case study on motivation in organizational behaviour

Critical Cases in Organisational Behaviour

• J. Martin Corbett

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Part of the book series: Management, Work and Organisations (MWO)

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

Front matter, case study analysis of organisational behaviour, analysing individual behaviour in organisations, the meaning of work, motivation and commitment, the management of meaning, motivation and commitment, analysing group behaviour in organisations, interpersonal relations and group decision-making, analysing organisational behaviour, inter-group relations, organisational design and change, technology and organisation, analysing organisational environments, organisation and environment, back matter.

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Book Title : Critical Cases in Organisational Behaviour

Authors : J. Martin Corbett

Series Title : Management, Work and Organisations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23295-6

Publisher : Palgrave London

eBook Packages : Palgrave Business & Management Collection

Copyright Information : Macmillan Publishers Limited 1994

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XI, 304

Topics : Organization , Industrial, Organisational and Economic Psychology

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7.4 Recent Research on Motivation Theories

• Describe the modern advancements in the study of human motivation.

Employee motivation continues to be a major focus in organizational behavior. 35 We briefly summarize current motivation research here.

Content Theories

There is some interest in testing content theories (including Herzberg’s two-factor theory), especially in international research. Need theories are still generally supported, with most people identifying such workplace factors as recognition, advancement, and opportunities to learn as the chief motivators for them. This is consistent with need satisfaction theories. However, most of this research does not include actual measures of employee performance. Thus, questions remain about whether the factors that employees say motivate them to perform actually do.

Operant Conditioning Theory

There is considerable interest in operant conditioning theory, especially within the context of what has been called organizational behavior modification. Oddly enough, there has not been much research using operant conditioning theory in designing reward systems, even though there are obvious applications. Instead, much of the recent research on operant conditioning focuses on punishment and extinction. These studies seek to determine how to use punishment appropriately. Recent results still confirm that punishment should be used sparingly, should be used only after extinction does not work, and should not be excessive or destructive.

Equity Theory

Equity theory continues to receive strong research support. The major criticism of equity theory, that the inputs and outcomes people use to evaluate equity are ill-defined, still holds. Because each person defines inputs and outcomes, researchers are not in a position to know them all. Nevertheless, for the major inputs (performance) and outcomes (pay), the theory is a strong one. Major applications of equity theory in recent years incorporate and extend the theory into the area called organizational justice. When employees receive rewards (or punishments), they evaluate them in terms of their fairness (as discussed earlier). This is distributive justice. Employees also assess rewards in terms of how fair the processes used to distribute them are. This is procedural justice. Thus during organizational downsizing, when employees lose their jobs, people ask whether the loss of work is fair (distributive justice). But they also assess the fairness of the process used to decide who is laid off (procedural justice). For example, layoffs based on seniority may be perceived as more fair than layoffs based on supervisors’ opinions.

Goal Theory

It remains true that difficult, specific goals result in better performance than easy and vague goals, assuming they are accepted. Recent research highlights the positive effects of performance feedback and goal commitment in the goal-setting process. Monetary incentives enhance motivation when they are tied to goal achievement, by increasing the level of goal commitment. There are negative sides to goal theory as well. If goals conflict, employees may sacrifice performance on important job duties. For example, if both quantitative and qualitative goals are set for performance, employees may emphasize quantity because this goal achievement is more visible.

Expectancy Theory

The original formulation of expectancy theory specifies that the motivational force for choosing a level of effort is a function of the multiplication of expectancies and valences. Recent research demonstrates that the individual components predict performance just as well, without being multiplied. This does not diminish the value of expectancy theory. Recent research also suggests that high performance results not only when the valence is high, but also when employees set difficult goals for themselves.

One last comment on motivation: As the world of work changes, so will the methods organizations use to motivate employees. New rewards—time off instead of bonuses; stock options; on-site gyms, cleaners, and dental services; opportunities to telecommute; and others—will need to be created in order to motivate employees in the future. One useful path that modern researchers can undertake is to analyze the previous studies and aggregate the findings into more conclusive understanding of the topic through meta-analysis studies. 36

Catching the Entrepreneurial Spirit

Entrepreneurs and motivation.

Motivation can be difficult to elicit in employees. So what drives entrepreneurs, who by definition have to motivate themselves as well as others? While everyone from Greek philosophers to football coaches warn about undirected passion, a lack of passion will likely kill any start-up. An argument could be made that motivation is simply part of the discipline, or the outcome of remaining fixed on a purpose to mentally remind yourself of why you get up in the morning.

Working from her home in Egypt, at age 30 Yasmine El-Mehairy launched Supermama.me, a start-up aimed at providing information to mothers throughout the Arab world. When the company began, El-Mehairy worked full time at her day job and 60 hours a week after that getting the site established. She left her full-time job to manage the site full time in January 2011, and the site went live that October. El-Mehairy is motivated to keep moving forward, saying that if she stops, she might not get going again (Knowledge @ Wharton 2012).

For El-Mehairy, the motivation didn’t come from a desire to work for a big company or travel the world and secure a master’s degree from abroad. She had already done that. Rather, she said she was motivated to “do something that is useful and I want to do something on my own” (Knowledge @ Wharton 2012 n.p.).

Lauren Lipcon, who founded a company called Injury Funds Now, attributes her ability to stay motivated to three factors: purpose, giving back, and having fun outside of work. Lipcon believes that most entrepreneurs are not motivated by money, but by a sense of purpose. Personally, she left a job with Arthur Andersen to begin her own firm out of a desire to help people. She also thinks it is important for people to give back to their communities because the change the entrepreneur sees in the community loops back, increasing motivation and making the business more successful. Lipcon believes that having a life outside of work helps keep the entrepreneur motivated. She particularly advocates for physical activity, which not only helps the body physically, but also helps keep the mind sharp and able to focus (Rashid 2017).

But do all entrepreneurs agree on what motivates them? A July 17, 2017 survey on the hearpreneur blog site asked 23 different entrepreneurs what motivated them. Seven of the 23 referred to some sense of purpose in what they were doing as a motivating factor, with one response stressing the importance of discovering one’s “personal why.” Of the remaining entrepreneurs, answers varied from keeping a positive attitude (three responses) and finding external sources (three responses) to meditation and prayer (two responses). One entrepreneur said his greatest motivator was fear: the fear of being in the same place financially one year in the future “causes me to take action and also alleviates my fear of risk” (Hear from Entrepreneurs 2017 n.p.). Only one of the 23 actually cited money and material success as a motivating factor to keep working.

However it is described, entrepreneurs seem to agree that passion and determination are key factors that carry them through the grind of the day-to-day.

Hear from Entrepreneurs. 2017. “23 Entrepreneurs Explain Their Motivation or if ‘Motivation is Garbage.’” https://hear.ceoblognation.com/2017/07/17/23-entrepreneurs-explain-motivation-motivation-garbage/

Knowledge @ Wharton. 2012. “The Super-motivated Entrepreneur Behind Egypt’s SuperMama.” http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-super-motivated-entrepreneur-behind-egypts-supermama/

Rashid, Brian. 2017. “How This Entrepreneur Sustains High Levels of Energy and Motivation.” Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianrashid/2017/05/26/how-this-entrepreneur-sustains-high-levels-of-energy-and-motivation/2/#2a8ec5591111

• In the article from Hear from Entrepreneurs, one respondent called motivation “garbage”? Would you agree or disagree, and why?
• How is staying motivated as an entrepreneur similar to being motivated to pursue a college degree? Do you think the two are related? How?
• How would you expect motivation to vary across cultures?[/BOX]

Concept Check

• Understand the modern approaches to motivation theory.

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The Science of Improving Motivation at Work

The topic of employee motivation can be quite daunting for managers, leaders, and human resources professionals.

Organizations that provide their members with meaningful, engaging work not only contribute to the growth of their bottom line, but also create a sense of vitality and fulfillment that echoes across their organizational cultures and their employees’ personal lives.

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

In the context of work, an understanding of motivation can be applied to improve employee productivity and satisfaction; help set individual and organizational goals; put stress in perspective; and structure jobs so that they offer optimal levels of challenge, control, variety, and collaboration.

This article demystifies motivation in the workplace and presents recent findings in organizational behavior that have been found to contribute positively to practices of improving motivation and work life.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains:

Motivation in the workplace, motivation theories in organizational behavior, employee motivation strategies, motivation and job performance, leadership and motivation, motivation and good business, a take-home message.

Motivation in the workplace has been traditionally understood in terms of extrinsic rewards in the form of compensation, benefits, perks, awards, or career progression.

With today’s rapidly evolving knowledge economy, motivation requires more than a stick-and-carrot approach. Research shows that innovation and creativity, crucial to generating new ideas and greater productivity, are often stifled when extrinsic rewards are introduced.

Daniel Pink (2011) explains the tricky aspect of external rewards and argues that they are like drugs, where more frequent doses are needed more often. Rewards can often signal that an activity is undesirable.

Interesting and challenging activities are often rewarding in themselves. Rewards tend to focus and narrow attention and work well only if they enhance the ability to do something intrinsically valuable. Extrinsic motivation is best when used to motivate employees to perform routine and repetitive activities but can be detrimental for creative endeavors.

Anticipating rewards can also impair judgment and cause risk-seeking behavior because it activates dopamine. We don’t notice peripheral and long-term solutions when immediate rewards are offered. Studies have shown that people will often choose the low road when chasing after rewards because addictive behavior is short-term focused, and some may opt for a quick win.

Pink (2011) warns that greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible, and seven deadly flaws of rewards are soon to follow. He found that anticipating rewards often has undesirable consequences and tends to:

• Extinguish intrinsic motivation
• Decrease performance
• Encourage cheating
• Decrease creativity
• Crowd out good behavior
• Become addictive
• Foster short-term thinking

Pink (2011) suggests that we should reward only routine tasks to boost motivation and provide rationale, acknowledge that some activities are boring, and allow people to complete the task their way. When we increase variety and mastery opportunities at work, we increase motivation.

Rewards should be given only after the task is completed, preferably as a surprise, varied in frequency, and alternated between tangible rewards and praise. Providing information and meaningful, specific feedback about the effort (not the person) has also been found to be more effective than material rewards for increasing motivation (Pink, 2011).

They have shaped the landscape of our understanding of organizational behavior and our approaches to employee motivation. We discuss a few of the most frequently applied theories of motivation in organizational behavior.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory

Frederick Herzberg’s (1959) two-factor theory of motivation, also known as dual-factor theory or motivation-hygiene theory, was a result of a study that analyzed responses of 200 accountants and engineers who were asked about their positive and negative feelings about their work. Herzberg (1959) concluded that two major factors influence employee motivation and satisfaction with their jobs:

• Motivator factors, which can motivate employees to work harder and lead to on-the-job satisfaction, including experiences of greater engagement in and enjoyment of the work, feelings of recognition, and a sense of career progression
• Hygiene factors, which can potentially lead to dissatisfaction and a lack of motivation if they are absent, such as adequate compensation, effective company policies, comprehensive benefits, or good relationships with managers and coworkers

Herzberg (1959) maintained that while motivator and hygiene factors both influence motivation, they appeared to work entirely independently of each other. He found that motivator factors increased employee satisfaction and motivation, but the absence of these factors didn’t necessarily cause dissatisfaction.

Likewise, the presence of hygiene factors didn’t appear to increase satisfaction and motivation, but their absence caused an increase in dissatisfaction. It is debatable whether his theory would hold true today outside of blue-collar industries, particularly among younger generations, who may be looking for meaningful work and growth.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory proposed that employees become motivated along a continuum of needs from basic physiological needs to higher level psychological needs for growth and self-actualization . The hierarchy was originally conceptualized into five levels:

• Physiological needs that must be met for a person to survive, such as food, water, and shelter
• Safety needs that include personal and financial security, health, and wellbeing
• Belonging needs for friendships, relationships, and family
• Esteem needs that include feelings of confidence in the self and respect from others
• Self-actualization needs that define the desire to achieve everything we possibly can and realize our full potential

According to the hierarchy of needs, we must be in good health, safe, and secure with meaningful relationships and confidence before we can reach for the realization of our full potential.

For a full discussion of other theories of psychological needs and the importance of need satisfaction, see our article on How to Motivate .

Hawthorne effect

The Hawthorne effect, named after a series of social experiments on the influence of physical conditions on productivity at Western Electric’s factory in Hawthorne, Chicago, in the 1920s and 30s, was first described by Henry Landsberger in 1958 after he noticed some people tended to work harder and perform better when researchers were observing them.

Although the researchers changed many physical conditions throughout the experiments, including lighting, working hours, and breaks, increases in employee productivity were more significant in response to the attention being paid to them, rather than the physical changes themselves.

Today the Hawthorne effect is best understood as a justification for the value of providing employees with specific and meaningful feedback and recognition. It is contradicted by the existence of results-only workplace environments that allow complete autonomy and are focused on performance and deliverables rather than managing employees.

Expectancy theory

Expectancy theory proposes that we are motivated by our expectations of the outcomes as a result of our behavior and make a decision based on the likelihood of being rewarded for that behavior in a way that we perceive as valuable.

For example, an employee may be more likely to work harder if they have been promised a raise than if they only assumed they might get one.

Expectancy theory posits that three elements affect our behavioral choices:

• Expectancy is the belief that our effort will result in our desired goal and is based on our past experience and influenced by our self-confidence and anticipation of how difficult the goal is to achieve.
• Instrumentality is the belief that we will receive a reward if we meet performance expectations.
• Valence is the value we place on the reward.

Expectancy theory tells us that we are most motivated when we believe that we will receive the desired reward if we hit an achievable and valued target, and least motivated if we do not care for the reward or do not believe that our efforts will result in the reward.

Three-dimensional theory of attribution

Attribution theory explains how we attach meaning to our own and other people’s behavior and how the characteristics of these attributions can affect future motivation.

Bernard Weiner’s three-dimensional theory of attribution proposes that the nature of the specific attribution, such as bad luck or not working hard enough, is less important than the characteristics of that attribution as perceived and experienced by the individual. According to Weiner, there are three main characteristics of attributions that can influence how we behave in the future:

Stability is related to pervasiveness and permanence; an example of a stable factor is an employee believing that they failed to meet the expectation because of a lack of support or competence. An unstable factor might be not performing well due to illness or a temporary shortage of resources.

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”

Colin Powell

According to Weiner, stable attributions for successful achievements can be informed by previous positive experiences, such as completing the project on time, and can lead to positive expectations and higher motivation for success in the future. Adverse situations, such as repeated failures to meet the deadline, can lead to stable attributions characterized by a sense of futility and lower expectations in the future.

Locus of control describes a perspective about the event as caused by either an internal or an external factor. For example, if the employee believes it was their fault the project failed, because of an innate quality such as a lack of skills or ability to meet the challenge, they may be less motivated in the future.

If they believe an external factor was to blame, such as an unrealistic deadline or shortage of staff, they may not experience such a drop in motivation.

Controllability defines how controllable or avoidable the situation was. If an employee believes they could have performed better, they may be less motivated to try again in the future than someone who believes that factors outside of their control caused the circumstances surrounding the setback.

Theory X and theory Y

Douglas McGregor proposed two theories to describe managerial views on employee motivation: theory X and theory Y. These views of employee motivation have drastically different implications for management.

He divided leaders into those who believe most employees avoid work and dislike responsibility (theory X managers) and those who say that most employees enjoy work and exert effort when they have control in the workplace (theory Y managers).

