individual’s behavior results
from the choices made by him with respect to the alternative course of action,
• Thus, Vroom’s Expectancy Theory has its roots in the cognitive concept, i.e. how an individual
processes the different elements of motivation. This theory is built around the concept of
valence, instrumentality, and Expectancy and, therefore, is often called as VIE theory.

• The algebraic representation of Vroom’s Expectancy theory is:

• Motivation (force) = ∑Valence x Expectancy

• (i) Valence
• It refers to the value that an individual places on a particular outcome or a
strength of an individual’s preference for the expected rewards of the outcome.
• For example, if an employee gets motivated by promotions, then he might not
value offers of increased incentives.
• (ii) Instrumentality
• Another major input into the valence is the instrumentality of first level outcome
in obtaining the second level outcome, i.e. a degree to which the first level leads
to the second level outcome
• For example, suppose an employee desires promotion and he feel that superior
performance is a key factor to achieve the goal. Thus, his first level outcomes are
superior, average and poor performance and the second level outcome is the
promotion.
• (iii) Expectancy
• Expectancy, another factor that determines the motivation, refers to the probability
that a particular action will lead to the desired outcome.
• The expectancy is different from the instrumentality in the sense; it relates efforts
to the first level outcome, whereas the instrumentality relates to first and second-
level outcomes to each other.
• Thus, expectancy is the probability that a particular action will lead to a particular
first-level outcome.

• Equity Theory
• Equity theory is based in the idea that individuals are motivated by fairness, and
if they identify inequities in the input or output ratios of themselves and their
referent group, they will seek to adjust their input to reach their perceived equity
• Equity theory is at play anytime employees say things like, ‘John gets paid a lot more than me,
but doesn’t do nearly as much work,’ or ‘I get paid a lot less than Jane, but this place couldn’t
operate without me!’ In each of those situations, someone is comparing their own effort-to-
compensation ratio to someone else’s and is losing motivation in the process

• This Theory show:

 Inputs: Inputs include all the rich and diverse elements that employees believe they bring or contribute
to the job – their education, experience, effort, loyalty, commitment.
 Outcomes: Outcomes are rewards they perceive they get from their jobs and employers outcomes
include- direct pay and bonuses, fringe benefit, job security, social rewards and psychological.
 Over rewarded: if employees fell over-rewarded equity theory predicts then they will feel an
imbalance in their relationship with their employee and seek to restore that balance.
 Equity: if employees perceive equity then they will be motivated to continue to contribute act about
the same level.
 Unrewarded: unrewarded who feel they have been unrewarded and seek to reduce their feeling in
equity through the same types of strategies but same of this specific action are now reverse.
• Roles played by equity in motivation:-

1. Employees make comparisons between their job inputs and outcomes relative to
those of others.

 If we perceive our ratio to be equal to that of the relevant others with whom we
compare ourselves, a state of equity is said to exist. We perceive our situation as
fair.

 When we see the ratio as unequal, we experience equity tension.

2. Additionally, the referent that an employee selects adds to the complexity of
equity theory. There are four referent comparisons that an employee can use:

 Self-inside: An employee’s experiences in a different position inside his or her

current organization.

 Self-outside: An employee’s experiences in a situation or position outside his or

her current organization.

 Other-inside: Another individual or group of individuals inside the employee’s

organization.

 Other-outside: Another individual or group of individuals outside the

employee’s organization.
8. The theory establishes the following propositions relating to inequitable pay:

 Given payment by time, over-rewarded employees will produce more than will
equitably pay employees.

 Given payment by the quantity of production, over-rewarded employees will

produce fewer, but higher quality, units that will equitably pay employees.

 Given payment by time, under-rewarded employees will produce less or poorer

quality of output.
• Reinforcement Theory

• The Reinforcement Theory of Motivation was proposed by B.F. Skinner and

his associates. This theory posits that behavior is the function of its
consequences, which means an individual develops a behavior after performing
certain actions.

• The behaviors that elicit consequences is called as operant behavior and

reinforcement theory work on the relationship between the operant behavior
and the associated consequences and, therefore, is often called as Operant
Conditioning. Operant conditioning means, the change in the behavior caused
due to the reinforcement (Positive reward or punishment) given after the
response.
• Following are the methods for controlling the behavior of the employees:

 Positive Reinforcement: Positive reinforcement explains that, when an employee gives a positive and a
required behavior, the response towards them should be positive. This stimulates the occurrence of a
behavior. Reward to an employee who performs well reinforces his/her desire to perform better because
of positive results of doing so.

