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Motivation in the Workplace

Understanding what motivates an organization’s employees is central to the study of I/O Psychology. A number of various theories and topics define employee motivation within the discipline of I/O Psychology: Motives and Needs, Expectancy Theory, Equity Theory, Goal-Setting, Cognitive Evaluation Theory, Work Design, Reinforcement Theory, creativity, groups, and culture(?)(Ambrose and Kulik, 1999).

Motives & Needs

Most recently, research in motives and needs in I/O Psychology has concentrated on two areas: Job attributes and Need for Achievement (Ambrose & Kulik, 1999). Job attributes: It is impossible to discuss motivation and job attributes in I/O Psychology without crediting Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory (also referred to as Herzberg’s 2-Factor Model). As the first job-based theory, Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene Theory argued the content of a person’s job (see figure ### Motivation Factors) was the primary source of motivation. In other words, he argued money was not the most effective form of motivation for an employee (Jex & Britt, 2008).

       (Collins, 2007)

Shortly after Herzberg’s 2-Factor Model, Hackman and Oldham contributed their own, more refined, job-based theory; Job Characteristics Theory. Figure ### shows the starting point, column labeled “core job dimensions”; these are the dimensions or characteristics of a person’s job. The core job dimensions are linked to the “critical psychological states” column; this column represents an employee’s psychological experience as a result of performing the tasks in the previous column. The third column, “affective outcomes”, encompasses internal work motivation and personal employee satisfaction. Lastly, the glue of this model is the “growth need strength” factor located at the bottom of the diagram. Ultimately, this last segment of the model determines the effectiveness of the core job dimensions on the psychological states, and likewise the effectiveness of the critical psychological states on the affective outcomes (Wright, xxxx). Further analysis of Job Characteristics Theory can be found in the Work Design section below.

Need for Achievement: Atkinson & McClelland’s Need for Achievement Theory is the most relevant and applicable need based theory in the I/O Psychologist’s arsenal. Unlike other need-based theories, which try to interpret every need, Need for Achievement allows the I/O psychologist to concentrate research into a tighter focus. Studies show those who have a high need for achievement prefer moderate levels of risk, seek feedback, and are likely to immerse themselves in their work (Jex & Britt). Achievement motivation can be broken down into three types: Achievement; seeks position advancement, feedback, and sense of accomplishment, Authority; need to lead, make an impact and be heard by others, and Affiliation; need for friendly social interactions and to be liked. Because most individuals have a combination of these three types (in various proportions), an understanding of these achievement motivation characteristics can be a useful assistance to management in job placement, recruitment, etc. (McClelland, 1965).

Work Design

Job based theories of motivation in Organizational Psychology rely on the proposition that the content of one’s job is the most significant source of motivation. Based on that assumption, several approaches to work design have been researched and applied, including Hertzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene theory and Job Characteristics Theory. Each theory has informed the evolution of work design approaches. The following work design approaches to motivation illustrate this evolution: the Humanistic Approach which then led to the Job Characteristics Approach to job design.

Humanistic Approach

The Humanistic Approach to job design was a reaction to the “worker dissatisfaction over Scientific Management” and focused on providing employees with more input and an opportunity to maximize their personal achievement as referenced by Jex and Britt (2008). The two approaches used in the Humanistic Approach to job design are job rotation and job enrichment. Job rotation allows employees to learn new skills and provides them with greater variety. According to Jex and Britt (2008) this would be most effective for simple jobs that can become mundane and boring over time. Job enrichment is based on leveraging those aspects of jobs that are labeled motivators, such as control, intellectual challenge, and creativity. The most common form of job enrichment is vertical loading where additional tasks or discretion enhances the initial job design.

Job Characteristics Approach

The Job Characteristics Approach to job design relies on how core dimensions affect motivation. These dimensions include autonomy, variety, significance, feedback, and identity. Jex and Britt (2008) highlight several interventions related to enhancing these core dimensions:

1. Vertical Loading – similar to the intervention used in the Humanistic Job Enrichment approach. This intervention is designed to enhance autonomy, task identity, task significance, and skill variety.
2. Task Combination – by combining tasks into larger units of work and responsibility, task identity may be enhanced.
3. Natural Work Units – is a form of task combination that represents a logical body of work and responsibility that may enhance both task significance and task identity.
4. Establishing Client Relationships – designs interactions between employees and customers, both internal and external to enhance task identify, feedback, and task significance by improving the visibility of beneficial effects on customers.
5. Feedback – by designing open feedback channels this intervention attempts to increase the amount of feedback received.

In the same way that job based theories to motivation have evolved over time, the approach to designing work for motivating employees have evolved. The Humanistic Approach attempted to improve the effectiveness on motivation by focusing on design from the workers perspective, with an eye towards input and personal achievement. The Job Characteristics Approach attempts to enhance motivation by focusing on improving the core dimensions of autonomy, variety, significance, feedback, and identity.