To motivate theory X employees, the company needs to push and control their staff through enforcing rules and implementing punishments.

Theory Y employees, on the other hand, are perceived as consciously choosing to be involved in their work. They are self-motivated and can exert self-management, and leaders’ responsibility is to create a supportive environment and develop opportunities for employees to take on responsibility and show creativity.

Theory X is heavily informed by what we know about intrinsic motivation and the role that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs plays in effective employee motivation.

Taking theory X and theory Y as a starting point, theory Z was developed by Dr. William Ouchi. The theory combines American and Japanese management philosophies and focuses on long-term job security, consensual decision making, slow evaluation and promotion procedures, and individual responsibility within a group context.

Its noble goals include increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life, focusing on the employee’s wellbeing, and encouraging group work and social interaction to motivate employees in the workplace.

There are several implications of these numerous theories on ways to motivate employees. They vary with whatever perspectives leadership ascribes to motivation and how that is cascaded down and incorporated into practices, policies, and culture.

The effectiveness of these approaches is further determined by whether individual preferences for motivation are considered. Nevertheless, various motivational theories can guide our focus on aspects of organizational behavior that may require intervening.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory , for example, implies that for the happiest and most productive workforce, companies need to work on improving both motivator and hygiene factors.

The theory suggests that to help motivate employees, the organization must ensure that everyone feels appreciated and supported, is given plenty of specific and meaningful feedback, and has an understanding of and confidence in how they can grow and progress professionally.

To prevent job dissatisfaction, companies must make sure to address hygiene factors by offering employees the best possible working conditions, fair pay, and supportive relationships.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs , on the other hand, can be used to transform a business where managers struggle with the abstract concept of self-actualization and tend to focus too much on lower level needs. Chip Conley, the founder of the Joie de Vivre hotel chain and head of hospitality at Airbnb, found one way to address this dilemma by helping his employees understand the meaning of their roles during a staff retreat.

In one exercise, he asked groups of housekeepers to describe themselves and their job responsibilities by giving their group a name that reflects the nature and the purpose of what they were doing. They came up with names such as “The Serenity Sisters,” “The Clutter Busters,” and “The Peace of Mind Police.”

These designations provided a meaningful rationale and gave them a sense that they were doing more than just cleaning, instead “creating a space for a traveler who was far away from home to feel safe and protected” (Pattison, 2010). By showing them the value of their roles, Conley enabled his employees to feel respected and motivated to work harder.

The Hawthorne effect studies and Weiner’s three-dimensional theory of attribution have implications for providing and soliciting regular feedback and praise. Recognizing employees’ efforts and providing specific and constructive feedback in the areas where they can improve can help prevent them from attributing their failures to an innate lack of skills.

Praising employees for improvement or using the correct methodology, even if the ultimate results were not achieved, can encourage them to reframe setbacks as learning opportunities. This can foster an environment of psychological safety that can further contribute to the view that success is controllable by using different strategies and setting achievable goals .

Theories X, Y, and Z show that one of the most impactful ways to build a thriving organization is to craft organizational practices that build autonomy, competence, and belonging. These practices include providing decision-making discretion, sharing information broadly, minimizing incidents of incivility, and offering performance feedback.

Being told what to do is not an effective way to negotiate. Having a sense of autonomy at work fuels vitality and growth and creates environments where employees are more likely to thrive when empowered to make decisions that affect their work.

Feedback satisfies the psychological need for competence. When others value our work, we tend to appreciate it more and work harder. Particularly two-way, open, frequent, and guided feedback creates opportunities for learning.

Frequent and specific feedback helps people know where they stand in terms of their skills, competencies, and performance, and builds feelings of competence and thriving. Immediate, specific, and public praise focusing on effort and behavior and not traits is most effective. Positive feedback energizes employees to seek their full potential.

Lack of appreciation is psychologically exhausting, and studies show that recognition improves health because people experience less stress. In addition to being acknowledged by their manager, peer-to-peer recognition was shown to have a positive impact on the employee experience (Anderson, 2018). Rewarding the team around the person who did well and giving more responsibility to top performers rather than time off also had a positive impact.

Stop trying to motivate your employees – Kerry Goyette

Other approaches to motivation at work include those that focus on meaning and those that stress the importance of creating positive work environments.

Meaningful work is increasingly considered to be a cornerstone of motivation. In some cases, burnout is not caused by too much work, but by too little meaning. For many years, researchers have recognized the motivating potential of task significance and doing work that affects the wellbeing of others.

All too often, employees do work that makes a difference but never have the chance to see or to meet the people affected. Research by Adam Grant (2013) speaks to the power of long-term goals that benefit others and shows how the use of meaning to motivate those who are not likely to climb the ladder can make the job meaningful by broadening perspectives.

Creating an upbeat, positive work environment can also play an essential role in increasing employee motivation and can be accomplished through the following:

• Encouraging teamwork and sharing ideas
• Providing tools and knowledge to perform well
• Eliminating conflict as it arises
• Giving employees the freedom to work independently when appropriate
• Helping employees establish professional goals and objectives and aligning these goals with the individual’s self-esteem
• Making the cause and effect relationship clear by establishing a goal and its reward
• Offering encouragement when workers hit notable milestones
• Celebrating employee achievements and team accomplishments while avoiding comparing one worker’s achievements to those of others
• Offering the incentive of a profit-sharing program and collective goal setting and teamwork
• Soliciting employee input through regular surveys of employee satisfaction
• Providing professional enrichment through providing tuition reimbursement and encouraging employees to pursue additional education and participate in industry organizations, skills workshops, and seminars
• Motivating through curiosity and creating an environment that stimulates employee interest to learn more
• Using cooperation and competition as a form of motivation based on individual preferences

Sometimes, inexperienced leaders will assume that the same factors that motivate one employee, or the leaders themselves, will motivate others too. Some will make the mistake of introducing de-motivating factors into the workplace, such as punishment for mistakes or frequent criticism, but negative reinforcement rarely works and often backfires.

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There are several positive psychology interventions that can be used in the workplace to improve important outcomes, such as reduced job stress and increased motivation, work engagement, and job performance. Numerous empirical studies have been conducted in recent years to verify the effects of these interventions.

Psychological capital interventions

Psychological capital interventions are associated with a variety of work outcomes that include improved job performance, engagement, and organizational citizenship behaviors (Avey, 2014; Luthans & Youssef-Morgan 2017). Psychological capital refers to a psychological state that is malleable and open to development and consists of four major components:

• Self-efficacy and confidence in our ability to succeed at challenging work tasks
• Optimism and positive attributions about the future of our career or company
• Hope and redirecting paths to work goals in the face of obstacles
• Resilience in the workplace and bouncing back from adverse situations (Luthans & Youssef-Morgan, 2017)

Job crafting interventions

Job crafting interventions – where employees design and have control over the characteristics of their work to create an optimal fit between work demands and their personal strengths – can lead to improved performance and greater work engagement (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012; van Wingerden, Bakker, & Derks, 2016).

The concept of job crafting is rooted in the jobs demands–resources theory and suggests that employee motivation, engagement, and performance can be influenced by practices such as (Bakker et al., 2012):

• Attempts to alter social job resources, such as feedback and coaching
• Structural job resources, such as opportunities to develop at work
• Challenging job demands, such as reducing workload and creating new projects

Job crafting is a self-initiated, proactive process by which employees change elements of their jobs to optimize the fit between their job demands and personal needs, abilities, and strengths (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001).

Today’s motivation research shows that participation is likely to lead to several positive behaviors as long as managers encourage greater engagement, motivation, and productivity while recognizing the importance of rest and work recovery.

One key factor for increasing work engagement is psychological safety (Kahn, 1990). Psychological safety allows an employee or team member to engage in interpersonal risk taking and refers to being able to bring our authentic self to work without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career (Edmondson, 1999).

When employees perceive psychological safety, they are less likely to be distracted by negative emotions such as fear, which stems from worrying about controlling perceptions of managers and colleagues.

Dealing with fear also requires intense emotional regulation (Barsade, Brief, & Spataro, 2003), which takes away from the ability to fully immerse ourselves in our work tasks. The presence of psychological safety in the workplace decreases such distractions and allows employees to expend their energy toward being absorbed and attentive to work tasks.

Effective structural features, such as coaching leadership and context support, are some ways managers can initiate psychological safety in the workplace (Hackman, 1987). Leaders’ behavior can significantly influence how employees behave and lead to greater trust (Tyler & Lind, 1992).

Supportive, coaching-oriented, and non-defensive responses to employee concerns and questions can lead to heightened feelings of safety and ensure the presence of vital psychological capital.

Another essential factor for increasing work engagement and motivation is the balance between employees’ job demands and resources.

Job demands can stem from time pressures, physical demands, high priority, and shift work and are not necessarily detrimental. High job demands and high resources can both increase engagement, but it is important that employees perceive that they are in balance, with sufficient resources to deal with their work demands (Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010).

Challenging demands can be very motivating, energizing employees to achieve their goals and stimulating their personal growth. Still, they also require that employees be more attentive and absorbed and direct more energy toward their work (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014).

Unfortunately, when employees perceive that they do not have enough control to tackle these challenging demands, the same high demands will be experienced as very depleting (Karasek, 1979).

This sense of perceived control can be increased with sufficient resources like managerial and peer support and, like the effects of psychological safety, can ensure that employees are not hindered by distraction that can limit their attention, absorption, and energy.

The job demands–resources occupational stress model suggests that job demands that force employees to be attentive and absorbed can be depleting if not coupled with adequate resources, and shows how sufficient resources allow employees to sustain a positive level of engagement that does not eventually lead to discouragement or burnout (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001).

And last but not least, another set of factors that are critical for increasing work engagement involves core self-evaluations and self-concept (Judge & Bono, 2001). Efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, identity, and perceived social impact may be critical drivers of an individual’s psychological availability, as evident in the attention, absorption, and energy directed toward their work.

Self-esteem and efficacy are enhanced by increasing employees’ general confidence in their abilities, which in turn assists in making them feel secure about themselves and, therefore, more motivated and engaged in their work (Crawford et al., 2010).

Social impact, in particular, has become increasingly important in the growing tendency for employees to seek out meaningful work. One such example is the MBA Oath created by 25 graduating Harvard business students pledging to lead professional careers marked with integrity and ethics:

The MBA oath

“As a business leader, I recognize my role in society.

My purpose is to lead people and manage resources to create value that no single individual can create alone.

My decisions affect the well-being of individuals inside and outside my enterprise, today and tomorrow. Therefore, I promise that:

• I will manage my enterprise with loyalty and care, and will not advance my personal interests at the expense of my enterprise or society.
• I will understand and uphold, in letter and spirit, the laws and contracts governing my conduct and that of my enterprise.
• I will refrain from corruption, unfair competition, or business practices harmful to society.
• I will protect the human rights and dignity of all people affected by my enterprise, and I will oppose discrimination and exploitation.
• I will protect the right of future generations to advance their standard of living and enjoy a healthy planet.
• I will report the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.
• I will invest in developing myself and others, helping the management profession continue to advance and create sustainable and inclusive prosperity.

In exercising my professional duties according to these principles, I recognize that my behavior must set an example of integrity, eliciting trust, and esteem from those I serve. I will remain accountable to my peers and to society for my actions and for upholding these standards. This oath, I make freely, and upon my honor.”

Job crafting is the process of personalizing work to better align with one’s strengths, values, and interests (Tims & Bakker, 2010).

Any job, at any level can be ‘crafted,’ and a well-crafted job offers more autonomy, deeper engagement and improved overall wellbeing.

There are three types of job crafting:

• Task crafting involves adding or removing tasks, spending more or less time on certain tasks, or redesigning tasks so that they better align with your core strengths (Berg et al., 2013).
• Relational crafting includes building, reframing, and adapting relationships to foster meaningfulness (Berg et al., 2013).
• Cognitive crafting defines how we think about our jobs, including how we perceive tasks and the meaning behind them.

If you would like to guide others through their own unique job crafting journey, our set of Job Crafting Manuals (PDF) offer a ready-made 7-session coaching trajectory.

Prosocial motivation is an important driver behind many individual and collective accomplishments at work.

It is a strong predictor of persistence, performance, and productivity when accompanied by intrinsic motivation. Prosocial motivation was also indicative of more affiliative citizenship behaviors when it was accompanied by motivation toward impression management motivation and was a stronger predictor of job performance when managers were perceived as trustworthy (Ciulla, 2000).

On a day-to-day basis most jobs can’t fill the tall order of making the world better, but particular incidents at work have meaning because you make a valuable contribution or you are able to genuinely help someone in need.

J. B. Ciulla

Prosocial motivation was shown to enhance the creativity of intrinsically motivated employees, the performance of employees with high core self-evaluations, and the performance evaluations of proactive employees. The psychological mechanisms that enable this are the importance placed on task significance, encouraging perspective taking, and fostering social emotions of anticipated guilt and gratitude (Ciulla, 2000).

Some argue that organizations whose products and services contribute to positive human growth are examples of what constitutes good business (Csíkszentmihályi, 2004). Businesses with a soul are those enterprises where employees experience deep engagement and develop greater complexity.

In these unique environments, employees are provided opportunities to do what they do best. In return, their organizations reap the benefits of higher productivity and lower turnover, as well as greater profit, customer satisfaction, and workplace safety. Most importantly, however, the level of engagement, involvement, or degree to which employees are positively stretched contributes to the experience of wellbeing at work (Csíkszentmihályi, 2004).

17 Tools To Increase Motivation and Goal Achievement

These 17 Motivation & Goal Achievement Exercises [PDF] contain all you need to help others set meaningful goals, increase self-drive, and experience greater accomplishment and life satisfaction.

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Daniel Pink (2011) argues that when it comes to motivation, management is the problem, not the solution, as it represents antiquated notions of what motivates people. He claims that even the most sophisticated forms of empowering employees and providing flexibility are no more than civilized forms of control.

He gives an example of companies that fall under the umbrella of what is known as results-only work environments (ROWEs), which allow all their employees to work whenever and wherever they want as long their work gets done.

Valuing results rather than face time can change the cultural definition of a successful worker by challenging the notion that long hours and constant availability signal commitment (Kelly, Moen, & Tranby, 2011).

Studies show that ROWEs can increase employees’ control over their work schedule; improve work–life fit; positively affect employees’ sleep duration, energy levels, self-reported health, and exercise; and decrease tobacco and alcohol use (Moen, Kelly, & Lam, 2013; Moen, Kelly, Tranby, & Huang, 2011).

Perhaps this type of solution sounds overly ambitious, and many traditional working environments are not ready for such drastic changes. Nevertheless, it is hard to ignore the quickly amassing evidence that work environments that offer autonomy, opportunities for growth, and pursuit of meaning are good for our health, our souls, and our society.

Leave us your thoughts on this topic.

Related reading: Motivation in Education: What It Takes to Motivate Our Kids

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

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What our readers think.

Good and helpful study thank you. It will help achieving goals for my clients. Thank you for this information

A lot of data is really given. Validation is correct. The next step is the exchange of knowledge in order to create an optimal model of motivation.

A good article, thank you for sharing. The views and work by the likes of Daniel Pink, Dan Ariely, Barry Schwartz etc have really got me questioning and reflecting on my own views on workplace motivation. There are far too many organisations and leaders who continue to rely on hedonic principles for motivation (until recently, myself included!!). An excellent book which shares these modern views is ‘Primed to Perform’ by Doshi and McGregor (2015). Based on the earlier work of Deci and Ryan’s self determination theory the book explores the principle of ‘why people work, determines how well they work’. A easy to read and enjoyable book that offers a very practical way of applying in the workplace.

