Chapter Two Literature Review 2.1 The Motivation Concept
Chapter Two Literature Review 2.1 The Motivation Concept
Chapter Two Literature Review 2.1 The Motivation Concept
Literature Review
Type of motivation
Extrinsic means that the individual's motivational stimuli are coming from outside, in other
words, our desires to perform a task are controlled by an outside source. Note that even
though the stimuli are coming from outside, the result of performing the task will still be
rewarding for the individual performing the task, Mario, (2002). Extrinsic motivation is
external in nature. Intrinsic motivation means that the individual's motivational stimuli are
coming from within. The individual has the desire to perform a specific task, because its
results are in accordance with his belief system or fulfils a desire and therefore importance is
attached to it.
think and feel. It is their self confidence, their belief in them, their attitude to life. It is how
they feel about the future and how they react to the past. Foxcroft and Roodt, (2002),
Motivation Practices
Many different scholars have agreed and disagreed on the ways employees should be
motivated. Some of them assert that in order to motivate an individual, a financial benefit has
to be foregone by the motivator whereas others believe that money is not a true motivator
hence both financial and nonfinancial incentives are considered in the discussion below
Calder, (2006). According to Cole (1998), financial incentives are rewards/payments that
employees get in consideration of their contribution towards the organization. He adds that
these are payments for labour as a factor of production.
. Bonuses
Marler, (2000) indicated that when your employees function as a team, you ought to think
like a coach; reward the whole group for a job well done. He says this will boost morale both
personally and collectively. He adds that employee incentive programs such as small bonuses
serve to better the morale of an individual employee and that of a group as a whole by
making them more satisfied.
This is in agreement with Likert’s (2004) study which concluded that since everybody wants
to feel appreciated and special for the work done, they can therefore be motivated by
appreciating them and making them feel special. He adds that the more satisfied the employee
is, the better he/she will perform.
Mwanje, (2000) believes that non-financial incentives are the most important motivators of
human behaviour in terms of the needs of human beings. He refers nonfinancial incentives to
non-monetary ways of rewarding employees. They are opportunities that help employees in
the accomplishments of the set goals. They include;
Training opportunities
Hammer, (2000) asserts that an individual will be motivated to do something if they have the
mental ability and skills to accomplish it. He writes that when employees are trained, they get
the knowledge of hoe to deconstruct tasks and challenges and thereby feel less intimidated by
their jobs/tasks. Herzberg (1998) agrees to Hammers assertion. He adds that training makes
the employee earn confidence to do a job thereby improving their attitude hence motivation.
Job rotation
Fowler (2001) revealed that when an employee does one kind of job week-in weekout, they
will always get de-motivated to carry on with their work more especially when the work is
not very challenging. She suggested that employees need to be rotated around the
organization to meet new challenging tasks in order to keep their minds busy and feel like
they are doing something for the organization. However, Clifton (2002) disagrees with these
revelations. He asserts that job rotation does not actually lead to motivation of the employee;
it just helps the employees not to get bored with their work. In other words, it helps the
employers to maintain a certain level of motivation in employees.
There is a general understanding among researchers that performance is an important variable in work
organization (Suliman, 2001) and has become a significant indicator in measuring organizational
performance in many studies (Wall et al., 2004). Employee performance can also be measured
through the combination of expected behavior and task-related aspects (Motowidlo, 2003), even
though performance is often determined by financial figures. In reality, performance that is based on
an absolute value or relative judgment may reflect overall organizational performance (Gomez- Mejia,
Balkin and Cardy, 2007; Wall et al., 2004). However, Widower (2001) asserted that performance
measure that is based on the performance appraisal items offers higher reliability in evaluating
performance.
High performance employees pursue higher level of individual and organizational performance which
involve quality, productive, innovation rate and cycle time of performance (Bharadwaj, 2005) and
therefore they will be able to assist organisation to achieve its strategic aims and sustaining the
organisation competitive advantage (Dressler, 2011). Thus, in order to attract and sustain higher
employee satisfaction and performance, employer need to treat their workers as the most important
internal resources and gratify them (Jin, 2007) because committed and satisfied employees are
normally high performers that contribute towards organizational productivity (Samad, 2007).
