Organizational Behavior

MODULE -1

Definition and Meaning

Organizational behavior (often abbreviated OB) is a field of study that

investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior
within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge
towardimproving an organization’s effectiveness.

OB is the study of what people do in an organization

and how their behavior affects the organization’s performance.

OB includes the core topics of motivation, leader behavior and power,

interpersonal communication, group structure and processes, learning, attitude
development and perception, change processes, conflict, work design, and work
stress.

Why study OB?

Today’s challenges bring opportunities for managers to use OB concepts.
In this section, we review some of the most critical issues confronting managers
for which OB offers solutions—or at least meaningful insights toward solutions.

Responding to Economic Pressures

When times are bad, though, managersare on the front lines with employees who
must be fired, who are asked tomake do with less, and who worry about their
futures. The difference between good and bad management can be the difference
between profit and loss or,ultimately,between survival and failure. In good times,
understanding how to reward, satisfy, and retain employees is at a premium.In bad
times, issues like stress, decision making, and coping come to the fore.

Responding to Globalization
Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders
all major automobile makers now manufacture
cars outside their borders; Honda builds cars in Ohio, Ford in Brazil,
Volkswagenin Mexico, and both Mercedes and BMW in South Africa.

The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s job
haschanged.all major automobile makers now manufacture
cars outside their borders; Honda builds cars in Ohio, Ford in Brazil, Volkswagenin
Mexico, and both Mercedes and BMW in South Africa.
The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s job
haschanged.All major automobile makers now manufacture
cars outside their borders; Honda builds cars in Ohio, Ford in Brazil, Volkswagenin
Mexico, and both Mercedes and BMW in South Africa
The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s job has
changed.

Increased Foreign Assignments

If you’re a manager and you are transferred to your employer’s subsidiary in another
country, you have to manage a workforce having different needs,
aspirations, and attitudes.

Working with People from Different Cultures

To work effectively with people from different
cultures, you need to understand how their culture, geography, and religion
have shaped them and how to adapt your management style to their differences.

Overseeing Movement of Jobs to Countries with Low-Cost Labor

In a global economy, jobs tend to flow where lower costs give businesses a
comparative advantage. It’s not by chance that many in the United States wear
clothes made in China, work on computers whose microchips came from Taiwan,
and watch movies filmed in Canada.

Managing Workforce Diversity

One of the most important challenges for organizations is adapting to people
who are different. We describe this challenge as workforce diversity. Whereas
globalization focuses on differences among people from different countries,
workforce diversity addresses differences among people within given countries.

Workforce diversity acknowledges a workforce of women and men; many racial

and ethnic groups; individuals with a variety of physical or psychologicalabilities;
and people who differ in age and sexual orientation.

Improving Customer Service

Management needs to create a customer-responsive culture. OB can provide

considerable guidance in helping managers create such cultures—in which

employees are friendly and courteous, accessible, knowledgeable, prompt in
responding to customer needs, and willing to do what’s necessary to please the
customer.
Improving People Skills
You’ll gain insights into specific people skills that you can use on the job. You’ll
learn ways to design motivating jobs, techniques for improving your listening skills,
and how to create more effective teams.

Stimulating Innovation and Change

An organization’s employees can be the impetus for innovation and change,
The challenge for managers is to stimulate their employees’ creativity and tolerance
for change. The field of OB provides a wealth of ideas and techniques to aid in
realizing these goals.

Coping with “Temporariness

Today most managers and employees today work in a climate best characterized as
“temporary. permanent employees are replaced with temporary workers.
Managers and employees must learn to cope with temporariness,
flexibility, spontaneity, and unpredictability. The study of OB can help you
better understand a work world of continual change, overcome resistance to
change, and create an organizational culture that thrives on change.

Working in Networked Organizations

Networked organizations use e-mail, the Internet, and video-conferencing allow
employees to communicate and work together even though they are thousands of
miles apart. The manager’s job in a networked organization requires different
techniques from those used when workers are physically present in a single location.