Thanks for mentioning that. Sounds like a good read.

All the best, Annelé

Motivation – a piece of art every manager should obtain and remember by heart and continue to embrace.

Exceptionally good write-up on the subject applicable for personal and professional betterment. Simplified theorem appeals to think and learn at least one thing that means an inspiration to the reader. I appreciate your efforts through this contributive work.

Excelente artículo sobre motivación. Me inspira. Gracias

Very helpful for everyone studying motivation right now! It’s brilliant the way it’s witten and also brought to the reader. Thank you.

Such a brilliant piece! A super coverage of existing theories clearly written. It serves as an excellent overview (or reminder for those of us who once knew the older stuff by heart!) Thank you!

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Section 6: Motivation in the Workplace

The impacts of motivation in the workplace

So far in this chapter, we’ve discussed the components of motivation and some of the most well-known and useful motivational theories. There are more theories out there, and we could go on for quite a while describing them. However, it’s important for managers to understand that all of them seek to predict human behavior and understand the mystery that is motivation, and that all of them bring some amount of clarity to the issue.

Now it’s time to dig into how motivation impacts the workplace.

Learning Outcomes

• Analyze managerial responses to motivation theories
• Discuss the impact of cultural differences on motivation

Managerial Responses to Motivation

Now that we understand a bit more about what motivation is and the theories behind its origins and development, we can put them to work in a managerial setting. Let’s take a look at some managerial responses to motivation.

Management by Objectives

We talked a bit about management by objectives (MBO) when we discussed goal setting as a part of the work component of motivation. Management by Objective is a response to the goal-setting theory as a motivator.

The goal-setting theory has an impressive base of research support, and MBO makes it operational. As a reminder, MBO sets individual goals for employees based on department goals, which are based on company goals. It looks like this:

MBO advocates specific, measurable goals and feedback. There is only implication, though, that goals are perceived as attainable. The approach is most effective when the individual has to stretch to meet the goals set.

MBO can be a participative process. When individuals are consulted in the creation of their own goals, it often results in workers setting a goal that stretch them further. MBO does not require that the individual worker participate, though. The process seems to be about as effective when goals are assigned by a manager to the individual.

MBO is a widely used and successful practice for many industries. Failures occur when unrealistic expectations come into play, or cultural incompatibilities thwart the process.

Employee Recognition Programs

Employee recognition programs cover a wide variety of activities, ranging from private “thank yous” to publicized recognition ceremonies. It strengthens the link between performance and outcome of the expectancy framework. Recognition continues to be cited on surveys as one of the most powerful motivators for an employee.

Types of recognition might include:

• A personal thank you to an employee from a manager, verbally or in a note
• A public recognition of an employee, in a company communication or ceremony
• A team thank you via a lunch bought by the manager
• A program where customers recognize great service by front line workers

In an environment where there are layoffs and increased workloads all across the country, recognition programs go a long way toward motivating employees and provide a relatively low-cost way to boost performance.

Employee Involvement Programs

Here are a few types of employee involvement:

• Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). A fairly popular employee involvement program, where an ESOP trust is created, and the organization will contribute stock or cash to buy stock for the trust. The stock is then allocated to employees. Research suggests that ESOPs increase satisfaction but their impact on performance remains unclear, as companies offering this option often perform similarly to companies that don’t.
• Participative management.  This is a program where subordinates share a significant responsibility for decision making with their managers. As jobs become more complex, managers aren’t always aware of everything that employees do, and studies have found that this process increases the commitment to decisions. Research shows that this approach has a modest influence productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction.
• Representative participation. This is an approach where workers are represented by a small group of employees who participate in organizational decisions. Representative participation is mean to put labor on more equal terms with management and stockholders where company decisions are concerned. The overall influence on working employees seems to be minimal, and the value of it appears to be more symbolic than motivating.

Looking at these employment involvement programs through the Theory X & Theory Y lens, the approach certainly leans more toward the Theory Y approach of people management. These programs can also satisfy an employee’s needs for responsibility, achievement, etc., and thus fit well with the ERG theory as well. They can be part of a good balance of motivational offerings.

Job Redesign Programs

Clever redesign of jobs to accommodate employees’ needs for additional flexibility can serve to motivate them. Managers looking to reshape jobs in order to make them more motivating might look toward a few redesign and scheduling options.

• Job rotation. Employees who have very repetitive jobs can find new motivation in a job rotation program. An assembly line might employ this technique, where a worker might be focused on constructing a portion of an exhaust system for a period of time, and the move over to an area that is devoted to putting together transmissions. This approach navigates the pitfalls of boredom, but it can increase training costs and temporarily reduce productivity as people ramp up with their new responsibilities.
• Job enrichment. This refers to the vertical expansion of one’s job to include additional responsibilities that allow employees to control planning, execution, and evaluation aspects of their work. Employees can see a task through from start to finish in many cases, allowing for a holistic view of the task and ownership of the outcome. For instance, a group that formerly only handled the development of art for marketing materials might be retrained to meet with clients, get a better understanding of their needs, and then work with a printer to produce the final product. This process generally yields a reduction in turnover and an increase in job satisfaction for employees, but evidence of increased productivity is often inconclusive.
• Flexible Hours. Flexible hours allow employees a degree of autonomy when it comes to the hours of their workday. Morning people can be up-and-at-‘em at 6AM, and night owls can show up later and work later. Flexible hours often reduce absenteeism, increase productivity, and reduce overtime expenses. However, this approach is not applicable to every job.
• Job Sharing. This program allows for two or more individuals to share a 40-hour workweek. Job sharing allows an organization to draw on the talents of more than one person to complete a job and allows them to avoid layoffs due to overstaffing. Conversely, a manager has to find compatible pairs of employees, which is not always such an easy task.
• Telecommuting. When an individual can work from home, he or she can have more flexible hours, less downtime in a car, the ability to wear whatever he or she wants, and fewer interruptions. Organizations that employ telecommuting can realize higher productivity, enjoy a larger labor pool from which to select employees, and experience less office space costs. But telecommuters can’t experience the benefits of an office situation, and managers can tend to undervalue the contributions of workers they don’t see regularly.

Job redesign and scheduling can be linked to several motivational theories. Herzberg’s two-factor theory supports the idea of job enrichment in its proposal that increasing intrinsic factors of a job will increase an employee’s satisfaction with a job. Flexibility is an important link in linking rewards to personal goals in the expectancy theory.

Variable Pay Programs

Variable-pay programs increase motivation and productivity, as organizations with these plans are shown to have higher levels of profitability than those who don’t. Variable-pay is most compatible with the expectancy theory predictions that employees should perceive a strong relationship between their performance and the rewards they receive.

These programs help managers address differences in individual needs and allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them. Combining some of these tactics with MBO so that employees understand what’s expected of them, linking performance and rewards through recognition and making sure the system is equitable can help make a manager’s organization productive.

Practice Question

Motivation in different cultures.

A warning for managers everywhere—motivation theories are culture-bound.

For instance, Maslow’s theory, which suggests that humans follow a needs path from physiological needs to needs of safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization, is a typically American point of view. Greece and Mexico, countries with cultures that look for a significant set of rules and guidelines in their lives, might have safety at the top of their pyramids, while Scandinavian countries, well known for their nurturing characteristics, might have social needs at the top of theirs. If these differences are well understood, managers can adapt accordingly, and understand that group work is more important for their Scandinavian workers, and so on.

What other theories fall short when you stand them up against other cultures? Well, the need to achieve and a concern for performance is found in the US, UK and Canada, but in countries like Chile and Portugal, it’s almost non-existent. The equity theory, which we talked about in the first section of this module, is embraced in the US, but in the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, workers expect their rewards to reflect their personal needs as well as their performance. It stands to reason that US pay practices might be perceived as unfair in these countries.

Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and a former IBM employee, conducted some pioneering research on cross-cultural groups in organizations, which led to his cultural dimensions theory.

In this theory, Hofstede defines culture as the unique way in which people are collectively taught in their environments. He looks to compare and understand the collective mindset of these groups of people and how they differ. His conclusions were that cultural differences showed themselves in six significant buckets. Hofstede created an “index” for each category to show where individual cultures fell along the spectrum:

• Power Distance: this is an index that describes the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations accept and expect that power is distributed unequally. A higher index number suggests that hierarchy is clearly established and executed in society, while a lower index would indicate that people question authority in that culture. (Latin, Asian, and Arab countries score on the high side, while Anglo and Germanic countries score low. The US is in the middle.)
• Individualism: this measures the degree to which people in a society are integrated into groups. The United States scores very high in this category.
• Uncertainty avoidance: this is defined as a “society’s tolerance for ambiguity.” Cultures scoring high in this area opt for very defined codes of behavior and laws, while cultures scoring lower are more accepting of different thoughts and ideas. Belgium and Germany score high while countries like Sweden and Denmark score lower.
• Masculinity vs femininity: in more masculine societies, women and men are more competitive, while in feminine societies, they share caring views equally with men. Anglo countries like the UK and the US tend to lean toward masculinity in their cultures, while Scandinavian countries tend toward femininity.
• Long-term Orientation vs. Short-term Orientation: this measures the degree to which a society honors tradition. A lower score indicates traditions are kept, while a higher score indicates the society views adaptation and problem-solving as a necessary component of their culture. Asian cultures have strong long-term orientation, while Anglo countries, Africa and Latin America have shorter-term orientation.
• Indulgence vs. restraint: this is a measurement of happiness if simple joys are fulfilled. Indulgent societies believe themselves to be in control of their lives, while restrained societies believe that external forces dictate their lives. There is less data about this particular dimension, but we do know that Latin America, the Anglo countries and Nordic Europe score high on indulgence, while Muslim countries and East Asia tend to score high on restraint.

The Hofstede Insight website takes the guesswork out of comparing countries’ cultures and can help you understand the collective viewpoint of their people as they relate to these six indices.

When you compare Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as we briefly did above, you can see where cultural differences shift the order of needs on the pyramid. We mentioned above that Belgium and Germany score high on the uncertainty avoidance dimension—they don’t like social ambiguity, they want to be able to control their futures and feel threatened by the unknown. So it would make sense that, while “safety” is the second rung of the pyramid here in the United States, it’s a more significant need to satisfy in German culture.

Hofstede’s cultural dimension highlight the importance cultures place on different needs. These dimensions can be used to determine differences in individual needs based on their cultural teachings and beliefs.

Now that we’ve discussed this in some detail, it’s important to understand that not all motivational drivers are culture-bound. For example, the desire for interesting work appears to be important to all workers everywhere. Growth, achievement, and responsibility were also highly rated across various cultures. The manager of an international team doesn’t have to approach everything differently. But keeping in mind that cultural differences drive individuals’ needs will help a manager create motivating circumstances for all his workers.

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Chapter 5: Theories of Motivation

Chapter Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter, you should be able to know and learn the following:

• Understand the role of motivation in determining employee performance.
• Classify the basic needs of employees.
• Describe how fairness perceptions are determined and consequences of these perceptions.
• Understand the importance of rewards and punishments.
• Apply motivation theories to analyze performance problems.

Introduction

The challenges and motivators in a post pandemic world..

The world is becoming progressively more digital with every passing year, so today’s workforce looks a lot different than it did 25 years ago. This progression, expedited by the global pandemic of Covid19, presents new challenges that today’s employers must learn to navigate to motivate their teams, prevent employee burnout and minimize turnover.

To understand and overcome the challenges in motivating today’s workforce, especially companies with significant numbers of non-desk workers, we must understand both the challenges and the motivators of new age, digital employees.

Let’s start with the challenges.

The top challenges chosen by the vast majority of employers

A. Building a great employee experience

1.Listen to people. Ensure that employees have a means of communication. Many non-desk workers are not connected to the company in a way that allows  two-way communication.

2.Get feedback from surveys and focus groups, then implement change if need be. Keep an open channel of communication so that employees feel connected. Be committed to employee development and growth.

3.Equip and enable managers to support their teams. Creating a positive employee experience  goes a long way with employee engagement and motivation.

B. Creating calm and reassurance in periods of turbulence

1.We can all agree that the world has been in a period of turbulence over the past two years. As a leader in an organization, you  must pause and breathe . Managers can unintentionally pass their stress onto other employees.

2.Do the research and  prevent the spread of misinformation.  Speak clearly and confidently to your teams and colleagues so that you appear to have control over the situation.  Transparency will create trust and go a long way in calming the workforce.

C. Fighting burnout

1.Let’s talk about the ever-elusive fight against burnout. It’s easy to understand that the outside stressors of everyday life during and after a pandemic paired with  the daily stressors of work  are enough to burn anyone out. More than  70%  of employees reported feeling burnt out over the past year, making history (Forbes.com).

2.It’s never been more critical than it is now to tackle feelings of physical and emotional exhaustion. The key to avoiding burnout is  getting in front of it, as it is much easier to prevent burnout than reverse it.

D. Turnover and letting employees go

1.Turnover tends to be a result of a poor approach to the above challenges. It’s no secret that the cost of turnover is high, estimated at 1.5 – 2 times an employee’s salary and $1,500 per hourly employee  (builtin.com).

Therefore,  organizations should actively avoid turnover  by putting into place best practices and implementing a solid plan to tackle the above challenges.

E. Retaining top talent

1.With the cost of turnover being so high, retaining top talent is a priority . The key here is employee engagement, so ask questions to gain insight on employees to  instill the correct development and training programs.

Weekly one-on-one meetings with department heads or managers are an  excellent way to ask questions and get to know these individuals.  Including all employees in the communication loop creates an atmosphere of teamwork and ensures that everyone’s efforts are appreciated.

2.Create on-the-job learning opportunities, whether significant or small. Vary learning experiences and provide insightful feedback that is constructive and accompanied by manageable action steps.

F. Communicating effectively

These challenges arguably have a common denominator – they’re a causal effect of poor communication. Therefore,  effective communication could essentially eliminate or solve these challenges.

It seems simple, yet effective communication is complex and involves complex solutions. Everyone communicates differently. The good news is there are a  plethora of companies specializing in making communications in the workforce easy.

According to Pew Research,  91% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 64  own a smartphone, making them far and away the most popular way to communicate. Due to this information, the most innovative and easiest way to reach employees and increase engagement would be to  interact via the smartphone.

Employee engagement apps can  simplify your workforce management system  and workplace communication making it accessible for all employees, non-desk workers, remote and office workers alike. Some of these platforms include  Artificial Intelligence which provides highly structured communications.

These communications give the right message to the right person at the right time, prevent spray and pray messaging, and the chaos and lack of usage that reply-all messaging creates.

Now that the challenges have been addressed, let’s understand the motivators.

Why is it that, on some days, it can feel harder than others to get up when your alarm goes off, do your workout, complete a work or school assignment, or make dinner for your family?

Motivation (or a lack thereof) is usually behind why we do the things that we do.

There are different types of motivation, and as it turns out, understanding  why  you are motivated to do the things that you do can help you keep yourself motivated — and can help you motivate others.

There are two types of motivator categories in a company’s culture, intrinsic and extrinsic.

What Is Intrinsic Motivation?

When you’re intrinsically motivated, your behavior is motivated by your internal desire to do something for its own sake — for example, your personal enjoyment of an activity, or your desire to learn a skill because you’re eager to learn.

