David Mc Clelland’s Three Need Model
David McClelland gave a model of motivation which is based on three types of needs achievement, power and affiliation. They are stated below:
(i)Need for achievement (n Ach): a drive to excel, advance and grow
(ii)Need for power (n Pow): a drive to influence others and situations
(iii)Need for affiliation (n Aff): a drive for friendly and close interpersonal relationships.
Achievement Motivation
Some people have a compelling drive to succeed and they strive for personal achievement rather than the rewards of success. This drive is called the need for achievement (n ach). Based on his extensive research into the achievement need, McClelland found that high achievers differentiate themselves from others by their desire to do things better. They seek situations where they can attain personal responsibility for finding solutions to problems, where they can receive rapid feedback on their performance so they can set moderately challenging goals. High achievers are not gamblers; they dislike succeeding by chance. They prefer the challenge of working at a problem and accepting the personal responsibility for success or failure, rather than leaving the outcome to chance or the actions of others.
Power Motivation
The need for power (n pow) is a drive to have impact, to be influential and to control others. Individuals high in n pow enjoy being “in charge”, strive for influence over others, prefer to be placed into competitive and status oriented situations, and tend to be more concerned with gaining influence over others than with effective performance. Power-motivated people wish to create an impact on their organisations and are willing to take risks to do so.
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Affiliation Motivation
This need has received the least attention of the researchers. Affiliation need (nAff) can be viewed as the desire to be liked and accepted by others. It is the drive to relate to people on a social basis. Individuals with a high affiliation motive strive for friendship, prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones, and desire relationship involving a high degree of mutual understanding.
People possess the above needs in varying degrees. However, one of the three needs will tend to be more characteristic of the individual. Individuals with a high need for achievement thrive on jobs and projects that tax their skills and abilities. Such individuals are goal-oriented in their activities, seek challenge and want task relevant feedback. Individuals with high power seek to dominate, influence or have control over others. McClelland’s research revealed that managers generally score high on the need for achievement. In other words, motivating forces for managers lie in the challenge and potential of the job.
Alderfer’s Existence-Relatedness – Growth (Erg) Model
Serious doubts have been expressed about the existence of the five distinct need categories which Maslow hypothesized. There seems to be some over-lapping between the security, social and physiological need. Also, the lines between esteem, social and self-actualization needs are not entirely clear. With these points in mind, Clayton Alderfer condensed Maslow’s need categories into three sets:
-- Existence needs. These include all forms of materials and Physiological and safety needs, i.e., Maslow’s first two levels of needs.
-- Relatedness needs. These include all needs that involve relationships with other people we care about. The examples include anger and hostility as well as friendship. Thus, the opposite of satisfaction of relatedness needs is emotional distance rather than hatred. Relatedness needs cover Maslow’s social needs and that of esteem needs which are derived from other people. – Growth needs – These needs involve persons making creative efforts to achieve full potential in the existing environment. It is like Maslow’s highest level need of self-actualization.
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Alderfer also revised Maslow’s theory in three other ways:
1.He argued that the three need categories form a hierarchy only in the sense of decreasing concretions. That is, as we move from a focus on the existence to relatedness to growth needs, the ways can satisfy those needs become increasingly abstract.
2.He recognized that rise in the level of satisfaction of our existence and relatedness needs may result in decrease in their importance to us. Growth needs become more important as we successfully satisfy them. That is, as we are able to be productive and creative, we look to higher goals and, in so doing, are again dissatisfied.
3.He reasoned that we are likely to try to first satisfy the most concrete needs and then to move on to more abstract needs. In this sense, Alderfer sounds somewhat like Maslow, suggesting a pattern of satisfaction progressionthat is, as one need is satisfied, we progress to next higher need.
Alderfer conceived ERG needs along a continuum which avoids the implication that the higher up an individual is in the hierarchy the better it is. Different types of needs can operate simultaneously. If a particular path towards the satisfaction is blocked, the individual will both persist along that path and at the same time regress towards more easily satisfied needs. In this way, Alderfer distinguishes between chronic needs which persist over a period of time and the episode needs which are situational and can change according to the environment.
Reinforcement Theory
Reinforcement theory is based on the concepts of operant conditioning developed initially by the well-known psychologist B.F. Skinner. Reinforcement theory argues that the behavior of people is largely determined by its consequences. In other words, those actions that tend to have positive or pleasant consequences tend to be repeated more often in the future, while those actions that tend to have negative or unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated again. The reinforcement theory suggests that managers should try to structure the contingencies of rewards and punishments on the job in such a way that the consequences of effective job behaviour are positive while the consequences of ineffective work behaviour are negative or unpleasant. The focus of this approach is
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upon changing or modifying the behaviour of people on the job. That is why it is also labeled as organizational behaviour modification.
The basic nation underlying reinforcement theory is concept of reinforcement itself. An event is said to be reinforcing if the event following some behaviour makes the behaviour more likely to occur again in the future. It involves the use of four strategies to systematically reinforce and are discussed as under:
(i)Positive Reinforcement: It entails the use of rewards (or other positive consequences) that stimulates desired behaviour and strengthens the probability of repeating such behaviour in the future. Positive reinforcers can be money, praise, promotion, recognition, etc.
(ii)Negative Reinforcement: This strategy also called “avoidance learning”. It implies the use of unpleasant consequences to condition individuals to avoid behaving in undesirable ways. By making unpleasant consequences contingent on undesirable
behaviour, individuals learn to systematically change patterns of behaviour. In work environments, training, safety warnings, orientation sessions and counseling help alert employees against negative consequences of undesirable behaviour.
(iii)Extinction: There is withdrawal of all forms of reinforcement to remove undesirable behaviour. For instance, a disruptive employee who is punished by his supervisor for his undesirable behaviour may continue the disruptions because of the attention they bring. By ignoring or isolating the disruptive employee, attention is withheld and possibly also the motivation for fighting.
(iv)Punishment: This tool is used when an unpleasant or undesirable behaviour needs to be reduced or eliminated. For example, a worker’s wages may be deducted if the quality of goods produced is of substandard quality.
Financial and Non-Financial Incentives
The term ‘incentives’ means an inducement which arouses or stimulates one to action in a desired direction. An incentive has a
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motivational power; it influences the decisions of individuals on putting in necessary effort towards task performance. In modern organizations, a large variety of incentives are used to motivate the people. These incentives may be broadly grouped into: (i) financial or pecuniary incentives, and
(ii) non-financial incentives.
The financial incentives may be distinguished from the nonfinancial incentives on the following grounds:
1.Financial or monetary incentives are meant to satisfy those which money can buy. The needs for food, clothing, and shelter can be fully satisfied by money, but the needs for security, social affiliation and status can be partially satisfied by money. But non-pecuniary incentives are meant for satisfaction of those needs which can’t be satisfied by money. The examples are higher level needs such as status, ego, sense of responsibility, career advancement, autonomy.
2.Financial incentives are tangible, i.e. visible and measureable; they have a direct effect on the organization and the members. But nonfinancial incentives are intangible and they have an indirect influence on the organization and the members.
3.Financial incentives are determined by reference to several factors such as job evaluation, cost of living trends, fringe benefits offered by competitors, agreement between the employers and employees, etc. Non-financial incentives are based on the nature of jobs, strength of aspirations and urges of employees and behavioural orientation of management.
4.Financial incentives are generally used to motivate workers and other non-managerial employees. But non-financial incentives are used to motivate managerial and other higher level personnel. They are also used to supplement and support the pecuniary incentives in the organization.
Role of Non-Financial Incentives
Financial incentives do not work for ever to motivate the people at work. As a matter of fact, when the physiological and security needs
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