 Negative Reinforcement: Negative reinforcement takes place when certain deterrent(s) or obstruction(s)

is removed and the employee(s) responds to a desired behavior after such removal. For instance, an
employee who commutes from a long distances wraps up a few projects faster than desired; but, when he
is told by the manager to take the projects home for a couple of days and complete them, it stimulates
him/her to work as expected. By removing the negative stimuli, the desired behavior is reinforced.

 Punishment: Punishment refers to imposing negative consequences or removing positive consequences

with a view to preventing employee(s) from repeating undesirable and uncalled for behaviors. It can,
therefore, be both positive and negative.

 Extinction: Extinction refers to extinguishing a learned behavior by withholding a positive

reinforcement or reward that has encouraged the behavior.
• Perception Meaning and Process
• Perception is an intellectual process of transforming sensory stimuli to
meaningful information. It is the process of interpreting something that we see or
hear in our mind and use it later to judge and give a verdict on a situation, person,
group etc.
• It can be divided into six types:
 Of sound: The ability to receive sound by identifying vibrations.

 Of speech: The competence of interpreting and understanding the sounds of

language heard.

 Touch: Identifying objects through patterns of its surface by touching it.

 Taste: The ability to receive flavor of substances by tasting it through sensory

organs known as taste buds.
 Other senses: They approve perception through body, like balance, acceleration, pain,
time, sensation felt in throat and lungs etc.

 Of the social world: It permits people to understand other individuals and groups of
their social world. Example − Priya goes to a restaurant and likes their customer service,
so she will perceive that it is a good place to hang out and will recommend it to her
friends, who may or may not like it. Priya’s perception about the restaurant is good.
• Perception  Process
• Perception process are the different stages of perception we go through. The different
stages are:
 Receiving

 Selecting

 Organizing

 Interpreting
• 1. Receiving
• Receiving is the first and most important stage in the process of perception. It is
the initial stage in which a person collects all information and receives the
information through the sense organs.
• 2. Selecting
• Selecting is the second stage in the process. Here a person doesn’t receive the data
randomly but selectively. A person selects some information out of all in
accordance with his interest or needs. The selection of data is dominated by
various external and internal factors.
 External factors: The factors that influence the perception of an individual externally are
intensity, size, contrast, movement, repetition, familiarity, and novelty.

 Internal factors: The factors that influence the perception of an individual

internally are psychological requirements, learning, background, experience, self-
acceptance, and interest.
• 3. Organizing
• Keeping things in order or say in a synchronized way is organizing. In order to make
sense of the data received, it is important to organize them.
• We can organize the data by:
 Grouping them on the basis of their similarity, proximity, closure, continuity.

 Establishing a figure ground is the basic process in perception. Here by figure we mean what is
kept as main focus and by ground we mean background stimuli, which are not given attention.

 Perceptual constancy that is the tendency to stabilize perception so that contextual changes don’t
affect them.
• 4. Interpreting
• Finally, we have the process of interpreting which means forming an idea about a
particular object depending upon the need or interest. Interpretation means that the
information we have sensed and organized, is finally given a meaning by turning it
into something that can be categorized. It includes stereotyping, halo effect etc.
• Importance of Perception in OB
• We need to understand what the role of perception in an organization is. It is very
important in establishing different role of perceptions like:
 Understanding the tasks to be performed.

 Understanding associated importance of tasks allotted.

 Understanding preferred behavior to complete respective tasks.

 Clarifying role perceptions.

• For example, every member in a group has to be clear regarding the role allotted
to them. Programmer writes the code, tester checks it, etc.
• Principles of Perception
• William James American psychologist has said if we understand the world
as it appears to us, it will be a big booming- buzzing confusion. Hence, we
do not see the things as they appear, but we see them as we want, i.e. more
meaningfully.

• This is more meaningfully stated in the gestalt principle as ‘the whole is

better than sum total of its parts’. This is explained under many sub-
This phenomenon was well explained
principles of perception.
by Gestalt psychologists
• Figure-ground Relationship

• According to this principle any figure can be perceived more meaningfully in a

background and that figure cannot be separated from that background. For
example, letters written with a white chalk piece are perceived clearly in the
background of a blackboard.

• In the Figure, two faces can be seen in the background of a white colour. So also the
white background can be perceived as a vessel in the background of two faces.