Examples of intrinsic motivation could include:

• Reading a book because you enjoy the storytelling
• Exercising because you want to relieve stress
• Cleaning your home because it helps you feel organized

What Is Extrinsic Motivation?

When you’re extrinsically motivated, your behavior is motivated by an external factor pushing you to do something in hopes of earning a reward — or avoiding a less-than-positive outcome.

Examples of extrinsic motivation could include:

• Reading a book to prepare for a test
• Exercising to lose weight
• Cleaning your home to prepare for visitors coming over

If you have a job, and you must complete a project, you’re probably extrinsically motivated — by your manager’s praise or a potential raise or commission — even if you enjoy the project while you’re doing it. If you’re in school, you’re extrinsically motivated to learn a foreign language because you’re being graded on it — even if you enjoy practicing and studying it.

So, intrinsic motivation is good,  and  extrinsic motivation is good. The key is to figure out  why you — and your team — are motivated to do things and encouraging both types of motivation.

If someone is not performing well, what could be the reason? According to this equation, motivation, ability, and environment are the major influences over employee performance.

Motivation is one of the forces that lead to performance. Motivation is defined as the desire to achieve a goal or a certain performance level, leading to goal-directed behaviour. When we refer to someone as being motivated, we mean that the person is trying hard to accomplish a certain task. Motivation is clearly important if someone is to perform well; however, it is not sufficient. Ability —or having the skills and knowledge required to perform the job—is also important and is sometimes the key predictor of effectiveness. Finally, environmental factors such as having the resources, information, and support to perform well are critical to determine performance. At different times, one of these three factors may be the key to high performance. For example, for an employee sweeping the floor, motivation may be the most important factor that determines performance. In contrast, even the most motivated individual would not be able to successfully design a house without the necessary talent involved in building quality homes. Being motivated is not the same as being a high performer and is not the sole reason why people perform well, but it is nevertheless a key influence over our performance level.

So, what motivates people? Why do some employees try to reach their targets and pursue excellence while others merely show up at work and count the hours? As with many questions involving human beings, the answer is anything but simple. Instead, there are several theories explaining the concept of motivation. We will discuss motivation theories under two categories: need-based theories and process theories.

5.1 A Motivating Place to Work: The Case of Rogers Communications Inc

Rogers Communications Inc has been identified as one of Canada’s 100 top employers by Media Corp Canada, who investigate Canadian companies based on 8 criteria: (1) Physical Workplace; (2) Work Atmosphere & Social; (3) Health, Financial & Family Benefits; (4) Vacation & Time Off; (5) Employee Communications; (6) Performance Management; (7) Training & Skills Development; and (8) Community Involvement. Employers are compared to other organizations in their field to determine which offers the most progressive and forward-thinking programs (Media Corp Canada,2019).

5.2 Need-Based Theories of Motivation

Early researchers thought that employees try hard and demonstrate behaviour to satisfy their own personal needs. For example, an employee who is always walking around the office talking to people may have a need for companionship, and his or her behaviour may be a way of satisfying this need. At the time, researchers developed theories to understand what people need. Two theories may be placed under this category: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and McClelland’s acquired-needs theory.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow is among the most prominent psychologists of the twentieth century. His hierarchy of needs is an image familiar to most business students and managers. The theory is based on a simple idea: human beings have needs that are ranked (Maslow, 1943; Maslow, 1954). There are some needs that are basic to all human beings, and in their absence nothing else matters. As we satisfy these basic needs, we start looking to satisfy higher order needs. In other words, once a lower-level need is satisfied, it no longer serves as a motivator.

The most basic of Maslow’s needs are physiological needs . Physiological needs refer to the need for food, water, and other biological needs. These needs are basic because when they are lacking, the search for them may overpower all other urges. Imagine being very hungry. At that point, all your behaviour may be directed at finding food. Once you eat, though, the search for food ceases and the promise of food no longer serves as a motivator. Once physiological needs are satisfied, people tend to become concerned about safety needs . Are they free from the threat of danger, pain, or an uncertain future? On the next level up, social needs refer to the need to bond with other human beings, be loved, and form lasting attachments with others. In fact, attachments, or lack of them, are associated with our health and well-being (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). The satisfaction of social needs makes esteem needs more salient. Esteem needs refer to the desire to be respected by one’s peers, feel important, and be appreciated. Finally, at the highest level of the hierarchy, the need for self-actualization refers to “becoming all you are capable of becoming.” This need manifests itself by the desire to acquire new skills, take on new challenges, and behave in a way that will lead to the attainment of one’s life goals.

How can an organization satisfy its employees’ various needs? In the long run, physiological needs may be satisfied by the person’s paycheck, but it is important to remember that pay may satisfy other needs such as safety and esteem as well. Providing generous benefits that include health insurance and company-sponsored retirement plans, as well as offering a measure of job security, will help satisfy safety needs. Social needs may be satisfied by having a friendly environment and providing a workplace conducive to collaboration and communication. Company picnics and other social get-togethers may also be helpful if most employees are motivated primarily by social needs (but may cause resentment if they are not and if they must sacrifice a Sunday afternoon for a company picnic). Providing promotion opportunities at work, recognizing a person’s accomplishments verbally or through more formal reward systems, and conferring job titles that communicate to the employee that one has achieved high status within the organization are among the ways of satisfying esteem needs. Finally, self-actualization needs may be satisfied by the provision of development and growth opportunities on or off the job, as well as by work that is interesting and challenging. By making the effort to satisfy the different needs of each employee, organizations may ensure a highly motivated workforce.

Acquired-Needs Theory

Among the need-based approaches to motivation, David McClelland’s acquired-needs theory is the one that has received the greatest amount of support. According to this theory, individuals acquire three types of needs because of their life experiences. These needs are the need for achievement, the need for affiliation, and the need for power . All individuals possess a combination of these needs, and the dominant needs are thought to drive employee behaviour.

McClelland used a unique method called the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) to assess the dominant need (Spangler, 1992). This method entails presenting research subjects an ambiguous picture and asking them to write a story based on it. The instructions will be: “Take a look at the following picture. Who is this person? What is she doing? Why is she doing it?” The story you tell about the woman in the picture would then be analyzed by trained experts. The idea is that the stories the photo evokes would reflect how the mind works and what motivates the person. ( Apperception : the mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas he or she already possesses. For example: a perception would be seeing a dog and thinking “There is a dog.” Apperception would be seeing a dog and thinking “That dog looks like the one that bit my friend Andres”)

If the story you come up with contains themes of success, meeting deadlines, or coming up with brilliant ideas, you may be high in need for achievement. Those who have high need for achievement have a strong need to be successful. As children, they may be praised for their hard work, which forms the foundations of their persistence (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). As adults, they are preoccupied with doing things better than they did in the past. These individuals are constantly striving to improve their performance. They relentlessly focus on goals, particularly stretch goals that are challenging in nature (Campbell, 1982).

Are individuals who are high in need for achievement effective managers? Because of their success in lower-level jobs where their individual contributions matter the most, those with high need for achievement are often promoted to higher level positions (McClelland & Boyatzis, 1982). However, a high need for achievement has significant disadvantages in management positions. Management involves getting work done by motivating others.

If the story you created in relation to the picture you are analyzing contains elements of making plans to be with friends or family, you may have a high need for affiliation . Individuals who have a high need for affiliation want to be liked and accepted by others. When given a choice, they prefer to interact with others and be with friends (Wong & Csikszentmihalyi, 1991).

Finally, if your story contains elements of getting work done by influencing other people or the desire to make an impact on the organization, you may have a high need for power . Those with a high need for power want to influence others and control their environment. A need for power may in fact be a destructive element in relationships with colleagues if it takes the form of seeking and using power for one’s own good and prestige.

5.3 Process-Based Theories

A separate stream of research views motivation as something more than action aimed at satisfying a need. Instead, process-based theories view motivation as a logical process. Individuals analyze their work environment, develop thoughts and feelings, and react in certain ways. Process theories attempt to explain the thought processes of individuals who demonstrate motivated behaviour. Under this category, we will review equity theory, expectancy theory, and reinforcement theory.

Equity Theory

Imagine that you are paid $10 an hour working as an office assistant. You have held this job for 6 months. You are very good at what you do, you come up with creative ways to make things easier around you, and you are a good colleague who is willing to help others. You stay late when necessary and are flexible if requested to change hours. Now imagine that you found out they are hiring another employee who is going to work with you, who will hold the same job title, and who will perform the same type of tasks. This person has more advanced computer skills, but it is unclear whether these will be used on the job. The starting pay for this person will be $14 an hour. How would you feel? Would you be as motivated as before, going above and beyond your duties?

If your reaction to this scenario is along the lines of “this would be unfair,” your behaviour may be explained using equity theory (Adams, 1965). According to this theory, individuals are motivated by a sense of fairness in their interactions. Moreover, our sense of fairness is a result of the social comparisons we make. Specifically, we compare our inputs and outcomes with other people’s inputs and outcomes. We perceive fairness if we believe that the input-to-outcome ratio we are bringing into the situation is like the input-to-outcome ratio of a comparison person, or a referent . Perceptions of inequity create tension within us and drive us to action that will reduce perceived inequity.

What Are Inputs and Outcomes?

Inputs are the contributions people feel they are making to the environment. In the previous example, the person’s hard work; loyalty to the organization; amount of time with the organization; and level of education, training, and skills may have been relevant inputs. Outcomes are the perceived rewards someone can receive from the situation. For the hourly wage employee in our example, the $10 an hour pay rate was a core outcome. There may also be other, more peripheral outcomes, such as acknowledgment or preferential treatment from a manager. In the prior example, however, the person may reason as follows: I have been working here for 6 months. I am loyal, and I perform well (inputs). I am paid $10 an hour for this (outcomes). The new person does not have any experience here (referent’s inputs) but will be paid $14 an hour. This situation is unfair.

Who is the Referent?

The referent other may be a specific person as well as a category of people. Referents should be comparable to us—otherwise the comparison is not meaningful. It would be pointless for a student worker to compare himself to the CEO of the company, given the differences in inputs and outcomes. Instead, individuals may compare themselves to someone performing similar tasks within the same organization or, in the case of a CEO, a different organization.

Reactions to Unfairness

The theory outlines several potential reactions to perceived inequity. Oftentimes, the situation may be dealt with perceptually by altering our perceptions of our own or the referent’s inputs and outcomes . For example, we may justify the situation by downplaying our own inputs (I don’t really work very hard on this job), valuing our outcomes more highly (I am gaining valuable work experience, so the situation is not that bad), distorting the other person’s inputs (the new hire really is more competent than I am and deserves to be paid more), or distorting the other person’s outcomes (she gets $14 an hour but will have to work with a lousy manager, so the situation is not unfair).

Another option would be to have the referent increase inputs . If the other person brings more to the situation, getting more out of the situation would be fair. If that person can be made to work harder or work on more complicated tasks, equity would be achieved.

The person experiencing a perceived inequity may also reduce inputs or attempt to increase outcomes . If the lower paid person puts forth less effort, the perceived inequity would be reduced. Research shows that people who perceive inequity reduce their work performance or reduce the quality of their inputs (Carrell & Dittrich, 1978; Goodman & Friedman, 1971). Increasing one’s outcomes can be achieved through legitimate means such as negotiating a pay raise. At the same time, research shows that those feeling inequity sometimes resort to stealing to balance the scales (Greenberg, 1993).

Other options include changing the comparison person (e.g., others doing similar work in different organizations are paid only minimum wage) and leaving the situation by quitting (Schmidt & Marwell, 1972). Sometimes it may be necessary to consider taking legal action as a potential outcome of perceived inequity. For example, if an employee finds out the main reason behind a pay gap is gender related, the person may react to the situation by taking legal action because sex discrimination in pay is illegal in Canada.

Fairness Beyond Equity: Procedural and Interactional Justice

Equity theory looks at perceived fairness as a motivator. However, the way equity theory defines fairness is limited to fairness of rewards. Starting in the 1970s, research on workplace fairness began taking a broader view of justice. Equity theory deals with outcome fairness, and therefore it is considered to be a distributive justice theory.

Distributive justice refers to the degree to which the outcomes received from the organization are perceived to be fair. Two other types of fairness have been identified: procedural justice and interactional justice.

Let’s assume that you just found out you are getting a promotion. Clearly, this is an exciting outcome and comes with a pay raise, increased responsibilities, and prestige. If you feel you deserve to be promoted, you will perceive high distributive justice (you getting this promotion is fair). However, you later found out upper management picked your name out of a hat! What would you feel? You might still like the outcome but feel that the decision-making process was unfair. If so, you are describing feelings of procedural justice.

Procedural justice refers to the degree to which fair decision-making procedures are used to arrive at a decision. People do not care only about reward fairness. They also expect decision-making processes to be fair. In fact, research shows that employees care about the procedural justice of many organizational decisions, including layoffs, employee selection, surveillance of employees, performance appraisals, and pay decisions (Alge, 2001; Bauer et al., 1998; Kidwell, 1995). People also tend to care more about procedural justice in situations in which they do not get the outcome they feel they deserve (Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996). If you did not get the promotion and later discovered that management chose the candidate by picking names out of a hat, how would you feel? This may be viewed as adding insult to injury. When people do not get the rewards they want, they tend to hold management responsible if procedures are not fair (Brockner et al., 2007).

Now let’s imagine the moment your boss told you that you are getting a promotion. Your manager’s exact words were, “Yes, we are giving you the promotion. The job is so simple that we thought even you can handle it.” Now what is your reaction? The feeling of unfairness you may now feel is explained by interactional justice. Interactional justice refers to the degree to which people are treated with respect, kindness, and dignity in interpersonal interactions. We expect to be treated with dignity by our peers, supervisors, and customers. When the opposite happens, we feel angry. Even when faced with negative outcomes such as a pay cut, being treated with dignity and respect serves as a buffer and alleviates our stress (Greenberg, 2006).

Expectancy Theory

The expectancy theory of motivation, or the expectancy theory, is the belief that an individual chooses their behaviors based on what they believe leads to the most beneficial outcome. The individual’s motivation to put forth more or less effort is determined by a rational calculation in which individuals evaluate their situation (Porter & Lawler, 1968; Vroom, 1964).

This theory is dependent on how much value a person places on different motivations. This results in a decision they expect to give them the highest return for their efforts.

According to this theory, individuals ask themselves three questions.

The first question is whether the person believes that high levels of effort will lead to outcomes of interest, such as performance or success. This perception is labeled expectancy . For example, do you believe that the effort you put forth in a class is related to performing well in that class? If you do, you are more likely to put forth effort.

The second question is the degree to which the person believes that performance is related to subsequent outcomes, such as rewards. This perception is labeled instrumentality . For example, do you believe that getting a good grade in the class is related to rewards such as getting a better job, or gaining approval from your instructor, or from your friends or parents? If you do, you are more likely to put forth effort.

Finally, individuals are also concerned about the value of the rewards awaiting them as a result of performance. The anticipated satisfaction that will result from an outcome is labeled valence . For example, do you value getting a better job, or gaining approval from your instructor, friends, or parents? If these outcomes are desirable to you, your expectancy and instrumentality is high, and you are more likely to put forth effort.

