We define motivation as the processes that account for an individual’s
intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal. 4 While
general motivation is concerned with effort toward any goal, we’ll narrow
the focus to organizational goals in order to reflect our singular interest in
work-related behavior.
The hierarchy, if it applies at all, aligns with U.S. culture. In Japan, Greece,
and Mexico, where uncertainty-avoidance characteristics are strong, security
needs would be on top of the hierarchy. Countries that score high on nurturing
characteristics—Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland—
would have social needs on top. 6 Group work will motivate employees more
when the country’s culture scores high on the nurturing criterion.
Maslow’s theory has received wide recognition, particularly among practicing
managers. It is intuitively logical and easy to understand. When introduced,
it provided a compelling alternative to behaviorist theories that posited only
physiological and safety needs as important. Unfortunately, however, research
does not validate it. Maslow provided no empirical substantiation, and several
studies that sought to validate it found no support for it. 7 There is little evidence
that need structures are organized as Maslow proposed, that unsatisfied needs
motivate, or that a satisfied need activates movement to a new need level
Second, a high
need to achieve does not necessarily make someone a good manager, especially
in large organizations. People with a high achievement need are interested in
how well they do personally, and not in influencing others to do well. HighnAch
salespeople do not necessarily make good sales managers, and the good
general manager in a large organization does not typically have a high need
to achieve. 15 Third, needs for affiliation and power tend to be closely related
to managerial success. The best managers are high in their need for power
and low in their need for affiliation. 16 In fact, a high power motive may be a
requirement for managerial effectiveness. 17
The view that a high achievement need acts as an internal motivator presupposes
two U.S. cultural characteristics—willingness to accept a moderate degree
of risk (which excludes countries with strong uncertainty-avoidance characteristics)
and concern with performance (which applies to countries with strong
achievement characteristics). This combination is found in Anglo-American
countries such as the United States, Canada, and Great Britain 18 and much less
in Chile and Portugal.
Among the early theories of motivation, McClelland’s has had the best
research support. Unfortunately, it has less practical effect than the others.
Because McClelland argued that the three needs are subconscious—we may
rank high on them but not know it—measuring them is not easy. In the most
common approach, a trained expert presents pictures to individuals, asks
them to tell a story about each, and then scores their responses in terms of the
three needs. However, the process is time consuming and expensive, and few
organizations have been willing to invest in measuring McClelland’s concep
A recent outgrowth of self-determination theory is self-concordance,
which considers how strongly peoples’ reasons for pursuing goals are consistent
with their interests and core values. If individuals pursue goals because of
an intrinsic interest, they are more likely to attain their goals and are happy
even if they do not. Why? Because the process of striving toward them is fun.
In contrast, people who pursue goals for extrinsic reasons (money, status, or
other benefits) are less likely to attain their goals and less happy even when
they do. Why? Because the goals are less meaningful to them. 23 OB research
suggests that people who pursue work goals for intrinsic reasons are more
satisfied with their jobs, feel they fit into their organizations better, and may
perform better.
Herzberg’s methodology is limited because it relies on self-reports. When
things are going well, people tend to take credit. Contrarily, they blame
failure on the extrinsic environment.
2. The reliability of Herzberg’s methodology is questionable. Raters have to
make interpretations, so they may contaminate the findings by interpreting
one response in one manner while treating a similar response differently.
3. No overall measure of satisfaction was utilized. A person may dislike part of
a job yet still think the job is acceptable overall.
4. Herzberg assumed a relationship between satisfaction and productivity,
but he looked only at satisfaction. To make his research relevant, we must
assume a strong relationship between satisfaction and productivity.
do your best.” Why? Specificity itself seems to act as an internal stimulus. When
a trucker commits to making 12 round-trip hauls between Toronto and Buffalo,
New York, each week, this intention gives him a specific objective to attain.
All things being equal, he will outperform a counterpart with no goals or the
generalized goal “do your best.”
If factors such as acceptance of the goals are held constant, the more difficult
the goal, the higher the level of performance. Of course, it’s logical to assume
easier goals are more likely to be accepted. But once a hard task is accepted, we
can expect the employee to exert a high level of effort to try to achieve it.
But why are people motivated by difficult goals? 39 First, challenging goals get
our attention and thus tend to help us focus. Second, difficult goals energize
us because we have to work harder to attain them. Do you study as hard for an
easy exam as you do for a difficult one? Probably not. Third, when goals are difficult,
people persist in trying to attain them. Finally, difficult goals lead us to
discover strategies that help us perform the job or task more effectively. People do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing
toward their goals, because it helps identify discrepancies between what they
have done and what they want to do—that is, feedback guides behavior. But all
feedback is not equally potent. Self-generated feedback—with which employees
are able to monitor their own progress—is more powerful than externally
generated feedback
Chung Mong-koo, chairman of
Hyundai Motor Company, is well
known for articulating difficult
and specific goals as a potent
motivating force. For example,
although Hyundai was a latecomer
in the development of a hybrid
vehicle, the South Korean automaker
launched its first U.S.
hybrid in 2010, with annual sales
set at 50,000 units. By 2018, the
company expects hybrid sales to
balloon to 500,000 units worldwide.
Challenging employees to reach
high goals has helped Hyundai
experience tremendous growth in
recent years
Goal-setting theory assumes an individual is committed to the goal and determined
not to lower or abandon it. The individual (1) believes he or she
can achieve the goal and (2) wants to achieve it. 44 Goal commitment is most
likely to occur when goals are made public, when the individual has an internal
locus of control (see Chapter 4 ), and when the goals are self-set rather than
assigned. 45 Goals themselves seem to affect performance more strongly when
tasks are simple rather than complex, well learned rather than novel, and independent
rather than interdependent. 46 On interdependent tasks, group goals
are preferable.