Helping Employees Balance Work–Life Conflicts

Employees increasingly recognize that work infringes on their personal
lives, and they’re not happy about it. Recent studies suggest employees want
jobs that give them flexibility in their work schedules so they can better manage
work–life conflicts. OB offers a number of suggestions to guide managers in
designing workplaces and jobs that can help employees deal with work–life conflicts.

Creating a Positive Work Environment

organizations are trying to realize a competitive advantage by fostering a
positive work environment which means practicing engagement, hope, optimism,
and resilience in the face of strain.

Improving Ethical Behavior

Employees see people all around them engaging in unethical practices—elected
official Employees paid expense accounts or take bribes; corporate executives inflate
profits so they can cash in lucrative stock options; and university administrators look
the other way when winning coaches encourage scholarship athletes to take easy
courses.
Managers and their organizations are responding to the problem of unethical
behavior in a number of ways.They’re writing and distributing codes of
ethics to guide employees through ethical dilemmas. They’re offering seminars,
workshops, and other training programs to try to improve ethical behaviors.
They’re providing in-house advisors who can be contacted, in many cases
anonymously, for assistance in dealing with ethical issues, and they’re creating
protection mechanisms for employees who reveal internal unethical practices
 LEARNING
INTRODUCTION
If a manager wants to explain and predict human behaviour, he/she needs to
understand how learning occurs or how people learn. So it is very very necessary to
know the nature, process and principles of learning.
According to S.P. Robbins, “learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior
that occurs as a result of experience.”

LEARNING PROCESS/NATURE
Theories of Learning: Learning is part of every one’s life. In our life, all complex
behavior is learned. Learning is defined as any relatively permanent change in
behavior that occurs as a result of experience. Whenever any change occurs learning
is taken place in the individual. If an individual behaves, reacts, responds as a result
of experience which is different from others, a person has encountered some new
learning experience in his life. This definition consists of the following four key
elements:
i) Change process: Learning involves some change in oneself in terms of observable
actions explicitly shown to others or change in one’s attitude or thought process
occur with oneself implicitly. Change may be good or bad or positive or negative
from an organization point of view. If a person is happened to experience some
negative incidents, that person will hold prejudices or bias or to restrict their output.
On the contrary, if a person is encountering some good incident, that person is likely
to hold positive attitude.
ii) Permanent change: Due to whatever exposure a person encounters, the impact
what it generates may be long lasting and permanent. Hence, the change must be of
relatively permanent. If change occurs due to fatigue or alcohol consumption or
temporary adaptation, it may be vanished once the goal is achieved.
iii) Setting behavioral actions: Explicit changes occurring in behavior is the main
goal of learning process. A change in an individual’s thought process or attitudes
without any changes in many explicit behavior will not be considered as learning
process.
iv) Need for meaningful experiences: Some form of experiences is necessary for
learning. Experience may be acquired directly through observation or practice. If
experience results in a relatively permanent change in behavior, one can confidently
say that learning has taken place.
Theories of Learning: There are three types of learning theories. These theories are
classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning.

FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING

 Motivation of the learner
 Mental set of the learner
  Nature of Learning Material
 Practice
 Environment