Expectancy theory is a well-accepted theory that has received a lot of research attention (Heneman & Schwab, 1972; Van Eerde & Thierry, 1996). It is simple and intuitive. Consider the following example. Let’s assume that you are working in the concession stand of a movie theater. You have been selling an average of 100 combos of popcorn and soft drinks a day. Now your manager asks you to increase this number to 300 combos a day. Would you be motivated to try to increase your numbers? Here is what you may be thinking:

• Expectancy: is the belief that if an individual raises their efforts, their reward may rise as well. Expectancy is what motivates a person to gather the right tools to get the job done, which could include raw materials and resources, skills to perform the job and support and information from supervisors. Can I do it? If I try harder, can I really achieve this number? Is there a link between how hard I try and whether I reach this goal or not? If you feel that you can achieve this number if you try, you have high expectancy.
• Instrumentality: is the belief that the reward you receive depends on your performance in the workplace. What is in it for me? What is going to happen if I reach 300? What are the outcomes that will follow? Are they going to give me a 2% pay raise? Am I going to be named the salesperson of the month? Am I going to receive verbal praise from my manager? If you believe that performing well is related to certain outcomes, instrumentality is high.
• Valence: is the importance you place on the expected outcome of your performance. This often depends on your individual needs, goals, values and sources of motivation. For example, if you expect to be one of the top performers on your team, you may place high importance on achieving that goal, even if others don’t expect you to achieve this level of performance. How do I feel about the outcomes in question? Do I feel that a 2% pay raise is desirable? Do I find being named the salesperson of the month attractive? Do I think that being praised by my manager is desirable? If your answers are yes, valence is positive. In contrast, if you find the outcomes undesirable (you definitely do not want to be named the salesperson of the month because your friends would make fun of you), valence is negative.

If your answers to all three questions are affirmative—you feel that you can do it, you will get an outcome if you do it, and you value the reward—you are more likely to be motivated to put forth more effort toward selling more combos.

As a manager, how can you motivate employees? In fact, managers can influence all three perceptions (Cook, 1980).

Influencing Expectancy Perceptions

Employees may not believe that their effort leads to high performance for a multitude of reasons. First, they may not have the skills, knowledge, or abilities to successfully perform their jobs. The answer to this problem may be training employees or hiring people who are qualified for the jobs in question. Second, low levels of expectancy may be because employees may feel that something other than effort predicts performance, such as political behaviours on the part of employees. If employees believe that the work environment is not conducive to performing well (resources are lacking or roles are unclear), expectancy will also suffer. Therefore, clearing the path to performance and creating an environment in which employees do not feel restricted will be helpful. Finally, some employees may perceive little connection between their effort and performance level because they have an external locus of control, low self-esteem, or other personality traits that condition them to believe that their effort will not make a difference. In such cases, providing positive feedback and encouragement may help motivate employees.

Reinforcement Theory

Reinforcement theory is based on a simple idea that may be viewed as common sense. Beginning at infancy we learn through reinforcement. If you have observed a small child discovering the environment, you will see reinforcement theory in action. When the child discovers that twisting and turning a tap leads to water coming out and finds this outcome pleasant, he is more likely to repeat the behaviour. If he burns his hand while playing with hot water, the child is likely to stay away from the faucet in the future.

Despite the simplicity of reinforcement, how many times have you seen positive behaviour ignored, or worse, negative behaviour rewarded? In many organizations, this is a familiar scenario. People go above and beyond the call of duty, yet their actions are ignored or criticized. People with disruptive habits may receive no punishments because the manager is afraid of the reaction the person will give when confronted. Problem employees may even receive rewards such as promotions so they will be transferred to a different location and become someone else’s problem.

Reinforcement Interventions

How does a leader modify a team members’ behaviour so that the team member becomes more productive. ?

Reinforcement theory describes four interventions to modify employee behaviour. Two of these (Positive and Negative reinforcement) are methods of increasing the frequency of desired behaviours, while the remaining two (Punishment and Extinction) are methods of reducing the frequency of undesired behaviours.

Positive reinforcement is a method of increasing the desired behaviour (Beatty & Schneier, 1975). Positive reinforcement involves making sure that behaviour is met with positive consequences. For example, praising an employee for treating a customer respectfully is an example of positive reinforcement. If the praise immediately follows the positive behaviour, the employee will see a link between the behaviour and positive consequences and will be motivated to repeat similar behaviours.

Negative reinforcement is also used to increase the desired behaviour. Negative reinforcement involves removal of unpleasant outcomes once desired behaviour is demonstrated. Nagging an employee to complete a report is an example of negative reinforcement. The negative stimulus in the environment will remain present until positive behaviour is demonstrated. The problem with negative reinforcement is that the negative stimulus may lead to unexpected behaviours and may fail to stimulate the desired behaviour. For example, the person may start avoiding the manager to avoid being nagged.

Extinction is used to decrease the frequency of negative behaviours. Extinction is the removal of rewards following negative behaviour. Sometimes, negative behaviours are demonstrated because they are being inadvertently rewarded. For example, it has been shown that when people are rewarded for their unethical behaviours, they tend to demonstrate higher levels of unethical behaviours (Harvey & Sims, 1978). Thus, when the rewards following unwanted behaviours are removed, the frequency of future negative behaviours may be reduced. For example, if a co-worker is forwarding unsolicited e-mail messages containing jokes, commenting and laughing at these jokes may be encouraging the person to keep forwarding these messages. Completely ignoring such messages may reduce their frequency.

Punishment is another method of reducing the frequency of undesirable behaviours. Punishment involves presenting negative consequences following unwanted behaviours. Giving an employee a warning for consistently being late to work is an example of punishment.

An inspiring speech for your reflection

Jon Fisher  (born January 19, 1972) is an entrepreneur, investor, author, speaker, philanthropist and inventor. Fisher is known for a viral commencement speech at the University of San Francisco. Here is an excerpt.

5.4 Motivation in Action: The Case of Trader Joe’s

People in Hawaiian T-shirts. Delicious fresh fruits and vegetables. A place where parking is tight and aisles are tiny. A place where you will be unable to find half the things on your list but will go home satisfied. We are, of course, talking about Trader Joe’s (a privately held company), a unique grocery store headquartered in California and located in 22 states. By selling store-brand and gourmet foods at affordable prices, this chain created a special niche for itself. Yet the helpful employees who stock the shelves and answer questions are definitely key to what makes this store unique and helps it achieve twice the sales of traditional supermarkets.

Shopping here is fun and chatting with employees is a routine part of this experience. Employees are upbeat and friendly to each other and to customers. If you look lost, there is the definite offer of help. But somehow the friendliness does not seem scripted. Instead, if they see you shopping for big trays of cheese, they might casually inquire if you are having a party and then point to other selections. If they see you chasing your toddler, they are quick to tie a balloon to his wrist. When you ask them if they have any cumin, they get down on their knees to check the back of the aisle, with the attitude of helping a guest that is visiting their home. How does a company make sure its employees look like they enjoy being there to help others?

One of the keys to this puzzle is pay. Trader Joe’s sells cheap organic food, but they are not “cheap” when it comes to paying their employees. Employees, including part-timers, are among the best paid in the retail industry. Full-time employees earn an average of $40,150 in their first year and also earn average annual bonuses of $950 with $6,300 in retirement contributions. Store managers’ average compensation is $132,000. With these generous benefits and above-market wages and salaries, the company has no difficulty attracting qualified candidates.

But money only partially explains what energizes Trader Joe’s employees. They work with people who are friendly and upbeat. The environment is collaborative, so that people fill in for each other and managers pick up the slack when the need arises, including tasks like sweeping the floors. Plus, the company promotes solely from within, making Trader Joe’s one of few places in the retail industry where employees can satisfy their career aspirations. Employees are evaluated every 3 months and receive feedback about their performance.

Employees are also given autonomy on the job. They can open a product to have the customers try it and can be honest about their feelings toward different products. They receive on- and off-the-job training and are intimately familiar with the products, which enables them to come up with ideas that are taken seriously by upper management. In short, employees love what they do, work with nice people who treat each other well, and are respected by the company. When employees are treated well, it is no wonder they treat their customers well daily (Lewis, 2005; McGregor et al., 2004; Speizer, 2004).

5.5 Conclusion

In this chapter, we have reviewed the basic motivation theories that have been developed to explain motivated behaviour. Several theories view motivated behaviour as attempts to satisfy needs. Based on this approach, managers would benefit from understanding what people need so that the actions of employees can be understood and managed. Other theories explain motivated behaviour using the cognitive processes of employees. Employees respond to unfairness in their environment, they learn from the consequences of their actions and repeat the behaviours that lead to positive results, and they are motivated to exert effort if they see their actions will lead to outcomes that would get them desired rewards. None of these theories are complete on their own, but each theory provides us with a framework we can use to analyze, interpret, and manage employee behaviours in the workplace.

Organizational Behaviour Copyright © 2019 by Seneca College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Health care professionals’ motivation, their behaviors, and the quality of hospital care: A mixed-methods systematic review

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Health care professionals’ work motivation is assumed to be crucial for the quality of hospital care, but it is unclear which type of motivation ought to be stimulated to improve quality. Motivation and similar concepts are aligned along a motivational continuum that ranges from (intrinsic) autonomous motivation to (extrinsic) controlled motivation to provide a framework for this mixed-methods systematic review.

This mixed-methods systematic review aims to link various types of health care professionals’ motivation directly and through their work-related behaviors to quality of care.

Six databases were searched from January 1990 to August 2016. Qualitative and quantitative studies were included if they reported on work motivation in relationship to work behavior and/or quality, and study participants were health care professionals working in hospitals in high-income countries. Study bias was evaluated using the Standard Quality Assessment Criteria for Evaluating Primary Research Papers from a Variety of Fields. The review protocol was registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42016043284).

A total of 84 out of 6,525 unique records met the inclusion criteria. Results show that health care professionals’ autonomous motivation improves their quality perceptions and work-related behaviors. Controlled motivation inhibits voicing behavior, but when balanced with autonomous motivation, it stimulates core task and proactive behavior. Proactivity is associated with increased quality of care perceptions.

Practice Implications

To improve quality of care, policy makers and managers need to support health care professionals’ autonomous motivation and recognize and facilitate proactivity as an essential part of health care professionals’ jobs. Incentive-based quality improvements need to be complemented with aspects that stimulate autonomous motivation.

It is widely assumed that health care professionals’ work motivation is beneficial for the quality of patient care in hospitals ( Berenson & Rice, 2015 ; Franco, Bennett, & Kanfer, 2002 ). Health care professionals’ work motivation is increasingly being investigated, as scholars draw on the positive effects of motivation on performance that were observed in the organizational literature ( Cerasoli, Nicklin, & Ford, 2014 ; Kim, Kolb, & Kim, 2013 ). However, it is unclear whether these findings apply to the quality of patient care, as studies from the field of organizational research tend to focus on individual-level employee outcomes, such as performance or employee behavior, rather than on team or organizational outcomes ( Kim et al., 2013 ). In a complex system as health care, quality follows from the performance of many independent actors working together in a connected system, which means that performance at the individual level does not necessarily predict the outcomes of the system: quality of care (Griffin, Neal, & Parker, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ; Hollnagel, Wears, & Braithwaite, 2015 ).

The inability to determine whether and how health care professionals’ motivation affects patient care is problematic, because it hampers the development of effective motivation-based policies and interventions to boost care quality. Moreover, current motivational strategies may even have unintended consequences. For example, financial incentives, which are widely popular in health care ( Berenson & Rice, 2015 ; Flodgren et al., 2011 ), may improve performance on relatively simple tasks but at the same time hold the potential to “crowd out” intrinsic motivation, which determines the quality of performance on complex tasks ( Cerasoli et al., 2014 ). Therefore, more insight is needed in the relationships between health care professionals’ work motivation, their work behaviors, and the quality of care.

Previous attempts to integrate the literature on this topic were unsuccessful in linking health care professionals’ work motivation to the quality of hospital care. In an overview of reviews, Flodgren et al. (2011) concluded that there is some but limited evidence for the effectiveness of financial incentives in changing professional practice, but no evidence to support any effects on patient outcomes. Likewise, systematic reviews on nurses’ work engagement and physicians’ occupational well-being reported positive associations with work behaviors, but the link with care outcomes was understudied ( Keyko, Cummings, Yonge, & Wong, 2016 ; Scheepers, Boerebach, Arah, Heineman, & Lombarts, 2015 ).

This review aims to go beyond existing work to get more insight in the relationship between motivation and quality of care. To achieve this aim, we apply a broad approach by synthesizing the evidence from quantitative and qualitative studies on (a) the direct relationships between autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and amotivation of all health care professionals involved in direct patient care in hospitals and the quality of hospital care, (b) the relationships between these types of work motivation and health care professionals’ core task and (c) proactive behaviors, and (d) the relationship between proactive behaviors and the quality of patient care in hospitals. To overcome a potential lack of evidence due to narrow conceptualizations of work motivation and work behavior as observed in previous reviews, we use extensive conceptualizations of these constructs by considering similar concepts, which we place within a theoretical framework to guide our systematic search for evidence and the synthesis of results. The theoretical framework and research questions are depicted in Figure ​ Figure1 1 and will be further explained subsequently.

Theoretical framework: motivational continuum and Research Questions (RQ) 1–4

Work motivation is defined as “a set of energetic forces originating within and beyond an individual’s being, which determines the form, direction, intensity and duration of work- related behavior” (Pinder, as cited in Gagné, 2014 , p. 38). According to the self-determination theory, various forms of work motivation exist on a continuum (Deci & Ryan, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ). This continuum ranges from autonomous motivation at the one end, through controlled motivation, to amotivation at the other end of the continuum . Autonomous motivation means that the reasons to engage in a behavior stem from within a person. From most autonomous to least autonomous, a behavior can be perceived as enjoyable or interesting in itself ( intrinsic motivation ), or as an integral part of oneself ( integrated regulation ), or the values underlying the behavior can be considered congruent with one’s personal goals and identity ( identified regulation ). Controlled motivation means that reasons to engage in a behavior stem from beyond a person. When driven by controlled motivation, a behavior is done because it has instrumental value; it helps to obtain a sense of self-worth or prevents one from feeling guilty ( introjected regulation ) or it leads to a separable outcome such as money or status ( external regulation ). Amotivation refers to not being motivated to engage in an activity (Deci & Ryan, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ).

From this perspective, we align several related constructs that refer to energetic forces that guide behavior with this motivational continuum to guide our review. From most to least autonomous, we consider work engagement (“a positive affective-motivational state of work related well-being”; Bakker et al., as cited in Kim et al., 2013 , p. 249), psychological empowerment (intrinsic task motivation due to finding the task meaningful and experiencing self-efficacy and a sense of impact; Thomas & Velthouse, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ), psychological ownership (being psychologically tied to an object as an extension of one’s identity, e.g., the organization, or the patient; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004 ), affective commitment (“a force that binds an individual to a course of action relevant to one or more targets,” e.g., the job, organization or patient, based on values, personal involvement, and identity; Meyer & Herscovitch, as cited in Gagné, 2014 , p. 34), and finally job and work involvement (the importance of one’s job or work in general; Kanungo, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ).

At the controlled side of the continuum, we consider normative commitment (an attachment to a target based on a perceived obligation; Meyer & Herscovitch, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ) and continuance commitment (an attachment to a target based on a cost–benefit analysis of maintaining versus withdrawing from the commitment; Meyer & Herscovitch, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ).