According to Porter and Lawler (1968), there are three types of performance. One is the measure of
output rates, amount of sales over a period of time, the production of a group of employees reporting
to manager, and so on. The second type of measure of performance involves ratings of individuals by
someone other than the person whose performance is being considered. The third type of performance
measure is self appraisal and self-ratings. As a result, the adoption of self-appraisal and self-rating
techniques are useful in encouraging employees to take an active role in setting his or her own goals.
Thus, job performance measures the level of achievement of business and social objectives and
responsibilities from the perspective of the judging party (Hersey and Blanchard, 1993). This study
adopts the second type of measure by using peer rating in evaluating job performance item among
employees in MCC. Peer rating is chosen over self-rating to avoid problems associated with common
method bias and social
desirability.
Job performance has been identified as the significant key for organizations to gain competitive
advantage and superior productivity. Although competitive advantage is more relevant to private
sector, it can be extended to private sector by including ‘serving the public’ because it is the ultimate
objective of the public sector. Study by Vermeeren et al., (2009) has proved that work performance
could help private organization to improve service delivery. Realizing its importance, private
organizations seem to pay attention on work performance in relation to formulating products and
enhance service delivery (Leeuw, 1996). This is because individual public employee’s level of
performance acts as a mirror for overall public performance at large. Hence, private employees must
possess relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities to execute task-related responsibilities. Private
service employees also must be willing to “walk the extra miles” in striving to perform at a level
beyond expectations (Caron and Giauque, 2006; Arawati, Barker and Kandampully, 2007) With
respect to public service delivery, individual employee’s performance is closely related to customer
satisfaction (Fountain, 2001) because the service delivery take place during the contact moments
between employee and customer. Therefore, employee’s work performance is crucial to private
organisation services and high work performance among employees is a significant management
challenge for providing excellent services to the Private at all levels
in more effort and improved performance. However, it can be argued that while higher
motivation will produce better performance, improvements in performance will increase
M x
KEY:
P- Performance
M- Motivation
Motivation influences performance, for example when feedback is communicated to the
realized then the output of the individual is likely to increase. Motivation has that
Productivity expresses the relationship between output from systems and inputs, which go
means of measuring actual operations thus used as a way of analysing and evaluating
performance.
forth by psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow saw human needs in the form of a
hierarchy ascending from the lowest to the highest and he concluded that when one set of
Self
Actualizati on
Esteem
Social
Safety
Pphysiological
Applications of Maslow Theory to the work situation at the National Social Security Fund
Physiological Need – These are the basic needs for sustaining human life – include food,
shelter, clothing and sex. Deprivation of these basic needs causes a lot of tension to
employees and lead to job dissatisfaction and eventually poor job performance. Private
organisation should ensure that her employees are well catered for in as far as the provision
losing a job, property, shelter etc. i.e. the need for a stable environment free from threats. In
somaliland, recently there has been a rise in poor performance especially in urban areas.
organisations should ensure protection and performance to their employees all over the
need is satisfied to ensure good performance of the employees. Job security of the
Affiliation or acceptance need – since people are social being they need to belong i.e. be
commonness and teamwork to ensure that employees relate well and belong to a common
team and hence improve their performance. The organization should also allow for informal
Esteem needs – according to Maslow, once people begin to satisfy their need to belong, they
need to be held in esteem both by themselves and by others. This kind of need produces such
satisfaction as power, prestige, status and self-confidence. Just like other people, the
Need for self-actualization - Maslow regards this as the highest need in the hierarchy. It is
the desire to become what one is capable of becoming, to maximize/realize one‟s potential
and self-fulfilment. Maslow’s theory has been subjected to considerable research. Selfa
ctualization needs are not necessarily a creative urge and may take many forms, which vary
widely from one individual to another (Mullins, 1996). Edward Lawled and J Lloyd Settle
collected data on 187 managers in two different organizations over a period of 6 – 12 months.
