Question

Choose two work motivation theories from the text and compare and contrast these two theories. Explain how each theory is applied to employee motivation.  Discuss some of the limitations that are apparent after making these comparisons.  

Answer 1

Motivation is one of the most important factor needed for success in a workplace and for better performance. A person who is motivated to work will achieve a lot more than a person who lacks in motivation. There are various theories of workplace motivation and let us talk about two of them:

1. McClelland's theory of motivation- This theory which was mainly postulated by McClelland in the 1950s is one of the most important theories of workplace motivation. According to this theory, every individual has three main needs and behave for the fulfillment of these three needs. These needs are a) Power need or the need to exert dominance and control over others or a situation, b) affiliation need or the need to feel belonged to or part of a social group and c) Achievement need or the need to perform tasks with perfection and achieve success. According to McClelland,the people with high achievement need exhibits better workplace performance and they like moderately difficult tasks, focusses on performance rather than rewards and likes immediate feedback.

2. Adam's Equity theory - Another theory which deals with workplace motivation to a great extent is equity theory of motivation. This theory postulates a very simplified concept which opines that when our efforts gets recognised in a proper way or when we get good rewards for our good performance, our motivation increases. In other words, when an employee will feel that he is getting a salary which is nearly equal to the efforts he is putting for the company, he will feel motivated to work, when he feels that he gets less salary as compared to his efforts, he will get demotivated. Thus, equity theory deals with equality between employee efforts and salary or rewards given to them.

Both these theories similarly makes us understand workplace motivation and the factors leading to them. In spite of this, there are few contrasting factors between them. McClelland's theory deals is a content theory of motivation which speaks about the factors or contents of workplace motivation where as Adam's theory is a process theory of motivation which speaks about the process in which a workers'motivation gets increased or decreased in a workplace. While McClelland opined that a person with high achievement motivation takes into account the performance and not the reward, Adam's theory on the other hand has given emphasis on the rewards achieved.

Both these theories can be well applied to increase employee motivation. An employee's achievement motivation can be increased by giving him tasks of moderate difficulty which won't be too easy or too difficult. He needs to be given immediate feedback after his performance so that he finds the task to be significant. He must also be praised for his performance so that his self esteem gets boosted along with his achievement motivation. Employers must also try to make sure that they reward an employee's performance and efforts properly. They must reward the extra efforts with praises or some gifts so that the employees feel happy about their company. The employers can also try to understand the needs of the employees and try to make them perceive equity of rewards accordingly.

A person can only be motivated to some extent externally and the main motivation is needed from his or her internal self. Thus, increasing achievement motivation and perceived Equity of an employee will only work if he feels internally motivated to the job. Thus, the limitations of these theories is that an individual's feeling of competency of the task, autonomy on the task and relatedness with the task (Deci and Ryan, 1970) are pretty important in workplace motivation and are needed to make them motivated externally by perceiving equity or increasing achievement need.