Finally, a construct that is often used to predict behavior is behavioral intention , which refers to a willingness to exert effort to achieve something ( Ajzen, 1991 ). This construct can be interpreted as the absence of amotivation. To enhance readability, the concepts at the autonomous side of the continuum are referred to as autonomous motivation, and the concepts corresponding with the controlled side are referred to as controlled motivation. When relevant, specifications are given.

Quality of Care

The main aim of this review is to understand the impact of health care professionals’ work motivation on the quality of care. Quality of care encompasses more than just one type of outcome. Following the World Health Organization, quality is defined along six dimensions: effectiveness (congruent with current medical evidence and leads to improved health outcomes), efficiency (optimal and sustainable use of personnel and resources), accessibility (timeliness and skills and resources match the medical need), patient-centeredness (respects for individual needs and preferences of the patient), equitability (equality despite gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status), and safety (minimized risk and harm to patients; World Health Organization, 2006 ). This review aims to shed more light on Research Question 1: “How do autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and amotivation relate to the six dimensions of quality of hospital care?”

Work Behaviors

Health care professionals’ actions within a hospital system are the core of patient care. For this reason, it is meaningful to consider health care professionals’ work behaviors as mediators between motivation and quality of care ( Franco et al., 2002 ).

Work behavior can be classified into two types, namely core task behavior and proactive behavior ( Kim et al., 2013 ; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004 ). Core task behavior refers to the behaviors to fulfill formal task requirements (Crant, as cited in Gagné, 2014 ), which is similar to role prescribed (or in-role ) behavior (behavior that is recognized by the formal reward system and that is part of the job description; Borman & Motowidlo, as cited in Kim et al., 2013 ). Examples of core task behaviors are guideline adherence and compliance to organizational procedures and protocols ( Gagné, 2014 ). Studies using these concepts are included in our review in order to answer Research Question 2: “How do autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and amotivation relate to health care professionals’ core task behaviors?”

Many core task behaviors are formalized in evidence-based guidelines and protocols, which are specific per discipline within the hospital and grounded in ample scientific evidence ( Greenhalgh, Howick, & Maskrey, 2014 ). Consequently, the relationship between core task behaviors and quality of care is too extensive for this review. Yet, it can be argued that, although there are exceptions, exerting these behaviors contributes to care quality.

Proactive behavior , the second type of behavior, refers to challenging current circumstances and taking initiative to create new ones and is also described as going beyond one’s job or task requirements ( Gagné, 2014 ). Similar concepts are extra-role behavior (positive and discretionary behavior that is not prescribed in formal job descriptions; Borman & Motowidlo, as cited in Kim et al., 2013 ) and organizational citizenship behavior , which refers “discretionary work behaviors that contribute to organizational well-being but are not part of formal job expectations” (Organ, as cited in Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004 , p. 446). Examples of proactive behaviors are engaging in quality improvements and voicing concerns or speaking up in unsafe clinical situations ( Gagné, 2014 ). We include these concepts in our review to determine their motivators, as Research Question 3 states: “How do autonomous, controlled, and amotivation relate to health care professionals’ proactive behaviors?”

Health care professionals’ proactive behaviors are indispensable for quality of care, as the complexity of the health care system can never be completely captured in guidelines and protocols ( Greenhalgh et al., 2014 ; Hollnagel et al., 2015 ). However, proactive behavior may have inconsistent contributions for each of the six dimensions of quality. For example, patient-centeredness is likely to increase when health care professionals “go the extra mile” for their patients, but this may diminish efficiency. Therefore, Research Question 4 states: “How do health care professionals’ proactive behaviors relate to outcomes on the six dimensions of quality of hospital care?”

In line with the broad approach of this review, a mixed-methods systematic review was conducted. Reviews can be mixed by including various types of studies, by applying mixed methods for the synthesis of studies, or by applying both theory building and theory testing modes of analysis ( Harden, 2010 ). This systematic review was mixed in the sense that we included qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods studies. This systematic review was registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO, No. CRD42016043284) of the University of York. The data were managed using a PRISMA-based Excel workbook and ATLAS.ti, Version 8.3.2.

Sources and Search Strategy

An elaborate search string was entered into PubMed, PsycINFO, Business Source Premier, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Web of Science. Two librarians (from medical and social sciences departments) were consulted for the development of the search string, which combined three key themes: motivation/behavior (e.g., motivation OR engagement OR proactive behavior OR guideline adherence), health care professionals (e.g., nurse OR physician OR resident), and quality of care (e.g., effectiveness OR safety). The search was limited to studies published in an academic journal between January 1990 and August 2016 and written in the English language. The full search string is available from the first author on request.

The search string identified a large number of records, which included all relevant references obtained from related reviews. Consequently, it was considered appropriate to deviate from the research protocol by not performing a backward reference search.

Study Selection

To be eligible for inclusion in the systematic review, a paper had to match the following criteria: be an empirical quantitative or qualitative paper revealing information on at least one of the four research questions, study participants were health care professionals providing direct patient care, the study took place within a hospital setting and in a high-income country as classified by the World Bank ( The World Bank Group, 2016 ), because the availability of resources is an important factor influencing care quality in middle- and low-income countries ( Fritzen, 2007 ). Furthermore, the paper had to report on individual-level self-reported measures of work motivation, whereas the measures of health care professionals’ behaviors and quality of care could take place at either the individual or at the group level and could be either self-reported (e.g., self-reported behavior or perceived quality) or externally assessed (e.g., supervisor-assessed work behavior or outcomes derived from hospital systems).

The interrater agreement for a random selection of 10% of the screened records was unsatisfactory for both the title and abstract and full-text screening (around 0.5). Consequently, we deviated from the review protocol, which describes that the first author would screen the remaining papers. Instead, the complete title and abstract screening and the complete full-text screening were done by two independent reviewers. Inconsistencies were discussed until consensus was reached.

Risk of Bias, Data Extraction, and Synthesis of Results

The risk of bias was assessed using the Standard Quality Assessment Criteria for Evaluating Primary Research Papers ( Kmet, Cook, & Lee, 2004 ), with quality assessment (QA) checklists for quantitative papers (14 items) and for qualitative papers (10 items). These instruments resulted in a QA score for each paper with a possible range from 0 to 1, with 1 being the highest score. Studies were included regardless of their QA score, which is used to determine the risk of bias across studies and to differentiate between findings from low-quality and high-quality studies (with QAs below and above average, respectively).

The data extraction concerned the research method, sample size, response rate, descriptive information about the participants, definitions, and operationalizations of the concepts and research findings. The QA and data extraction were performed by two independent reviewers for 41.67% ( n = 35) of the research papers, where disagreements were discussed until consensus was reached. The correlation between the QAs of the first author and the second reviewers was satisfactory ( r = .61, p < .001) and the correlation between the first authors’ initial QA and the consensus decision was high ( r = .89, p < .001). Therefore, it was considered appropriate to perform the risk assessment and data extraction of the remaining papers by the first author. The extracted data were entered into a spreadsheet and coded in ATLAS.ti to enable the narrative synthesis of results per research question. In the synthesis of results, we distinguished between findings based on quantitative or qualitative evidence. For mixed-methods studies, this categorization was based on the type of evidence about the research question presented.

The search resulted in the identification of 6,525 unique records, of which 84 records matched the inclusion criteria. A PRISMA flow diagram of the identification and selection of records is given in Figure ​ Figure2 2 .

PRISMA flow diagram of the literature search

Study Characteristics and Risk of Bias

The included records on quantitative findings ( n = 66) reported on four quasi-experimental studies, four time-lagged studies, four mixed-methods studies, six longitudinal studies, and 48 cross-sectional studies. Records reporting on qualitative findings ( n = 18) reported on three case studies and 15 interview studies. Of all included studies, 46 focused exclusively on nurses, 13 focused exclusively on physicians, and 25 studies had participants from multiple professions, including nurses, physicians, paraprofessionals, and physician assistants. Together, the studies included over 102,500 health care professionals.

The QA resulted in an overall mean score of 0.70 ( SD = 0.21), with M QAquantitative = 0.71 ( SD = 0.19) and M QAqualitative = 0.70 ( SD = 0.27). The QA across studies (available from the first author on request) demonstrated that a potential risk of bias of quantitative studies are the lack of control for confounding factors and the limited definition and/or operationalization of the concepts of interest. For qualitative studies, most frequently observed shortcomings were the lack of reflexivity, the ambiguity of the sampling strategy, and data collection and/or analysis.

Seventy-one of the studies reported on one of the research questions of this review, eight studies reported on two research questions, four studies reported on three research questions, and one study reported on all four research questions. An overview of the results is depicted in Table ​ Table1. 1 . For each research question, the findings based on quantitative evidence will be described first, followed by the qualitative findings, which deepen our understanding of the relationships of interest. In the conclusions for each research question, reflections are made upon the influence of the quality of the studies.

Overview of findings per research question (first author and year of publication of the reporting study)

Note. Qualitative evidence is depicted in italics. RQ = research question; OCB = organizational citizenship behavior.

a High-quality study.

b Externally assessed outcome.

Each finding (positive, negative, or no association) about Research Questions 1–4 is depicted in Table ​ Table1 1 and papers reporting multiple research findings are represented multiple times. Full references to the included studies are given in Supplemental Digital Content 1 ( http://links.lww.com/HCMR/A67 ). The full descriptions of the study characteristics and findings as depicted in Table ​ Table1 1 are available from the first author on request.

Motivation and Quality of Care

The first research question was investigated in 29 studies: 24 studies reported on quantitative evidence and 5 on qualitative evidence. The quantitative evidence showed that autonomous motivation, mostly investigated in terms of work engagement and empowerment, positively influenced overall perceptions of quality. Organizational commitment had mixed (positive and no) effects on perceived quality, and professional commitment was positively associated with three out of six patient-perceived quality indicators.

Autonomous motivation positively affected safety perceptions but had no association with the number of safety events. Work engagement was mostly positively associated with perceived safety, but one study reported no association. There was no effect of controlled motivation on perceived safety.

Autonomous motivation had mixed effects on perceived patient-centeredness, with some studies finding a positive association, one study finding no association and one study reporting a negative association. Controlled motivation was negatively associated with perceptions of patient-centeredness.

For the less investigated quality dimensions, behavioral intention was positively associated with perceptions of equitability. Autonomous motivation positively affected perceived effectiveness and efficiency of care. Furthermore, an otherwise unspecified sense of motivation was not associated with effectiveness, nor with accessibility of care.

The qualitative evidence also supported positive associations between autonomous motivation and perceptions of quality, safety, and patient-centeredness, whereas an absence of motivation was perceived to lead to poor quality of care. An interview study found that physicians’ motivation to provide patient-centered care results from a balance between autonomous reasons (values) and controlled reasons (their own agenda based on external factors such as resources and fear of uncertainty).

When merely considering the high-quality studies, there was a positive association between autonomous motivation and perceived quality and safety. Patient-centeredness was stimulated by a balance of autonomous and controlled motivation. The studies focusing on effectiveness, equitability, and efficiency perceptions and externally assessed quality were either of low quality or reported no effect. Therefore, the effect of motivation on these outcomes remains uncertain.

Motivation and Core Task Behavior

Of the 19 studies that reported on the second research question, quantitative evidence was presented in 15 studies, and four studies presented qualitative evidence. The quantitative findings were that autonomous motivation, most often investigated in terms of work engagement and organizational commitment, positively influenced self-reported core task behavior and guideline adherence. Mixed (positive and no) results were found for the relationship between autonomous motivation and externally assessed core task behavior. One study reported that the relationship between autonomous motivation and supervisor-assessed core task behavior was mediated by commitment to the supervisor. Whereas normative commitment had a positive association with core task behavior, continuance commitment had a negative association with core task behavior. Mixed effects were reported for behavioral intention and an otherwise unspecified sense of motivation in relationship to self-reported guideline adherence. Behavioral intention did not predict observed guideline adherence.

The qualitative evidence also supported positive associations between autonomous motivation and core task behaviors. Core task behavior was reported to result from a balance between autonomous and controlled motivation, in which controlled motivation contributed to as well as inhibited this type of behavior.

When merely considering the high-quality studies, autonomous motivation was positively associated with core task behavior. Moderately controlled motivation contributed to core task behavior, but motivation at the most controlled end of the continuum did not to contribute to and even inhibited core task behavior. As the studies on behavioral intention were of low quality, its effect remains unclear.

Motivation and Proactive Behavior

The third research question was investigated in 43 studies, of which 32 presented quantitative findings and 11 presented qualitative findings. The quantitative evidence generally showed a positive relationship between autonomous motivation and proactive behavior, but findings were mixed for identified regulation, involvement, and organizational commitment. Controlled motivation had no or a negative association with self-reported proactive behavior. Furthermore, controlled motivation, commitment to patients, and goal internalization did not affect externally assessed proactive behavior. For voicing behavior, it was found that, whereas autonomous motivation stimulated voicing behavior, this behavior was discouraged by extrinsic factors (e.g., colleagues’ approval and the fear of failure).

The qualitative findings supported the positive association between autonomous motivation and proactive behavior. Nevertheless, it was observed that even if health care professionals experience a sense of ownership or find quality improvement important, this autonomous motivation may exist without actual engagement in proactive behavior. Similar to the quantitative findings, autonomous and controlled reasons simultaneously stimulated proactive behavior, quality improvements, and voicing behavior. However, for voicing behavior, controlled motivation held the potential to overrule autonomous motivation to speak up, thereby preventing this type of behavior.

Overall, autonomous motivation was positively associated with proactive behaviors. The association between controlled motivation and proactive behavior was dependent on the type of proactive behavior; whereas controlled motivation, combined with autonomous motivation, stimulated quality improvements and possibly also proactivity, controlled motivation negatively affected voicing behavior. When merely considering the high-quality studies, the results do not change.

Proactive Behavior and Quality of Care

Of the 12 studies reporting on the fourth research question, nine reported on quantitative findings and three reported on qualitative findings. The quantitative results showed that proactive behavior positively influenced perceived quality and had mixed effects on externally assessed quality and safety. Proactive behavior even had a negative effect on safety when safety was operationalized in terms of a low number of reported incidents in the hospital system. Furthermore, although proactivity among nurses stimulated nurse compliance to screening, it had no influence on the actual effectiveness of care delivered by physicians. Regarding quality improvement projects, positive effects were found on care effectiveness and safety, except when the patients were vulnerable. Voicing behavior was not associated with quality perceptions.

The qualitative evidence resembled these findings. Patients as well as nurses perceive nurses’ proactivity as an indicator of high-quality care, and nurse-reported (but not externally assessed) proactivity was indeed associated with externally assessed safety outcomes. Furthermore, interventions to stimulate proactivity or quality improvements had generally positive effects on externally assessed safety and effectiveness, but when patients were vulnerable, quality improvements had less or no effect.

When merely considering the high-quality studies, there was a positive association between self-reported proactive behavior and self-reported quality. Proactive behavior had a positive association with externally assessed safety in terms of the absence of harm to patients, but it had no or even a negative association with externally assessed safety when this was operationalized as the number of incident reports. The studies reporting on externally assessed proactive behavior, voicing behavior, or evaluations of interventions were of low quality, which limits their reliability.

This review highlights the importance of autonomous motivation for health care professionals’ behaviors and the quality of care. We show that autonomous motivation is directly and positively associated with quality, safety, and patient-centeredness, whereas controlled motivation and amotivation are negatively associated with quality.