• GROUPING OF STIMULI IN PERCEPTUAL

ORGANIZATION
• As said above, according to gestalt principle, the objects can be perceived
meaningfully when they are grouped together. There are some principles which are
followed by us in order to make our perception more meaningful.
• (i) Proximity

• Proximity means nearness. The objects which are nearer to each other can
be perceived meaningfully by grouping them. For example, the word ‘Man’,
here though the letters are discrete, when grouped together gives some
meaning. The stars in the Figure which are nearer to each other are
perceived together as groups/single figure.

• ii) Similarity

• Stimuli need not be nearer to each other for perception. If there is

similarity in these objects, they are grouped together and perceived, even if
they are away. For example, in this Figure grouping will be done according
to similarity, i.e. all circles, squares and triangles are grouped separately.
• (iii) Continuity

• Any stimulus which extends in the same direction or shape will be

perceived as a whole Figure A and B. For example, (A) in this figure though
the curved line is broken, it is perceived as a continuous line, so also
straight line is not seen with semicircles but as a continuous line (B) the
dots are perceived as existing in the same line of direction continuously.
• (iv) Closure

• When a stimulus is presented with gaps, the human tendency is to perceive

that figure as complete one by filling the gaps psychologically. For
example, in the Figure, the gaps are filled psychologically and perceived as
letters M and A, circle and a rectangle.
• (v) Symmetry

• Objects which are having symmetrical shape are perceived as groups. For
example, the brackets of different shapes shown in the Figure perceived
meaningfully, because they are grouped together and perceived as
brackets.
1. Stereo Typing

• “Making positive or negative generalizations about a group or category of people, usually based
on inaccurate assumptions and beliefs and applying these generalizations to an individual
member of the group.” For e.g. Girls are very talkative, Rich are cruel to poor.

2.Halo Effect

• Drawing general impression of individual on the basis of a single characteristic. I.e. if someone is
good at one dimension, he/she is perceived to be good at other dimensions as well.

3.Recency Effect

• When the most RECENT information influences our judgment, even though we have a whole of
other information on the Person.

4.The Similar-to-Me Effect

• We tend to favor/like or give favorable judgment to those who are similar to us. Example two
candidates came along for interview, one from Delhi and the other from Bihar. As interviewer is
from Delhi, he tends select to the candidate from Delhi, better evaluation.
• Managerial applications of perception
1. Employment Interview

The employment interview is an important input into the hiring decision

and a manager must recognize that perceptual factors influence who is
hired. Therefore, eventually the quality of an organization’s labour force
depends on the perception of the interviewers.

2.Performance Evaluation

• The evaluator forms a general impression of an employee’s work. What the

evaluator perceives to be “good” or “bad” employee characteristics will,
significantly influences the appraisal outcome. An employee’s future is
closely tied to his or her appraisal -promotions, pay raises and
continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes.
3.Performance Expectations

• A manager’s expectations of an individual affect both the manager’s behaviour

towards the individual and the individual’s response. An impressive amount of
evidence demonstrates that people will attempt to validate their perceptions of
reality, even when these perceptions are faulty. This is particularly relevant
when we consider performance expectations on the job.

4.Employee Loyalty
• Another important judgement that managers make about
employees is whether they are loyal to the organization. Few
organizations appreciate employees, especially those in the
managerial ranks
• BEHAVIOURAL APPLICATIONS OF PERCEPTION

1. Individual selects the stimuli on the basis of certain guidelines which are
termed

Principle of Intensity

• According to intensity principle of perceptual selection, the more intense

the external stimulus, the more likely it is to be perceived. Loud sound,
dark color, strong smell, bold and italic letters etc. are perceived more
easily and quickly in comparison to the soft sound, light color, soft smell.
This principle is used frequently in advertisement like bright color in
packaging, loud sound in television commercials. Supervisors sought loudly
to get attention.
•
2.Principle of size
• This means that the stimulus with larger size is easily perceived than the
stimulus having small size. Full page advertisement gets more attention of
readers. In the given figure, bigger circle is likely to be perceived quickly
which draws the attention of viewer
3.Principle of contrast
• . For example, person wearing different color dress in a group can perceive
the attention. Employees with different sound or vision are perceived
quickly. Likewise the word DANGER written with red letter on while
background draws quick attention
4.Principle of Novelty and Familiarity

• For instance, new person in locality draws more attention while familiar
face can easily be recognized. New design of vehicle or machine or dress
can be perceived fast.

5.Principle of repetition
• Supervisors and managers give directions again and again to their
subordinates so that they can remember.