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING THEORY

Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov developed classical conditioning theory. When he
was doing a research on the chemical properties of saliva of dog, he noticed
accidentally that the dog started salivating the moment hearing the sound of a door of
cupboard clinging. Based on his observation, he wanted to do some experiment
whether the dog can be conditioned to respond to any neutral stimuli. He used a
simple surgical procedure to operate the salivary glands of a dog
to measure accurately the amount of saliva.
Pavlov’s Experiment: Pavlov conducted his experiment in three stages.
Stage I: When Pavlov presented the dog with a piece of meat, the dog exhibited a
noticeable increase in salivation. The meat is unconditional stimulus and salivation is
unconditional response.
Stage II: In this stage, the dog was not given a peace of meat but only exposed to a
sound of ringing bell; the dog did not salivate to the mere sound of a ringing bell.
Stage III: Pavlov decided to link both the presentation of meat and the ringing of a
bell one after the other with an interval of 5 minutes. After repeatedly hearing the
bell before getting the meat, the dog began to salivate as soon the bell rang. There is
an association or link between meat and ringing a bell. After repeating the
association between meat and ringing a bell, the dog started
salivating merely at the sound of the bell, even if no food was offered. The dog is
now conditioned to respond to a sound of a bell and started salivating. This is called
classical conditioning process.
Thus, classical condition is defined as the formation of S-R link (Stimulus-Response)
or habit between a conditioned stimulus and a conditioned response through the
repeated paring of conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. In this
experiment, the meat is unconditioned stimulus, and the expected response that is,
salivating to the meat is called as unconditioned response. The sound of a bell is a
neutral stimulus which does not have any property to elicit salivation, is called as
conditioned stimulus.
Although it was originally neutral, if the bell was paired with meat (unconditioned
stimulus) it acquired the same property as meat eliciting the salivation.
The sound of a bell produced salivation when presented alone. This is called
conditioned response, that is, now the dog is conditioned to respond to the sound of a
bell. Learning conditioned response involves building up an association between a
conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus. When the stimuli, one is natural
and the other one neutral are paired, the neutral one becomes a conditioned stimulus
and hence takes on the properties of the unconditioned stimulus.
APPLICATION OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING PRINCIPLES AT WORK

Whenever President or Vice-President of Corporate Office visits factory site the

employees in the shop floor will more attentive at work and look more prim, proper
and active in their work life. It is quite natural that top management personnel visit
(Unconditioned Stimulus) evoking or eliciting a desired response- being prim and
proper at work from the employees (Unconditioned Response). The routine cleaning
of windows or floor of the administrative office will be neutral stimulus never
evoking any response from the employees. If the visit of the top
management personnel is associated with such cleaning process, eventually the
employees would turn on their best output and look prim and active the moment
windows and floor are being cleaned up. The employees had learned to associate the
cleaning of the windows with a visit from the head office. The cleaning process
(conditioned stimulus) evoked attentive and active work behavior (conditioned
response). Similarly, Christmas Carols songs bring pleasant memories of childhood
as these songs are being associated with the festive Christmas Spirit.
Classical conditioning is passive. It is elicited in response to a specific, identifiable
event.

OPERANT CONDITIONING
Operant conditioned principle is proposed by B.F. Skinner, an American
Psychologist. It is a type of conditioning in which desired voluntary behavior leads to
a reward or prevent a punishment. Operant conditioning principle emphasizes
strongly that the behavior of an individual is a function of its consequences. If the
consequences are pleasant, the behavior associated with such consequences will be
repeated again and again. If the consequences are unpleasant, the behavior will be in
extinct. The rationale behind this theory is that people learn to
behave in order to get something they want or to avoid something they don’t want.
Operant condition is learned process. The tendency to repeat such behaviour is
influenced by the reinforcement or lack of reinforcement brought about by the
consequences of the behavior. The proper reinforcement strengthens a behavior and
increases the likelihood that it will be repeated.
Skinner’s Experiment: Skinner developed an apparatus to conduct a series of
learning experiment using rats. He named that apparatus as Skinner’s Box which has
certain features such as a lever, bowl, light, water container etc. A highly deprived rat
is placed in the box. Once a rat nudges or touches or hits the lever attached in the
corner of the box, a piece of food pellet is dropped in the bowl. By trial and error, the
rat learns that hitting the lever is followed by getting
a food pellet in the bowl. Skinner coined the term operant response to any behavioral
act such as pressing or hitting or nudging the lever that has some effect on the
environment. Thus in a typical experiment with a skinner box, hitting or pressing the
lever is an operant response, and the increased rate of lever hitting or pressing that
occurs when the response is followed by a pellet of food exemplifies operant
conditioning.