They found little evidence to support Maslow‟s theory that human needs form a hierarchy.
They, however, did note that there are two levels of needs – biological and other needs and
that the other needs would emerge only when the biological needs have been reasonably
satisfied. They further found that the level of strength of the need varied with individuals. In
some individuals, social needs predominated while in others, self-actualization needs were
the strongest.
In another study of Maslow‟s hierarchy of needs theory involving a group of managers over a
period of five years. Douglas T. Hale and Khahil Nougain did not find strong evidence of
hierarchy. They found that as managers advance in organizations, their physiological and
safety needs tend to decrease in importance and their need for affiliation esteem and self-
actualization tend to increase. They insisted, however, that the upward movement and the
need for prominence resulted from upward career changes and from the satisfaction of lower
Man‟s behavior is seen as dominated by his unsatisfied needs and he is a perpetually wanting
animal; for when one need is satisfied, he aspired for the next higher one. This, therefore,
should be seen as an ongoing activity. What Maslow‟s theory seems to be silent on, is the
time frame upon which this needs are satisfied making it difficult to establish at what point
the individuals get satisfied and start being productive for the sake of the organization. By
the time an individual reaches the self-actualization stage which seems to be the most
productive stage, these individuals. Nevertheless, Maslow‟s theory has provided a useful
framework for the discussion of the variety of needs that people may experience at work, and
the ways in which their motivation can be met by managers and this will serve as a useful
Ochola and Ngige (2002) portrays employee satisfaction and motivation as major influences
on employee on performance in general. The two go further to reveal that job enrichment
factors such as challenge, achievement, recognition and responsibility are the real motivators.
However, Mullins (1996) argues that, giving people a feedback on their job performance
preferably before the supervisor gets it, involving workers in the analysis and change of
physical aspects of work environment such as office layout or plant temperature, lighting and
performance. These factors will form the independent variables of the study and will be
performance. These independent variables have been broadly covered in the literature
review.
Organizational
Rainey, E. (1998). Public Sector Work Motivation: Review of Current Literature and a
Revised Conceptual Model, Journal of Public Administration and Theory, Vol. 11, No. 4,
pp.559-586
Mitchell, F. (1982). Career Plateauing in the Public Service: Baby Boom and
Robson and Judge,M. (2008). Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and why They
Seriously?, Public Personnel Management; Jul/Aug74, Vol.
Mullins F. (1996), “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees”? Harvard
Chiu, G. (1999). The Role of Work Context in Work Motivation: A Public Sector
Mohamoud, Mario, T. (2002). Motivation: The Art of Putting Theory into Practice.
Nelsons, H., G., (2001) Understanding and Managing Public Organizations, 4th ed., Jossey-
Bass
Chiu, G. (1999). The Role of Work Context in Work Motivation: A Public Sector
Tyagi, (2006). The best way to reward employees. Solutions for growing business:
Entrepreneur.com
Mario, T., M., (2002).The motivational bases of public service, Public Administration
Review, Vol. 50, No. 3, pp.367-373
Personality
Lindner, Q., (1995). The motivation to work”, John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Taylor (1993) ‘Commitment in the workplace: Toward a general model’, Human Resource
Management Review, vol. 11, pp. 299–326.
University.
Marler, G., (2000) What to do when you are dissatisfied with job satisfaction scales: A better
way to measure job satisfaction. Retrieved May 2, 2013, from
http://www.ipmaac.org/can/apr96/techaff.htm
Mwanje, S., M., K., N. (2000). A career Development and Staff Motivation in the
Nanda, R., & Browne, J. J. 1977. ‘Hours of work, job satisfaction and productivity’, Public
Productivity Review, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 46-56.
Hammer, D., (2000) Job satisfaction and employee performance. 8th Edition. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.