In addition, the findings of this review provide nuanced insights on the role of controlled motivation and incentives. Moderately controlled motivation is positively associated with core task performance, as observed in the organizational literature. In contrast with findings from the field of organizational studies, which support a positive effect of external regulation on performance ( Cerasoli et al., 2014 ), our findings show that motivation at the most controlled end of the continuum is not or negatively associated with health care professionals’ core task behaviors. This discrepancy might be due to differences between work motivation of health care professionals versus of employees from other types of organizations. In a study comparing the motivation of for-profit and not-for-profit employees (with the latter group including hospital employees as their organization has a social rather than a profit mission), not-for-profit employees had lower external regulations than employees working in organizations driven by monetary goals ( De Cooman, De Gieter, Pepermans, & Jegers, 2011 ). Furthermore, studies among medical students indicate that they choose their profession out of intrinsic and identified motivation rather than extrinsic motivation ( Berenson & Rice, 2015 ), and they maintain this high level of intrinsic motivation throughout their career ( Berenson & Rice, 2015 ; Scheepers et al., 2015 ). Because of this high level of intrinsic motivation and low level of external regulation, health care professionals might not be very susceptible for extrinsic motivators. This would also provide an explanation for the finding that providing incentives does not stimulate proactive behaviors and quality improvement, unless this is combined with autonomous reasons to act. These observations challenge the emphasis on incentivizing (e.g., financial incentives) and penalizing (e.g., public reporting) as a means to extrinsically motivate health care professionals to improve quality and potentially explain why these methods have not reached their anticipated success ( Berenson & Rice, 2015 ; Flodgren et al., 2011 ; Franco et al., 2002 ).

Furthermore, our review sheds further light on the role of proactive behavior in the health care setting. Our findings show that proactive behavior generally contributes to effectiveness, but only when the treatment is under the direct control of the proactive health care professional. In addition, proactive behavior contributes to safety, but not if safety is operationalized as the number of reported incidents. We argue that the number of reported incidents is probably not a valid measure of patient safety, which is confirmed by our finding that autonomous reasons contribute to voicing, but that this motivation can be overruled by controlled reasons to act, such as social reprimands. We state that the number of reported incidents reflects the safety culture or the learning potential of an organization; if there is a supportive safety culture, health care workers are more willing to act proactively and voice incidents ( Ancarani, Di Mauro, & Giammanco, 2017 ). This could also explain the observed positive relationship between proactive behavior and reported incidents. Considering this point, we conclude that proactive behavior contributes to the quality and safety of care.

The key policy priority to improve quality of care is to stimulate health care professionals’ autonomous work motivation. Although our review confirms that controlled motivation has its positive sides ( Cerasoli et al., 2014 ), it negatively affects quality perceptions and voicing behavior. Therefore, current efforts to extrinsically motivate health care professionals to improve specific quality outcomes by incentivizing or penalizing need to be revised. It is recommended that these incentive-based interventions are complemented with aspects to simultaneously stimulate autonomous motivation, such as alignment with health care professionals’ drives and values, autonomy, supportive supervision, appreciation, respect and good interpersonal relationships, and growth opportunities ( Berenson & Rice, 2015 ; Keyko et al., 2016 ).

Furthermore, as we observed that motivation based on normative considerations predicts core task behavior well, we suggest that, to increase compliance for specific core task behaviors, such as hand hygiene, one might want to appeal on health care professionals’ sense of professionalism; the internalized professional norms and values to act in the interest of the patient. Health care leaders can set the norm by engaging in exemplary behaviors ( Ancarani et al., 2017 ; Berenson & Rice, 2015 ; Franco et al., 2002 ).

The next recommendation is to facilitate health care professionals’ proactive behaviors. In uncertain contexts, systems awareness, organizational learning, and continuous quality improvement are essential, and acting proactively is “part of the job” (Griffin et al., as cited in Gagné, 2014 ; Hollnagel et al., 2015 ). It is increasingly recognized that establishing quality and safety is no longer merely “avoiding that something goes wrong,” rather, it is “ensuring that as many things as possible go right” ( Hollnagel et al., 2015 ) by acting proactively and raising concerns. In line with this thinking, we state that, to unleash the learning potential of health care organizations and to improve the quality of care, proactive behavior needs to be recognized as a fundamental part of health care professionals’ job requirements and needs to be appreciated and facilitated accordingly, for example, by allocating resources (e.g., time, equipment, training) for quality improvements, normalizing voicing behavior, and establishing a shame- and blame-free environment for raising concerns, learning, and improvement ( Ancarani et al., 2017 ).

This review focused on the hospital setting, and our recommendations might apply beyond this setting as well. Care provision takes place within the clinical microsystem (the team of health care professionals caring for a patient; Fulop & Ramsay, 2019 ), and as these can be found in several settings such as primary care clinics, mental health care, and chronic care, we assume that our findings and recommendations translate to those settings as well. However, the extent to which our research translates to other health care systems outside high-income countries may be limited, as Fritzen (2007) stated that in low- and middle-income countries, there is “often a disjunction between formal responsibilities and the requisite resources to meet minimum specific standards.” In other words, the availability of resources, which varies per system, affects the extent to which health care professionals are able to act upon their motivation to provide and improve care.

It is important to note that achieving high-quality provision in hospitals is complex and influenced by intertwined factors from the organizational context and the broader environmental context. These factors include organizational characteristics (e.g., size, scale, structure, information systems, leadership, and culture) and broader environmental characteristics such as governance, regulation, and finance of the health care system ( Fulop & Ramsay, 2019 ). These factors should be aligned to provide health care workers with the resources, including autonomous motivation, for high-quality care delivery.

Limitations and Future Research

The results of this review need be interpreted in consideration of its limitations. First, the alignment of the motivational concepts along the self-determination theory continuum may reflect an overly simplistic view of these concepts, and the list of aligned concepts might not have been exhaustive. The generalizability of this approach may therefore be limited when investigating other, but related, concepts (e.g., altruism). In addition, some studies may have been overlooked due to publication bias, not incorporating gray literature and because the search string was not exhaustive. Furthermore, we observed a suboptimal interrater agreement regarding the inclusion of the studies, which we resolved by performing the screening of all abstracts and full-text records by two independent reviewers. Future researchers might prevent this issue by stating the inclusion and exclusion criteria more explicitly, especially for ambiguously described studies (e.g., include, unless it is completely clear that an exclusion criterion applies). In addition, the extensive QA, which included questions concerning the risk of bias, may not have completely eliminated the potential influence of bias. Regarding all research questions, it is noted that most studies use self-reported measures of behavior or quality, and therefore, the evidence for the effect of motivation on externally assessed behavior and quality is limited. Finally, most studies based their conclusions on correlations or regression analyses. In the absence of sufficient longitudinal or (quasi-)experimental studies, we cannot unambiguously determine the causality of the relationships we studied.

These limitations should be addressed in future work, as well as the following recommendations. This review shows that autonomous and controlled motivation might influence behavior simultaneously. Building on studies about motivational or commitment profiles (e.g., Gagné, 2014 ), future (quasi-)experimental studies might aim at getting a better understanding of the “right” balance between extrinsic rewards and autonomous motivation for the provision of high-quality care. To conclude, it is strongly recommended that future studies incorporate objective and valid measures to study health care professionals’ motivation, behaviors, and the (externally assessed) quality of care dimensions.

To improve quality of care, policy makers and managers need to support health care professionals’ autonomously motivation and facilitate them to act proactively and “go the extra mile” for their patients. Combining autonomous and controlled motivation holds the potential to boost quality of care, but more insight is needed into how to balance these types of motivation in such a way that it does not thwart voicing behaviors.

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

We would like to express our gratitude to our student assistants Rick Overwijk and Marcel Schmidt for their help in the screening phases of this review. We are thankful to Helena VonVille for providing us with the Excel workbooks and advise. We are grateful to the University Medical Center Groningen and the University of Groningen as the submitted work was undertaken as part of a PhD program funded by these two institutions.

The authors have disclosed that they have no significant relationship with, or financial interest in, any commercial companies pertaining to this article.

Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal’s web site ( www.hcmrjournal.com ).

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Cases in Organizational Behavior

• Gerard Seijts - The University of Western Ontario, CANADA
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• Building Effective Organizations
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An excellent text which provides realistic case studies to help students appreciate the complexity of any organisation.

Useful and interesting text. Not just for organisational behavior but for a broader set of business and management topic areas. The text provides a number of engaging case studies, which are useful in giving life to the relevant theory.

Readability - Relevance

Although these cases were good, I did not feel they would engage undergraduates who are just learning about OB. There needs to be companies they recognize and can relate to.

Cases haven't lent themselves to a critical management perspective.

cumulative cost of books for this course

Did not mesh well with the text. Cases were not well organized into sections either.

The current text book I'm using, Colquitt, Lepine, Wesson, provides case studies and videos for use in the class.

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 1. Building Effective Organizations

Chapter 3. Team Management

For instructors

Select a purchasing option, related products.

Module 5: Theories of Motivation

5.5 optional case study: a motivating environment at zappos, a motivating place to work: the case of zappos.

It is unique to hear about a CEO who studies happiness and motivation and builds those principles into the company’s core values or about a company with a 5-week training course and an offer of $2,000 to quit anytime during that 5 weeks if you feel the company is not a good fit. Top that off with an on-site life coach who also happens to be a chiropractor, and you are really talking about something you don’t hear about every day. Zappos is known as much for its 365-day return policy and free shipping as it is for its innovative corporate culture. Although acquired in 2009 by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Zappos managed to move from number 23 in 2009 on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list to 15 in 2010.

Performance is a function of motivation, ability, and the environment in which you work. Zappos seems to be creating an environment that encourages motivation and builds inclusiveness. The company delivers above and beyond basic workplace needs and addresses the self-actualization needs that most individuals desire from their work experience. CEO Tony Hsieh believes that the secret to customer loyalty is to make a corporate culture of caring a priority. This is reflected in the company’s 10 core values and its emphasis on building a team and a family. During the interview process, applicants are asked questions relating to the company’s values, such as gauging their own weirdness, open-mindedness, and sense of family. Although the offer to be paid to quit during the training process has increased from its original number of $400, only 1% of trainees take the offer. Work is structured differently at Zappos as well. For example, there is no limit to the time customer service representatives spend on a phone call, and they are encouraged to make personal connections with the individuals on the other end rather than try to get rid of them.

Although Zappos has over 1,300 employees, the company has been able to maintain a relatively flat organizational structure and prides itself on its extreme transparency. In an exceptionally detailed and lengthy letter to employees, Hsieh spelled out what the new partnership with Amazon would mean for the company, what would change, and more important, what would remain the same. As a result of this type of company structure, individuals have more freedom, which can lead to greater satisfaction.

Although Zappos pays its employees well and offers attractive benefits such as employees receiving full health-care coverage and a compressed workweek, the desire to work at Zappos seems to go beyond that. As Hsieh would say, happiness is the driving force behind almost any action an individual takes. Whether your goals are for achievement, affiliation, or simply to find an enjoyable environment in which to work, Zappos strives to address these needs.

Discussion Questions

• What potential organizational changes might result from the acquisition by Amazon?
• Why do you think Zappos’ approach is not utilized more often? In other words, what are the challenges to these techniques?
• Why do you think Zappos offers a $2,000 incentive to quit?
• Would you be motivated to work at Zappos? Why or why not?
• An Introduction to Organizational Behavior. Authored by : Anonymous. Provided by : Anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/an-introduction-to-organizational-behavior-v1.1/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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Organisational Behaviour: A case study of Coca-Cola Company

Abstract: The paper contains a detail analysis of organizational behavior discussing issues facing cutting age organizations on leadership behavior, organizational effectiveness, organizational structures and human resource management. The paper further analyzed the structure and culture of Coca-Cola Company with emphasis on issues relating to ricks and uncertainties in the company’s decision making. Recommendations are laid based on the study to address the company’s issues and align decision-making with the company’s structure

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This is a research on the question “Does Culture play a significant role in Organisational Change?” This paper aims at giving a critical analysis on the subject matter “organisational change” (“an alteration of an organization’s environment, structure, culture, technology, or people” [Michael Crandall 2006]) and how much role culture (the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from those of another” [Hofstede 1981]) plays in organisational change. It aims to answer the question whether culture contributes a significant role in organisational change. It would also look at the impact of leadership on organisational change and the significance of leadership in organisational change. It would also show the correlation and catalyst effect of leadership on culture in making an organisational change. The research would then give an example of the role of culture in organisational change using the case study of Petro-Kazakhstan and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to illustrate the role of culture in organisational change. The paper would end with a conclusion and recommendation on the dissertation question, “Does culture play a significant role in organisational change?”

Assignment on change management 3000 words with references.

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A review of both old and new leadership theories from a psychological perspective is presented in this work. Organisational leadership as a term is being discussed in various academic and business circles, leading to several definitions of the term. The inability of the business and academic world to accept a universal definition explains that leadership itself is complex. This can be attributed to various factors such as personality traits, organisational culture, current world issues, etc., that various theories tries to explain.

Vidushi Manoraj

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The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which organisational culture is an explanatory variable for firm’s corporate performance especially now that entities interact in globally knowledge based economies. A review of theoretical and empirical studies were carried out on some developed, emerging and developing nations with particular reference to traits characterised in specific organisational cultural environments in relation to their effects on corporate performance. Those reviews show that organisational culture needs to focus on knowledge management, knowledge conversion, team work, human capital formation, organisational climate and adaptive culture. The studies reviewed focused more on cross-national research design with less attention on the longitudinal aspect. It was not possible to review papers written in non-English language, and those published reviews with access denied to some online. There is a need for more empirical evidence to further justify the relevance of this study area for assessment of organisational culture and corporate performance. This review adds value with the recognition of the need to gear up researchers and policy making bodies to encourage advancement of studies on intellectual capital and knowledge management to enhance sustainable corporate culture and performance.

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Motivation in Organisational Behaviour: Definitions, 6 Elements, Objectives, Factors, Importance, Tools, Issues

• Post author: Anuj Kumar
• Post published: 30 July 2023
• Post category: Economy / Organizational Behavior
• Post comments: 0 Comments

Table of Contents

• 1 What is Motivation in Organisational Behaviour?
• 2 Definition of Motivation
• 3.1 Incentive
• 3.2 Unending Process
• 3.3 Psychological Concept
• 3.4 Power to Act
• 3.5 Increase in Efficiency
• 3.6 Increase in Morale
• 4 Objectives of Motivation
• 5.1 Monetary Incentives
• 5.2 Non-Monetary Incentives
• 6.1 Puts Human Resources Into Action
• 6.2 Improves Level of Efficiency of Employees
• 6.3 Leads to Achievement of Organizational Goals
• 6.4 Builds Friendly Relationship
• 6.5 Leads to Stability of Workforce
• 7.1 Recognize Individual Differences
• 7.2 Use Goals and Feedback
• 7.3 Include Employees in Decision-making
• 8.1 Management by Objective (MBO)
• 8.2 Employee Recognition Programmes
• 8.3 Employee Involvement Programmes
• 8.4 Participative Management
• 8.5 Quality Circles (QC)
• 8.6 Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)
• 9.1 Motivating Diversified WorkForce
• 9.2 Motivating Temporary Workers
• 9.3 Motivating Professionals
• 10.1 What are the elements of motivation?
• 10.2 What are the motivational tools?

What is Motivation in Organisational Behaviour?