Expectancy Theory

According to Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, an employee will work smarter and/or harder if he believes his additional efforts will lead to valued rewards. Expectancy Theory explains this increased output of effort by means of the equation F = E (Σ I x V), whereas:

F (Effort or Motivational Force) = Effort the employee will expend to achieve the desired performance;

E (Expectancy) = Belief that effort will result in desired level of performance;

I (Instrumentality) = Belief that desired level of performance will result in desired outcome;

V (Valence) = Value of the outcome to the employee (Jex & Britt, 2008).

There are three key considerations in applying Expectancy Theory to the workplace:

Performance-Outcome Expectancy -

Employees believe that if they perform as desired by their employer, they will be rewarded with certain outcomes.

Outcome Attractiveness -

Each individual employee is motivated by different kinds of rewards. A precursor to motivation is that the employee finds the reward(s) attractive.

Effort-Performance Expectancy -

The employee internally considers how likely it is that he will achieve the performance desired by the employer. In order for the employee to be motivated by the reward, the employee must believe that he is capable of achieving the desired performance.

Expectancy Theory’s contribution to motivational thought is that it shows employee satisfaction to be an outcome of performance rather than the cause of the performance. However, if a pattern is established whereas an employee understands his performance will lead to certain desired rewards, an employee’s motivation can be strengthened based on anticipation (Lawler III & Jenkins, Jr., 1992).

Equity Theory

Equity Theory provides a framework for understanding the dynamic give-and-take scenarios that play out between employee and employer. The Theory examines the value proposition the employee forms when he considers the value that he provides to his employer relative to the value that his employer provides to him (Pritchard, 1969). In particular, Equity Theory research has tested employee sentiments regarding equitable compensation.

Employee inputs take the form of work volume and quality, performance, knowledge, skills, attributes and behaviors. The company-generated outcomes include rewards such as compensation, praise and advancement opportunities. The employee compares his inputs relative to outcomes; and, then, extrapolating to the social context, the employee compares his input/outcome ratio with the perceived ratios of his peers to determine if he is being under-compensated, over-compensated or equitably compensated (Pritchard, 1969).

While it has been established that equity theory provides insight into scenarios of under-compensation, Equity Theory has generally failed to demonstrate its usefulness in understanding scenarios of overcompensation (Ambrose & Kulik, 1999). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, equity theory research was superseded by research using an organizational justice framework (Latham & Pinder, 2005, Ambrose & Kulik, 1999).

Goal Setting

An I/O psychologist can assist an employer in designing task related goals for their employees that are 1) attainable, 2) specific, 3) appropriately difficult, and 4) feedback providing, in hopes of rousing tunnel vision focus in the employees (Locke & Latham, 1990). Studies have shown both feedback from the employer and self-efficacy (belief in one's capabilities to achieve a goal) within the employee must be present for goal setting to be effective (Wright, 1992). However, because of the tunnel vision focus created by goal setting theory, several studies have shown this motivational theory may not be applicable in all situations. In fact, in tasks that require creative on the spot improvising, goal setting can even be counterproductive (Staw & Boettger, 1990). Furthermore, because clear goal specificity is essential to a properly designed goal setting task, multiple goals can create confusion for the employee and the end result is a muted overall drive (Gilliland & Landis, 1992). Despite its flaws, Goal Setting Theory is arguably the most dominant theory in the field of I/O Psychology; over one thousand articles and reviews published in just over thirty years (Mitchell & Daniels, 2003; Latham & Pinder, 2004).

Cognitive Evaluation Theory

Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET) is a subset of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as proposed by Deci and Ryan. CET attempts to determine whether the employee’s source of motivation is derived from internal, external or a combination of internal and external sources. CET was proposed for examining conditions in which both internal and external factors contribute to motivation, in particular the impact of external factors on intrinsic motivation. CET theorizes that external factors including rewards and managerial oversight can make an employee feel less autonomous, which can result in decreased intrinsic motivation (Gagne & Deci, 2005).

Reinforcement Theory

Among the various theories of motivation, the reinforcement theory has received great attention within the past few decades. In short, this theory highlights the relationship between behavior and its consequences. At the most pedestrian level, reinforcement was first brought to the forefront by Skinner when he shared findings on pigeons pressing buttons (behavior) to receive food (consequence). When translated into motivation in the workplace, the reinforcement theory certainly has its applications. At a systematic level, employee behaviors are identified, measured, and analyzed in terms of their functional consequences (Ambrose & Kulik, 1999), and then an intervention is implemented to encourage an increase in motivation. The studies which used this framework showed an improvement in performance after the intervention (Ambrose & Kulik). Further, Sama, Kopelman, and Manning (1994) found that use of a reinforcement strategy called Premack’s principles improved employees’ productivity twofold. Punishment is also part of the reinforcement theory in that it attempts to decrease undesired behaviors. While studies have shown that punishment may produce an overall behavior change, it decreases employee morale and intrinsic motivation and should thus be avoided (Butterfield, Trevino, & Ball, 1996).