APPLICATION OF OPERANT CONDITIONING IN WORK LIFE

If a sales person who hits the assigned target of sales quota will be reinforced with a
suitable attractive reward, the chances of hitting further sales target in future will be
exemplified. Skinner argued that creating pleasant consequences (giving attractive
rewards) to follow specific forms of behavior (hitting sales target) would increase the
frequency of that behavior. People will most likely engage in desired behaviors if
they are positively reinforced for doing so. Rewards are
most effective if they immediately follow the desired response. In addition, behavior
that is not rewarded is less likely to be repeated. A commissioned sales person
wanting to earn a sizeable income finds that doing so is contingent on generating
high sales in his territory.

COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY

Cognition refers to an individual’s thoughts, knowledge, interpretations,
understandings or views about oneself and his/her environment. Based on it cognitive
theory argues that the person tries to formhis/her cognitive structure in memory,
which preserves and organizes all information relating to the events that may occur
in learning situation. Here an experiment was conducted on a monkey by Kohler.
Kohler presented two sticks to a monkey in a cage. Both sticks were too short to
reach a banana lying outside cage. This produced an experience, or say, cognition,
insight monkey. What monkey did without any prior exposure, joined both sticks
together and pulled the banana inside the cage. Clearly learning took place inside the
mind of monkey. Thus, the learning process involved in this case is putting or
organizing bits of information in a new manner perceived inside the mind. This type
of learning is very imp in
organizational behaviour for changing attitudes by the individuals.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

People learn through both observation and direct experience, which is called as social
learning theory. Individual learn by observing what happens to other people and just
by being told about something, as well as by direct experiences. By observing people
around us, mostly from parents, teachers, peers, films and television performers,
bosses, we learn new behavior pattern.
The following four processes are vital to determine the influence that a model will
have on an individual.
i) Attention Process: People learn from a model only when they recognize and pay
attention to its critical features. People tend to be most influenced by models that are
attractive, repeatedly available similar to us in our estimation.
ii) Retention Process: A model’s influence will depend on how well the individual
remembers the model’s action after the model is no longer readily available.
iii) Motor Reproduction Process: After a person has seen a new behavior by
observing the model, the watching must be converted to doing. This process then
demonstrates that the individual can perform the modeled activities.
iv) Reinforcement Process: Individual will be motivated to exhibit they modeled
behavior if positive incentives or rewards are provided. Behavior that is positively
reinforced will be given more attention, learned better and performed more often.
 Personality
Meaning and Definition
personality is defined as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts
to and interacts with others.

Personality Determinants
An individual’s personality is the result of heredity and environment.
Heredity refers to factors determined at conception. Heredity approach
argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the
molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.
Physical environment determines cultural development and to the extent, that
culture in turn determines personality, a relationship between personality and
environment becomes clear. Climate and topography determine to a great extent the
physical and mental traits of a people. The people of mountains as well as deserts are
usually bold, hard and powerful.

PERSONALITY TRAITS
Big Five Model gives five basic personality traits presented below.
● Extraversion. The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with
relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable.
Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.
● Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s
propensity to defer to others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative,
warm, and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold,
disagreeable, and antagonistic.
● Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of
reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organized,
dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are
easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
● Emotional stability. The emotional stability dimension—often labeled
by its converse, neuroticism—taps a person’s ability to withstand stress.
People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident,
and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious,
depressed, and insecure.
● Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses
range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people
are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of
the category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
PERSONALITY AND OB
Here we would discuss How the Big Five personality Traits affect OB Criteria.

Emotional stability
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Less negative thinking and
fewer negative emotions
• Less hyper-vigilant
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher job & life satisfaction
• Lower stress levels

Extroversion
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Better interpersonal skills
• Greater social dominance
• More emotionally expressive
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher performance*
• Enhanced leadership
• Higher job & life satisfaction
Openness
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Increased learning
• More creative
• More flexible & autonomous
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Training performance
• Enhanced leadership
• More adaptable to change
Agreeableness
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Better liked
• More compliant and
Conforming
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher performance*
• Lower levels of deviant
behavior

Conscientiousness
WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
• Greater effort & persistence
• More drive and discipline
• Better organized & planning
WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
• Higher performance
• Enhanced leadership
• Greater longevity

Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB

The other personality traits are Machiavellianism, narcissism, self-monitoring,

propensity for risk taking, proactive personality, and other-orientation.
core self-evaluation Bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their
capabilities, competence, and worth as a person.
Machiavellianism The degree to which an individual is pragmatic,maintains
emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means.
narcissism The tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense
of self-importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of
entitlement.
self-monitoring A personality trait that measures an individual’s
ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors.
High risk-taking managers made more rapid decisions and used less
information than did the low risk takers. Interestingly, decision accuracy was
the same for both groups.
proactive personality People who identify opportunities, show initiative,
take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs.
Other-orientation, a personality trait that reflects the extent to which decisions are
affected by social influences and concerns vs. our own well-being and outcomes. It
appears that having a strong orientation toward helping others does affect some
behaviors that actually matter for organizations.
 PERCEPTION

Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their

sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

Factors That Influence Perception

A number of factors influence perception.
There are three factors influencing perception which are related to the perceiver,
factors relate d to the target, Factors related to the situation.

FACTORS RELATED TO THE PERCEIVER

i)Projection: The perceiver tries to project his personality attributes in others is

known as projection.
ii)Mental makeup: The perceiver has pre set notion in his mind about certain objects,
events and people. The moment he has to deal or act upon those events, he already
knows how to act or react as he has made his mental set up to deal with such
situations.

iii)Stereotyping: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to

which that person belongs.
In organizations, we frequently hear comments that represent stereotypes based
on gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity, and even weight .
“Men aren’t interested in child care,” “Older workers can’t learn new skills,”
“Asian immigrants are hardworking and conscientious.”
iv) Halo Effect: . When we draw a general impression about an individual on the
basis of a single characteristic, such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance, a
halo effect is operating.
v) First Impression :The perceiver forms an impression about the perceived when he
meets him for the first time. First impression is normally difficult to change
vi) Recency Effect: Recency effect is the effect that the recent event has on the
perceiver. During performance appraisal, the employees are rated on the basis of
their latest performance.

FACTORS RELATED TO THE TARGET

Characteristics of the target also affect what we perceive. Loud people are more
likely to be noticed in a group than quiet ones. So, too, are extremely attractive or
unattractive individuals. Because we don’t look at targets in isolation, the
relationship of a target to its background also influences perception, as does our
tendency.

FACTORS RELATED TO THE SITUATION:

Situation matters too. Factors in the situation are time,work setting and social setting
The time at which we see an object or event can influence our attention, as can
location, light, heat, or any number of situational factors.
PERCEPTUAL PROCESS:
Stage I: Receiving stimuli : The perception process starts with receiving stimuli. It
depicts the environmental stimuli being received by the fives sense organs.
Stage II: Selection of the Stimuli: In this stage, selection of some stimuli happens for
further processing while the rest are screened out. This is governed by both factors
external to the individual, such as the size, intensity, repetition, contrast and internal
to the individual, such as the self concept, belief, expectation, response disposition of
the perceiver.
Stage III: Organisation of stimuli : The selected stimuli is organized in the
perceiver’s mind to give it a meaningful term. The perceiver is influenced by figure
and ground and percetual grouping .

Figure and Ground:

What a person observes is dependent on how a central figure is being separated

from its background. This implies that the perceived object or person or event stands
out distinct from its background and occupies the cognitive space of the individual.
In a dance programme, the spectators’ tend to perceive the dance performance
against the back ground music, backdrop setup etc. The perceiver thus tends to
organize only the information which stands out in the environment which seems to
be significant to the individual.

Perceptual Grouping: It means grouping stimuli into an organized pattern. It

happens on the basis of proximity, similarity and closure.

Proximity: People tend to perceive things, which are nearer to each other, as
together as group rather than separately. If four or five members are standing
together, we tend to assume that they are belonging to same group rather than as
separately. As a result of physical proximity, we often put together objects or events
or people as one group even though they are unrelated. Employees
in a particular section are seen as group.
Similarity: Persons, objects or events that are similar to each other also tend to be
grouped together. This organizing mechanism helps us to deal with information in an
efficiently way rather than getting bogged down and confused with too many details.
For examples, if we happen to see a group of foreign nationals at an International
seminar, Indians are grouped as one group, British as another, Americans as yet
another based on the similarity of nationalities.