Finally, setting
Women are typically paid less than men in comparable jobs and have lower
pay expectations than men for the same work. 77 So a woman who uses another
woman as a referent tends to calculate a lower comparative standard. Of course,
employers’ stereotypes about women (for example, the belief that women are
less committed to the organization or that “women’s work” is less valuable) also
may contribute to the pay gap. 78 While both men and women prefer same-sex
comparisons, employees in jobs that are not sex segregated will likely make more
cross-sex comparisons than those in jobs that are male or female dominated.
Employees with short tenure in their current organizations tend to have
little information about others inside the organization, so they rely on
their personal experiences. Employees with long tenure rely more heavily
on co-workers for comparison. Upper-level employees, those in the professional
ranks, and those with higher amounts of education tend to have better
information about people in other organizations and will make more other–
outside comparisons.
Based on equity theory, employees who perceive inequity will make one of
six choices: 79
1. Change inputs (exert less effort if underpaid or more if overpaid).
2. Change outcomes (individuals paid on a piece-rate basis can increase their
pay by producing a higher quantity of units of lower quality).
3. Distort perceptions of self (“I used to think I worked at a moderate pace,
but now I realize I work a lot harder than everyone else.”).
4. Distort perceptions of others (“Mike’s job isn’t as desirable as I thought.”).
5. Choose a different referent (“I may not make as much as my brother-in-law,
but I’m doing a lot better than my Dad did when he was my age.”).
6. Leave the field (quit
Finally, recent research has expanded the meaning of equity, or fairness.
83
Historically, equity theory focused on distributive justice, the employee’s
perceived fairness of the amount rewards among individuals and who received
them. But organizational justice draws a bigger picture. Employees perceive
their organizations as just when they believe rewards and the way they are
distributed are fair. In other words, fairness or equity can be subjective; what
one person sees as unfair, another may see as perfectly appropriate. In general,
people see allocations or procedure favoring themselves as fair. 84 In a recent
poll, 61 percent of respondents said they pay their fair share of taxes, but an
almost equal number (54 percent) felt the system as a whole is unfair, saying
some people skirt it. 85
Most of the equity
Early research efforts to isolate leadership traits resulted in a number of
dead ends. A review in the late 1960s of 20 different studies identified nearly
80 leadership traits, but only 5 were common to 4 or more of the investigations. 2
By the 1990s, after numerous studies and analyses, about the best we could say
was that most leaders “are not like other people,” but the particular traits that
characterized them varied a great deal from review to review. 3 It was a pretty
confusing state of affairs
Ohio studies in 1940s :
initiating structure and consideration
michigan : employee oriented and production oriented.
charismatic
Even in laboratory studies, when people are psychologically
aroused, they are more likely to respond to charismatic leaders. 56 This may explain
why, when charismatic leaders surface, it’s likely to be in politics or religion,
or during wartime, or when a business is in its infancy or facing a life-threatening
crisis. Franklin D. Roosevelt offered a vision to get the United States out of the
Great Depression in the 1930s. In 1997, when Apple Computer was floundering
and lacking direction, the board persuaded charismatic co-founder Steve Jobs to
return as interim CEO and return the company to its innovative roots.
Another situational factor apparently limiting charisma is level in the
organization. Top executives create vision; it’s more difficult to utilize a person’s
charismatic leadership qualities in lower-level management jobs or to align his
or her vision with the larger goals of the organization.
Finally, people are especially receptive to charismatic leadership when
they sense a crisis, when they are under stress, or when they fear for their
lives. Charismatic leaders are able to reduce stress for their employees, perhaps
because they help make work seem more meaningful and interesting. 57
And some peoples’ personalities are especially susceptible to charismatic
leadership. 58 Consider self-esteem. An individual who lacks self-esteem and
questions his or her self-worth is more likely to absorb a leader’s direction
rather than establish his or her own way of leading or thinking.
celebrities on the order of David Beckham and Madonna. Every company wanted
a charismatic CEO, and to attract them boards of directors gave them unprecedented
autonomy and resources—the use of private jets and multimillion-dollar
penthouses, interest-free loans to buy beach homes and artwork, security staffs,
and similar benefits befitting royalty. One study showed charismatic CEOs were
able to leverage higher salaries even when their performance was mediocre. 59
Unfortunately, charismatic leaders who are larger than life don’t necessarily
act in the best interests of their organizations. 60 Many have allowed their personal
goals to override the goals of the organization. The results at companies such
as Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, and HealthSouth were leaders who recklessly used
organizational resources for their personal benefit and executives who violated
laws and ethical boundaries to inflate stock prices and allow leaders to cash in
millions of dollars in stock options. It’s little wonder research has shown that individuals
who are narcissistic are also higher in some behaviors associated with
charismatic leadership. 61
It’s not that charismatic leadership isn’t effective; overall, it is. But a charismatic
leader isn’t always the answer. Success depends, to some extent, on
the situation and on the leader’s vision. Some charismatic leaders—Hitler, for
example—are all too successful at convincing their followers to pursue a vision
that can be disastrous.
The GLOBE study—of 18,000 leaders from 825 organizations in 62 countries—
links a number of elements of transformational leadership with effective leadership,
regardless of country. 84 This conclusion is very important because it
disputes the contingency view that leadership style needs to adapt to cultural
difference