Creativity

On the cutting edge of research pertaining to motivation in the workplace is the integration of motivation and creativity. Essentially, according to Ambrose and Kulik (1999), the same variables that predict intrinsic motivation are associated with creativity. This is a helpful conclusion in that organizations can measure and influence both creativity and motivation simultaneously. Further, allowing employees to choose creative and challenging jobs/tasks has been shown to improve motivation (Latham & Pinder, 2005). In order to increase creativity, setting “creativity goals” can positively influence the process, along with allowing more autonomy (i.e. giving employees freedom to feel/be creative). Other studies have found that team support may enable more creativity in a group setting (West & Anderson, 1996), also increasing motivation.

Groups and Teams

As the workplace is changing to include more group-based systems, researching motivation within these groups is of growing importance. To date, a great amount of research has focused on the Job Characteristics Theory and the goal-setting theory. While more research is needed that draws on a broader range of motivation theories, research thus far has concluded several things; a)semi-autonomous groups report higher levels of job scope (related to intrinsic job satisfaction), extrinsic satisfaction, and organizational commitment; and c) developmentally mature teams have higher job motivation and innovation. Further, voluntarily formed work teams report high work motivation (Ambrose & Kulik, 1999). Though research shows that appropriate goal-setting influences group motivation and performance, more research is needed in this area (group goals, individual goals, cohesiveness, etc.). There are inseparable mediating variables consisting of group cohesiveness, commitment, and performance. As the workplace environment calls for more and more teams to be formed, research into motivation of teams is ever-pressing. Thus far, overarching research merely suggests that individual-level and team-level sources of motivation are congruent with each other. (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003). Consequently, research should be expanded to apply more theories of motivation; look at group dynamics; and essentially conclude how groups can be most impacted to increase motivation and, consequently, performance.

Culture Strength, Strategic Appropriateness, Adaptability

Kotter and Heskett (1992) categorize cultures into three groups: Strong, Strategically Appropriate, and Adaptive. Each has been identified with high performing organizations and has particular implications on motivation in the workplace.

Strength

According to Kotter and Heskett (1992), the most widely reported effect of culture on performance is that strong cultures result in high performance. The three reasons for this are goal alignment, motivation, and the resulting structure provided. Goal alignment is driven by the proposed unified voice that drives employees in the same direction. Motivation comes from the strength of values and principles in such a culture. And structure is provided by these same attributes which obviate the need for formal controls that could stifle employees. There are questions that concern researchers about causality and the veracity of the driving voice of a strong culture.

Strategically Appropriateness

A strategically appropriate culture motivates due to the direct support for performance in the market and industry: “The better the fit, the better the performance; the poorer the fit, the poorer the performance” Kotter and Heskett (1992). There is an appeal to the idea that cultures are designed around the operations conditions a firm encounters although an outstanding issue is the question of adapting culture to changes in the environment.

Adaptability

Another perspective in culture literature asserts that in order for an organization to perform at a high level over a long period of time, it must be able to adapt to changes in the environment. According to Ralph Kilmann, in such a culture “there is a shared feeling of confidence: the members believe, without a doubt, that they can effectively manage whatever new problems and opportunities will come their way.” In effect, the culture is infused with a high degree of self-efficacy and confidence. As with the strong culture, critics point to the fact that the theory provides nothing in the way of appropriate direction of adaptation that leads to high performance.

Competing Values Framework

Another perspective on culture and motivation comes from the work of Cameron and Quinn (2006) and the Competing Values Framework. They divide cultures into four quadrants: Clan, Adhocracy, Market, Hierarchy, with particular characteristics that directly affect employee motivation.

Kaarst-Brown, Nicholson, von Dran, Stanton (2004)

• ‘’Clan’’ cultures are collaborative and driven by values such as commitment, communication, and individual development. Motivation results from human development, employee engagement, and a high degree of open communication.
• ‘’Adhocracy’’ cultures are creative and innovative. Motivation in such cultures arises from finding creative solutions to problems, continually improving, and empowering agility.
• ‘’Market’’ cultures focus on value to the customer and are typically competitive and aggressive. Motivation in the market culture results from winning in the marketplace and creating external partnerships.
• And finally, ‘’Hierarchy’’ cultures value control, efficiency, and predictability. Motivation in such a culture relies on effectiveness, capability, and consistency. Effective hierarchy cultures have developed mature and capable processes which support smooth operations.

Culture has been shown to directly affect organizational performance. When viewed through the lens of accepted behaviors and ingrained values, culture also profoundly affects motivation. Whether one looks at the type of culture – strong, strategically appropriate, or adaptive – as Kotter and Heskett (1992) do, or at the style of culture – Clan, Adhocracy, Market, or Hierarchy – as Cameron and Quinn (2006) do, the connection between culture and motivation becomes clear and provides insights into how to hire, task, and motivate employees.

Summary

The effects of motivation are fundamental to organizational and employee performance and thus I/O Psychology. As Jex and Britt (2008) point out “organizations that are armed with a clear understanding of motivation are in a better position to influence employee behavior than are organizations that lack this knowledge.” As described, some of the important theories in this discipline cover Motives and Needs, Expectancy Theory, Equity Theory, Goal-Setting, Cognitive Evaluation Theory, Work Design, and Reinforcement Theory.