Closure: In many situation, the information what we intend to get may be in bits and
pieces and not fully complete in all respects. However, we tend to fill up the gaps in
the missing parts and making it as meaningful whole. Such mental process of filling
up the missing element is called as closure. For example, while giving promotions to
the staff members, the managers will try to get full information to make an effective
decision, in absence of getting complete information,
managers try to make meaningful assumptions and based on that suitable decision
will be made.
Stage IV: Interpretation: Assigning meaning to data is called interpretation. Once the
inputs are organized in human mind, the perceiver interpretes the inputs and draws
conclusion from it.But interpretation is subjective as different people interpret the
same information in different ways.
Stage V: Behavior Response or Action: In this stage the response of the perceiver
takes on both covert and overt characteristics. Covert response will be reflected in the
attitudes, motives, and feelings of the perceiver and overt responses will be reflected
in the actions of the individual.

IMPORTANCE OF PERCEPTION IN OB
People in organisations are always assessing others. Managers must appraise their
subordinate's performance, evaluate how co-workers are working. When a new
person joins a department he or she is immediately assessed by the other persons.
These have important effect on the organisation.
Employment Interview: Employment interview is an important input into the hiring
decision, and perceptual factors influence who is hired and vis-à-vis the Quality of an
organistaions labour force.
Performance Appraisals: Performance appraisal is dependent on the perceptual
process. An employee’s future is closely tied to the appraisal—promotion,
pay raises, and continuation of employment are among the most obvious
outcomes.
Assessing Level of Effort: In many organisations, the level of an employee's effort is
given high importance. Assessment of an individual's effort is a subjective judgment
susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias.
Assessing Loyalty: Another important judgment that managers decide about
employees is whether they are loyal to the organisation.
Productivity: What individuals perceive from their work situation will influence
their productivity. More than the situation itself than whether a job is actually
interesting or challenging is not relevant. How a manager successfully plans and
organises the work of his subordinates and actually helps them in structuring their
work is far less important than how his subordinates perceive his efforts.
Therefore, to be able to influence productivity, it is necessary to assess how workers
perceive their jobs.
Absenteeism and Turnover: Absence and Turnover are some of the reactions to the
individuals perception. Managers must understand how each individual interprets his
job. and where there is a significant difference between what is seen and what exists
and try to eliminate the distortions. Failure to deal with the differences when
individuals perceive the job in negative terms will result in increased absenteeism
and turnover.
Job Satisfaction:
Job satisfaction is a highly subjective, and feeling of the benefits that derive
from the job. Clearly his variable is critically linked to perception. If job satisfaction
is to be improved, the worker's perception of the job characteristics, supervision and
the organisation as a whole must be positive.
Understanding the process of perception is important because (1) It is unlikely that
any person's definition of reality will be identical to an objective assessment of
reality. (2) It is unlikely thattwo different person’s definition of reality will be exactly
the same. (3) Individual perceptions directly influences the behaviour exhibited in a
given situation.
 MOTIVATION

Nature and importance of Motivation:

We define motivation as the processes that account for an individual’s
intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.

Importance of Motivation
To increase work efficiency
To combine ability with willingness
To reduce the rate of labour turnover
To develop the leadership quality

THEOREIS OF MOTIVATION
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
The best-known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs . 5
Maslow hypothesized that within every human being, there exists a hierarchy of
five needs:
1. Physiological. Includes hunger, thirst, shelter, sex, and other bodily needs.
2. Safety. Security and protection from physical and emotional harm.
3. Social. Affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship.
4. Esteem. Internal factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement,
and external factors such as status, recognition, and attention.
5. Self-actualization. Drive to become what we are capable of becoming;
includes growth, achieving our potential, and self-fulfillment.
Although no need is ever fully gratified, a substantially satisfied need no longer
motivates. Thus as each becomes substantially satisfied, the next one becomes
dominant. So if you want to motivate someone, according to Maslow, you need to
understand what level of the hierarchy that person is currently on and focus on
satisfying needs at or above that level, moving up the steps in.