The word motivation is coined from the Latin word “movere”, which means to move. Motivation is defined as an internal drive that activates behavior and gives it direction.

The term ‘ motivation theory ’ is concerned with the processes that describe why and how human behavior is activated and directed. It is regarded as one of the most important areas of study in the field of organizational behavior .

Motivation is the art of stimulating people to get the desired things done. A motive is a need or desire which stimulates and directs human behavior. It is possible only when their needs are satisfied through proper incentives or rewards.

Human behavior is thus, the result of needs, desires, and wants. Motivation involves the creation of a positive will and desire among the workers to do their work in the best manner.

Definition of Motivation

These are some simple definitions of motivation :

Motivation is the act of stimulating someone or oneself to get a desired course of action, to push the right button to get the desired reaction. Michael, J. Jucius

Motivation can be defined as a willingness to expand energy to achieve a goal or a reward. Dale, S. Beach

The concept of motivation is mainly psychological. It relates to those forces operating within the individual employees or subordinates which compel them to act or not to act in certain ways. D.E. Mc. Farland

On the basis of the analytical study of the above definitions, it may be concluded that motivation is a process that inspires the human efforts of an organization to perform their duties in the best possible manner so that the predetermined objectives of the enterprise may be achieved.

Motivation is the emotion or desire of an employee that inspires him to act or not to act in certain ways.

Elements of Motivation

These are the elements of motivation in an organization:

Unending Process

Psychological concept, power to act, increase in efficiency, increase in morale.

Motivation is the incentive for employees. It is a personal and natural feeling in the minds of the employees. This feeling arises in the mind of an individual. In fact, an individual is inspired to make efforts to satisfy the needs of his life.

Motivation is an unending process. Human needs are unlimited and people always feel a need. To satisfy these needs, the person must always be inspired by the incentives for work. Satisfaction of one need leads to the feeling of another one and this process never ends.

Motivation is a psychological concept. It develops the mental and motivational power of an individual and motivates him to do more and better.

Motivation is the power to act. It inspires an individual to work. Feeling of a need creates tension and a person wants to work to satisfy his need. When the need is satisfied, the persons feel motivated to work for the achievement of common goals.

Motivation increases the efficiency of an individual. He uses his ability and efficiency to the best possible extent which increases his efficiency. Motivation increases the quantity and quality of production.

Morale is a group feeling. Motivation motivates the employees to work with the cooperation of others. Thus, motivation is helpful in increasing the morale of the employees.

Objectives of Motivation

The following are the objectives of motivation in an organization:

• . To motivate the employees to do more work.
• To satisfy the economic, social, and psychological needs of the employees.
• To develop human relations in the enterprise.
• To increase the morale of employees.
• To increase the efficiency of employees.
• To get the co-operation of employees.
• To establish sweet relations between labor and capital.
• To get the maximum exploitation of human resources.
• To achieve the objectives of the enterprise.

Factors Affecting Motivation

Factors affecting motivation may be divided into the following parts:

Monetary Incentives

Non-monetary incentives.

Monetary incentives are direct incentives provided to the employees of an enterprise. It includes the following incentives: (a) Proper wage or salary (b) Bonus (c) Overtime (d) Monetary rewards and (5) Interest on investments. Monetary incentives satisfy the basic needs of employees.

Monetary incentives are not sufficient to ensure more and better work by employees. Non-monetary incentives are also provided to them to motivate them in the right direction. Such incentives motivate them to do more and more work. The following factors are included under this category:

• Safety of work
• Appraisal of work
• Honor of employees
• Behavior with employees
• Opportunities of promotion
• Delegation of authorities
• To increase the feelings and suggestions of employees
• To launch welfare schemes for the employees like housing facilities, medical facilities, recreation facilities, education facilities, insurance , etc.
• Co-partnership in management .

Importance of Motivation

Motivation is very important for an organization because of the following benefits it provides:

Puts Human Resources Into Action

Improves level of efficiency of employees, leads to achievement of organizational goals, builds friendly relationship, leads to stability of workforce.

Every concern requires physical, financial, and human resources to accomplish the goals. It is through motivation that human resources can be utilized by making full use of it. This can be done by building willingness in employees to work. This will help the enterprise in securing the best possible utilization of resources.

The level of a subordinate or an employee does not only depend upon his qualifications and abilities. For getting the best of his work performance, the gap between ability and willingness has to be filled which helps in improving the level of performance of subordinates. This will result into:

• Increase in productivity
• Reducing the cost of operations,
• Improving overall efficiency.

The goals of an enterprise can be achieved only when the following factors take place:

• There is the best possible utilization of resources,
• There is a cooperative work environment,
• The employees are goal-directed and they act in a purposive manner,
• Goals can be achieved if co-ordination and cooperation take place simultaneously which can be effectively done through motivation.

Motivation is an important factor that brings employees satisfaction. This can be done by keeping into mind and framing an incentive plan for the benefit of the employees. In order to build a cordial, friendly atmosphere in a concern, the above steps should be taken by a manager. This would help in:

• Effective cooperation which brings stability,
• Industrial disputes and unrest among employees will be reduced,
• The employees will be adaptable to the changes and there will be no resistance to the change,
• This will help in providing a smooth and sound concern in which individual interests will coincide with organizational interests,
• This will result in profit maximization through increased productivity.

The stability of the workforce is very important from the point of view of reputation and goodwill of a concern. The employees can remain loyal to the enterprise only when they have a feeling of participation in the management.

The skills and efficiency of employees will always be of advantage to employees as well as employees. This will lead to a good public image in the market which will attract competent and qualified people into concern. As it is said, “Old is gold” which suffices with the role of motivation here, the older the people, the more the experience and their adjustment into a concern which can be of benefit to the enterprise.

Motivation is important to an individual as:

• Motivation will help him achieve his personal goals.
• If an individual is motivated, he will have job satisfaction .
• Motivation will help in the self-development of individuals.
• An individual would always gain by working with a dynamic team.

Similarly, motivation is important to a business as:

• The more motivated the employees are, the more empowered the team is.
• The more teamwork and individual employee contribution, the more profitable and successful is the business.
• During the period of amendments, there will be more adaptability and creativity .
• Motivation will lead to an optimistic and challenging attitude at the workplace.

Motivating Employees in Organizations

A number of motivation theories have been discussed above. Based on these theories, the following suggestions summarize the essence of motivating employees in organizations :

Recognize Individual Differences

Use goals and feedback, include employees in decision-making.

Employees have different needs. Therefore, managers need to understand what is important to each employee. This will allow individualizing goals, levels of involvement, and rewards to align with individual needs.

Employees should have tangible and specific goals. Feedback should also be provided regularly to inform the employees about their performance in pursuit of those goals.

Employees should be included in making decisions that affect them, for example, choosing their own benefits, and solving productivity and quality problems.

Motivational Tools

Some of the most important motivational tools have been discussed below:

Management by Objective (MBO)

Employee recognition programmes, employee involvement programmes, participative management, quality circles (qc), employee stock ownership plans (esops).

Management by objectives emphasizes participatively set goals that are tangible, verifiable, and measurable. Four ingredients common to MBO programs are goal specificity, participative decision-making, an explicit time period, and performance feedback (Robbins, 2003):

• Goal Specificity: The objectives in MBO should be concise statements of expected accomplishments.
• Participative Decision-Making: The manager and employee jointly choose the goals and agree on how they will be measured.
• An Explicit Time Period: Each objective has a specific time period in which it is to be completed.
• Performance feedback: Continuous feedback on progress toward goals is provided so that workers can monitor and correct their own actions.

MBO and Goal-Setting Theory are closely linked. Goal-setting theory proposes that tangible goals result in a higher level of individual performance than easy goals. Feedback on one’s performance leads to higher performance. MBO also directly advocates specific goals and feedback, implying that goals must be perceived as feasible and is most effective when the goals are difficult enough to require stretching.

Employee recognition programs consist of personal attention, expressing interest, approval, and appreciation for a job well done. They can take numerous forms. Employee Recognition Programmes have a close link with Reinforcement Theory.

Both concepts advocate that rewarding behavior with recognition would lead to its repetition. Recognition can take many forms, such as, personally congratulating an employee, sending a handwritten note or an e-mail message, or declaring the employee as a valuable contributor to the organizational objective.

Employee involvement includes participative management, workplace democracy, empowerment, and employee ownership. Employees’ involvement in the decision-making would positively affect them and by increasing their autonomy and control over their work lives, employees will become more motivated, more committed to the organization, more productive, and more satisfied with their jobs.

Some forms of employee involvement have been discussed here: participative management, representative participation, quality circles, and employee stock ownership plans.

Participative management is a process where subordinates share a significant degree of decision-making power with their immediate supervisors.

The manager involves subordinates in decision-making, consults with them about their views of the situation, asks for their suggestions, considers those suggestions in making a decision, and sometimes lets the subordinates make the decisions themselves. The logic behind participative management is:

• Managers often do not know everything their employees do.
• Better decisions
• Increased commitment to decisions
• Intrinsically rewarding employees make their jobs more interesting and meaningful.

The two most common forms of participative management are:

• Works Councils: They are groups of nominated or elected employees who must be consulted when management makes decisions.
• Board Representatives: They are employees who sit on a company’s board of directors and represent the interests of the firm’s employees.

Quality Circles consist of a workgroup of eight to ten employees and supervisors who have a shared area of responsibility. Quality circles are small groups of employees who work voluntarily on company time to address quality-related problems such as quality control, cost reduction, production planning and techniques, and even product design. Key components of QC are (Robbins, 2003):

• They meet regularly on company time to discuss their quality problems, investigate the causes of the problems, recommend solutions, and take corrective actions.
• They take over the responsibility for solving quality problems and they generate and evaluate their own feedback.

Perhaps the ultimate reward to workers is for them, to own part of the organization. Employee stock ownership plans are company-established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock as part of their benefits ESOPs have the potential to increase employee job satisfaction and work motivation.

Special Issues in Motivation

Various groups of employees provide specific challenges in terms of motivation . Some of them are explained below:

Motivating Diversified WorkForce

Motivating temporary workers, motivating professionals.

Not everyone is motivated by money . The needs of women physically disabled and other diverse groups are not the same. If you are going to maximize your employees’ motivation, you have got to understand and respond to this diversity. This can be done in the following ways:

• Link Rewards to Performance: Rewards should be contingent on performance and employees must perceive a clear linkage.
• Maintain Equity: Rewards should be perceived by employees as equating with the inputs they bring to the job, i.e.; experience, skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs should explain differences in performance and, hence, pay, job assignments, and other obvious rewards.
• Allowing employees who are going for further training to colleges to vary their work schedule.
• Offering employees facilities like childcare, flexible work hours, and job sharing for employees with family responsibilities.
• For employees coming from other states /countries providing them flexible leave possibilities to enable them to go home for extensive periods.

Temporary workers may be motivated in the following ways:

• When there is a system whereby permanent employees are selected from a pool of temporary employees, the latter will often work hard in hopes of becoming permanent.
• The ability of a temporary employee to find a new job is largely dependent on his or her skills. Therefore, temporary employees may be provided with the opportunity for training.
• When temporary employees work alongside permanent employees who earn more pay for doing the same job, they are likely to be demotivated. Separating such employees might help to lessen this problem.

Professionals have a strong and long-term commitment to their field of expertise. Their loyalty is more often to their profession than to their employer. These professionals receive a great deal of intrinsic satisfaction from their work. They may be motivated in the following ways:

• Their loyalty is toward their profession. To keep current in their fields, they need to regularly update their knowledge. Therefore, providing them with opportunities for training and development is one sure way of motivating them. Reward them with educational opportunities – staging workshops, attending conferences – that allow them to keep current in their field.
• The chief reward of a professional is the job itself. They prefer challenging jobs. Therefore, provide them with ongoing challenging projects.
• Professionals want others to think what they are working on is important. Therefore, ask questions and engage in other actions that demonstrate that you are sincerely interested in what they are doing.

FAQs Section

What are the elements of motivation.

Incentive, Unending Processes, Psychological Concepts, Power to Act, Increase in Efficiency, and Increase in Morale are the elements of motivation.

What are the motivational tools?

The following are the motivational tools: 1. Management by Objective (MBO) 2. Employee Recognition Programmes 3. Employee Involvement Programmes 4. Participative Management 5. Quality Circles (QC) 6. Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs).

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Analyzing the Organizational Behaviors Model of Intel (M) Corporation

This essay about the organizational behaviors of Intel (M) Corporation explores how the company integrates key principles of organizational behavior to drive innovation, productivity, and employee satisfaction. It examines Intel’s leadership style, team dynamics, motivational strategies, and corporate culture, highlighting how these elements contribute to its status as a leader in the semiconductor industry. The analysis reveals that Intel emphasizes a culture of innovation supported by transparent leadership, collaborative teams, competitive rewards, and opportunities for personal and professional growth. Furthermore, the essay discusses the challenges Intel faces, including diversity and inclusion, suggesting areas for ongoing improvement. Through this examination, the essay provides a comprehensive view of how effective organizational behavior can significantly impact a company’s operational success and strategic goals.

How it works

Intel (M) Corporation, a titan in the semiconductor industry, stands as a case study for exploring the application of organizational behavior models in a real-world business setting. At Intel, the integration of core principles of organizational behavior into its operations has been pivotal in driving its success and sustainability. This deep dive into Intel’s organizational strategies and practices offers insights into how large tech companies can foster innovation, productivity, and employee satisfaction.

Intel’s organizational behavior can be viewed through several lenses, including its approach to leadership, team dynamics, motivation, and corporate culture.

The company has historically emphasized a culture of innovation and excellence, which permeates every level of its operations. This culture is supported by a leadership style that values transparency and accountability, encouraging managers to act as role models, promoting trust and integrity across the organization.

In terms of team dynamics, Intel fosters a collaborative environment where cross-functional teams are common. This structure facilitates information flow across different parts of the organization, enhancing innovation and efficiency. Intel’s teams are often project-based, with a clear focus on objectives and results. This approach aligns with contemporary organizational behavior theories that suggest well-defined team roles and shared goals are crucial for effective collaboration.

Motivation at Intel is driven by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The company not only offers competitive financial rewards but also invests in the personal and professional growth of its employees. Training and development programs are widespread, providing employees with the opportunity to upskill and advance in their careers. Moreover, Intel recognizes the value of intrinsic motivators, such as job satisfaction and a sense of purpose. The company’s commitment to cutting-edge technology development offers employees a sense of pride and accomplishment, knowing their work contributes to technological advancements.

Intel’s organizational culture is another key element. It promotes an open-door policy and a flat hierarchy where ideas can be shared freely across levels. The culture encourages risk-taking and innovation while maintaining a strong emphasis on ethical standards and corporate responsibility. This environment not only attracts talent but also nurtures it, contributing to high levels of employee engagement and loyalty.

However, no organization is without its challenges. Intel has faced criticism over diversity issues and has had to actively work towards creating a more inclusive workplace. This reflects an ongoing commitment to evolving its organizational behaviors in response to internal and external pressures.

In conclusion, Intel (M) Corporation’s application of organizational behavior principles provides a robust framework for other companies aiming to enhance their productivity and workplace culture. By balancing strong leadership, effective team dynamics, motivation, and a healthy corporate culture, Intel has maintained its position as a leader in the highly competitive tech industry. This analysis not only highlights the successes but also the areas of potential improvement, offering a comprehensive view of how organizational behavior impacts both day-to-day operations and long-term strategic goals.

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