The following theories are helpful in understanding motivation, particularly for managers and business students.
Goal-Setting Theory of Motivation
Goals or intentions motivate workers to meet higher performance levels. Employees are more likely to target reachable goals, but allowing them to take part in goal setting can increase their commitment to even those goals that are more difficult to attain.
In his book Performance Management, Aubrey Daniels stresses that goals are not the sole source of motivation, and that goal-setting programs like MBO (management by objectives) fail because organizations do not take into account the need for reinforcers. Managers should strive to “reinforce progress toward the goal, maintenance of performance at or above the goal, and achieving levels of performance above the goal.”
Reinforcement Theory of Motivation
Reinforcement theory is a behaviorist application based on the idea that people are not driven by motivation, but by their environment. The reinforcers, or positive consequences, are what make a behavior more likely to be habit than exception.
Reinforcers work best when they are immediate, sincere, and specific to an activity. Managers wanting to apply reinforcement theory to the workplace can do so through organizational behavior modification, a successful and scientific approach to changing behavior based on the research of B.F. Skinner.
Expectancy Theory
According to Management: Concepts, Practices, and Skills, by R. Mondy and Shane Premeaux, expectancy theory “attempts to explain behavior in terms of an individual’s goals and choices and the expectation of achieving the objectives.” The probability of an individual acting in a particular manner will increase when an employee associates it strongly with a given, attractive outcome. The theory states that motivation depends on three variables:
- Attractiveness (the person sees the outcome as desirable)
- Performance-reward linkage (the person perceives a desired outcome will result from a certain degree of performance)
- Effort-performance linkage (the person believes a certain amount of effort will lead to performance)
Motivation, then, is a function of attractiveness, expectancy, and instrumentality. An individual’s perception of all three (regardless of reality) must be high for motivation to be optimized.
Expectancy theory is similar to positive reinforcement, and both expectancy and reinforcement theory hold that a reward, or outcome, must be meaningful to the individual, and must be seen as highly likely to result from a given behavior to be effective.
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