Implications of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

This model helps the managers to understand and deal with issues of employee
motivation at the workplace. This model can be applied to motivate people at all
levels in the organization. Managers who understand the need patterns of their staff
can help the employees to engage in the kinds of work activities and provide the
types of work environment that will satisfy their needs at work. For instance, the
employees love and belonging needs can be fully satisfied by organizing
yearly dinner and dance program, office week end parties, creating recreation clubs
or social clubs etc. Fortunately, the workplace has the potential to offer need
gratification for several different types of needs, and mangers can motivate
employees by giving appropriate organizational support which will gratify
individual’s needs. Thus, despite its drawbacks, Maslow’s theory offers managers a
good technique on understanding the motives or needs of individuals and how to
motivate organizational members.

Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation

Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory is also called motivation-hygiene theory.
A theory that relates intrinsic factors to job satisfaction and associates extrinsic
factors with dissatisfaction.
hygiene factors Factors—such as company policy and administration,
supervision, and salary—that, when adequate in a job, placate workers.
Herzberg argued that improvement in the hygiene factors would
only minimize dissatisfaction but not increase satisfaction and motivation
Motivating Factors
The presence of motivating factors always ensures job satisfaction and happiness
among the employees. They are: achievement, recognition, responsibility,
advancement, growth and the work itself. These motivating factors are relating to the
work content factors.
Implications for Managers
In Herzberg’s framework, these managerial reactions have focused primarily on the
hygiene factors surrounding the job, which has resulted in bringing individual to the
theoretical “zero point” of motivation. The two-factor theory would predict that
improvements in motivation would only appear when managerial action focused not
only the factors surrounding the job but on the inherent in most assembly line jobs
and developing jobs that can provide increased levels
of challenge and opportunities for a sense of achievement, advancement, growth and
personal development.

ERG THEORY:
ERG Theory:
Alderfer proposed a modified version of Maslow’s need hierarchy and labeled as
ERG theory.
Alderfer’s ERG refers to three groups of core needs – Existence, Relatedness and
Growth(ERG).
Existence Needs:
These needs are various forms of physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst and
shelter. In organizational settings, the need for pay, benefits, and physical working
conditions are included in this category. This category is comparable to Maslow’s
physiological and certain safety needs.
Relatedness Needs:
These needs include interpersonal relationships with others in the workplace. This
type of needs in individuals depends on the process of sharing and mutuality of
feelings between others to attain satisfaction. This category is similar to Maslow’s
safety, social and certain ego-esteem needs.
Growth Needs:
These needs involve a person’s efforts toward personal growth on the job.
Satisfaction of growth needs results from an individual engaging in tasks that not
only require the person’s full use of his or her capabilities, but also may require the
development of new capabilities. Maslow’s self-actualization and certain of his ego
esteem needs are comparable to those growth needs.

Implications of ERG Theory:

Alderfer has proposed two sets of views on individual’s aspirations and fulfillment.
One is satisfaction-progression and other frustration-regression. Satisfaction-
progression is similar to Maslow’s model in which once an individual’s basic needs
are satisfied, he/she will progress to the next level to satisfy the succeeding higher
level to have them satisfied. Alderfer proposed yet another view of individual’s
aspirations and fulfillment. If people eventually become frustrated in trying to satisfy
their needs at one level, their next lower level needs will re-emerge and they will
regress to the lower level to satisfy more basic needs. This is called as frustration-
regression. For manages, ERG theory provides a more
workable approach to motivation in organization. Because of the frustration-
regression approach component, it provides the manager with the opportunity of
directing employee behavior in a constructive manner even though higher order
needs are temporarily frustrated. In summary, ERG theory argues that satisfied
lower-order needs lead to the desire to satisfy higher-order needs; but multiple needs
can be operating as motivators at the same time and frustration in attempting to
satisfy a higher-level need can result in regression to a lower level need .

-------------------------------------