Motivation Essay

Why is the study of different theories of motivation important to managers?

Introduction
To be motivated means to be moved to do something. Motivation is anything that inspires one to do something. The motivation for me to wake up early morning is to make it to the university in time. Motivation may be defined as psychological forces that determine the direction of a person's behaviour in an organization, a person's level of effort and a person's level of persistence in the face of obstacles. Managers motivate their employees. Most companies are looking into ways to improve efficiency, productivity, and quality. The question is how to make employees work more productively? This is a question of utmost importance to any manager. The answer to this question is very complex and critical. I will address this question by using various journals, research paper and books.
There are several theories which manager may employ in order to motivate the employee. This paper will discuss about various types of motivation theories. It further examines which motivation theory should be applied by a manager in a particular situation in order to motivate employees. It will explain how it is dependent on the size of the organization, environment in which the organization is placed and the economic condition of the nation in which organization is.

Motivation
Motivation can be divided into two types: intrinsic and extrinsic (Guzzo, 1979). Intrinsic motivation is the motivation to work on something because it is interesting, engaging, exciting, satisfying, personally challenging, appealing. Intrinsic motivation leads to creativity and hence is suggested to be applied in an organization where more creativity is required to do a job (Amabile, 1997). Extrinsic motivation is a construct that pertains whenever an activity is done in order to attain some separable outcome (Deci, Ryan, 2000).
Intensive study has been done on various motivational theories. Motivation theories are built on set of assumption about the nature of people and about the factors that give impetus to action (Deci, Ryan, 1985). By implementing correct motivational theory a manager can enhance productivity of an organization with no substantial cost addition (Kumar, 2012).
As competition grows in the industry managers are more concerned with employees’ satisfaction which is a key factor for an organization to work efficiently. An individual is satisfied if he/she is intrinsically and extrinsically rewarded. The employee perceives that own performance that results from the effort he expended, and that was enhanced by personal competence and commitment, is important, challenging etc. The employee also feels that peers and superiors recognize and reward (pay, promote) his contribution to organizational effectiveness and development. Various studies have shown that employees' motivation to achieve good performance increases when they have a positive perception on managers, company, and co-workers. Statistics demonstrate that top 100 employers in Europe and The United States of America enjoy annual growth rates bigger than 20%. Most of the employees in these companies show commitment towards the organization by reporting that they would stay with their organization for at least five years (Ioana-Lavinia, Alecxandrina and Dalina, 2008).

Motivation at various levels and roles in an organization
A study showed that middle managers are motivated most by trust, respect and caring. Managers are least motivated when people are not rewarded for their performance or if the senior manager is not aware of the results the work they have done has produced. In order to increase the motivation level in the middle managers executives must include these managers in decision making process. Middle managers should also be included more in organizational change and planning process (Antonioni, 1999).
Consider case of a software development company. Developers in such company are closely

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