Mitchell's Motivation Theory

In any workplace, workers are no doubt the essential mainstay that holds any business or corporation together. Employees achieve important tasks to help the company’s long term vision and goals to be successful and efficient. A business can’t be successful without a proper management that is why it is important for employees to enjoy going to work and they also have maintain a positive attitude while being productive and completing tasks. Motivation is what gives a person the purpose to perform or behave in a certain way with the desire or willingness to gain something. There are two types of motivations, motivation that comes from a person and motivation that comes from materially goals. It is very necessary that employers keep their employees motivated and encourage them to perform above expectations.

Motivation is, according to the text, “A set of energetic forces that originate within and outside an employee that initiates work-related effort and determines its direction, intensity and persistence.” (Colquitt) When one hears the word “motivation”, one automatically thinks of an individual’s reasoning behind a certain task or performance. In terms of job motivation, it is what pushes or encourages a person to not only perform the work tasks, but to also be successful in the position and within the company. Motivation includes factors like “what do you do? How hard do you do it? How long do you do it?” The question of motivation has been a topic of discussion for decades. Many might think that money or, financial gains, play a huge role in motivation for an employee; however, motivation may differ drastically from person to person. Various underlying elements affect an employee’s motivation. There are several theories that are able to partially summarize aspects that account for high motivation.

What is motivation? As manager’s, motivation is one of the most vital and crucial assets to possess in managing a business. This drive is a critical tool to use in the work place and determine the success or failure of an organization. Motivation is a driving force that initiates and directs behavior. In other words, motivation is an internal energy that drives an individual to do something in order to achieve a certain goal. Therefore, creating a motivating environment in the workplace will lead to happy employees. Creating a work environment like this, managers can expect low staff turnovers, improved productivity, happy customers, and better financial performance. Therefore, the input of motivation use towards employees determines the output efficiency of the company. However, everyone involved in an organization is motivated differently. Everybody has their own individual needs in regards to motivation. Depending on how motivated a person is, determines the effort that individual puts into the work and therefore, how productive they are.

McGregor (1960) described two views on human motivation: Theory X and Y. Theory X, the more conventional one, holds the view that people are in themselves not intrinsically motivated to work and even attempt to avoid it, that people have no ambition, are resistant to change, are not particularly intelligent and that people only work for money and security. Management’s objective is to direct employees efforts, motivating them, controlling them and modifying their behavior to ensure that they behave in line with the organization’s needs and goals.

“Motivation is the will and desire that a person has to engage in a particular behaviour or perform a particular task” (Lawley & King, P269). In life motivation will be needed to enhance the workforce in various ways, many organisations will use motivation to increase the percentage yield of an individual or to make an individual feel a part of the business or organisation. Incentives have a huge influence on behaviourist & extrinsic approach. In addition other aspects; humanist theorist, intrinsic approach, Taylorism and Fordism have a part in perception of motivation.

Motivation is a complex phenomenon which is influenced of individual, cultural, ethnic and historical factors. According to De Cenzo et al., (1996), people who are motivated use a greater effort to perform a job than those who are not motivated. Motivation can be defined as “a series of energizing forces that originate both with and beyond an individual’s self”. These forces determine the person’s behavior and therefore, influence his/her productivity (Jackson, 2005). In other words this means that all thinkable factors of physical or psychological aspects that we interact with, leads to a reaction within our self or of the entire organization.

Motivation is the desire of doing things, to attain the goals set by the individuals. Motivating Employees is one of the most essential skills that are possessed by the manager, as it relates to the degree in which the employees can be influenced. As Mark Twain (1869) had said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Motivated employees have an impact on the productivity of the business as the employees channel their energy towards completing the organizational goals. (Marc & Daft, 2012) From many years, different psychologists have studied and provided with many motivational theories over the years. The conclusion that is reached by them is that motivation is a problem. The workforce is a ‘big asset’ of the company, so they are ‘only source of competitive advantage’ that makes them different from their competition. (Wilson, 2009)

Motivation is the set of processes that moves a person towards a goal. Since motivation influences productivity, the Managing Director would need to have knowledge of motivational theories. The motivational theories which could help me as the Managing Director introduce policies and practices which can increase the motivation and productivity of the employees will be discussed in detail.

‘Motivation’ is derived from the Latin term ‘movere’ that means ‘to move’. Thus, motivation is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activates a behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or incentive (Luthans). Broadly speaking, motivation is willingness to exert high levels of efforts towards organizational goals, conditioned by the efforts’ ability to satisfy some individual needs (Robbins). Need means some internal state that make certain outcomes appear attractive. An unsatisfied need creates tension that stimulates drives within the individual. These drives generate a search behaviour to find particular goals, that if attained,

The term motivation refers to two different ideas. Motivation is an internal state that leads to the fulfilment of objectives. Personal motivation affects the direction, depth, and persistence of effort. From a manager’s point of view, motivation is the process of getting people to fulfil objectives. Both concepts have an important meaning in common. Motivation is the expenditure of effort to accomplish results. The effort results from a force that

To start with, it is useful to infer from the literature and research that motivation in organisations refers to the process by which employees are enabled and induced to behave in particular ways. Thus, motivation is often associated with a search for the means by which people 's job performance and productivity may be improved or maintained. Many theories about motivation begin by addressing the interrelated issues of human needs and how these influence the direction and maintenance of an individual 's intentional behaviour.

Researchers has defined motivation as a “process of governing choices made by a person” Vroom (1964) cited in Wilsons (2010), however Mullins (2005) defined motivation as the driving force within individuals by which they attempt to achieve some goal in order to fulfil some need/expectation. The two factors of motivation, extrinsic motivation is driven by externally administered reward, such as pay rise. On the other side, the intrinsic motivation is determined by an interest in the task self, (Wilsons, 2010). According to Deci (2009), there have been many theories that have been useful in explaining why some employees are not motivated at the workplace, but most frequently theories are the process and content theories.

According to Pritchard and Ashwood (2008: 6), motivation is the process used to allocate energy to maximize the satisfaction of needs. It requires that one have a reason to do something. Well-know researchers in this area Ryan and Deci (2010) believe that a person, who feels no drive or inspiration to act, can therefore be characterized as unmotivated, while someone who is energized toward a goal can be defined as motivated. People may also experience differing levels and types of motivation based on their individual backgrounds, which means that they vary not only in their amount of motivation, but also in the trend of that motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000). Different things motivate people who come from different social, cultural, economic and/or financial backgrounds, or who have received different education. An employee’s motives, socio-economic background and value system will have an effect on how they work, as well as influence the outcome of their performance (Wyk and Erasmus, 2003: 315).

Motivation is something that can be considered to be comprised of someone’s level of hard work persistence and the directions which their efforts are turned towards (Brooks, 2003), It is really important that any organisation keep their staff motivated, which is not an easy task. The organisations that are able to keep their staff highly motivated, they are most likely to be able to achieve their goals and objectives(Mullin,2005). But then again it is important that workers within an organisation are able to motivate themselves through an understanding of their own needs.

Motivation is an important factor which can increase the efficiency in an organization. People need to be motivated in order to use organizational resources effectively. The ability of the manager to motivate his/her workers affects their performance (productivity). Motivation is an effective tool in the hands of management in stimulating the labor force. Motivation increases the eagerness of the employees to work, thus increasing productivity and value of the organization.