This is a reflection essay on understanding of workplace motivation theories and how they relate to the actual working environment or job arena. While the article begins with a brief introduction on the development of these theories, it basically focuses on two major employee motivation theories. The discussion shows how Goal Setting Theory and Social Cognitive Theory relate to the non-profit working environment.
Workplace Motivation Theories:
In the early 1960s, the study of motivation was not considered as a reputable pursuit since it was dominated by behaviorists. These behaviorists argued that motivation is brought by external factors that act as either re-inforcers or punishers. Internal factors resulting in individual motivation were basically regarded as physiological by non-behaviorists. However, in the past few decades, workplace motivation has developed to become a significant topic to an extent that it has been examined by various psychologists and other professionals. These efforts have contributed to the development of theories that act as mechanisms for predicting, describing, and impacting employee motivation. In attempts to explain workplace motivation, these theories focus on cognition, employee needs, and the specific job characteristics. The various workplace motivation theories have been developed to explain job motivation across various job arenas.
Goal Setting Theory and Social Cognitive Theory:
Some of the major examples of workplace motivation theories that relate to different job arenas include the goal setting theory and social cognitive theory. Goal Setting Theory was introduced following experiments on Ryan's hypothesis about the effect of intentions (Latham, 2006, p.53). These experiments resulted in three suggestions that eventually resulted in the development of goal setting theory. The suggestions include the fact that particular high goals contribute to high performance, the higher the goal the higher the performance, and impact of several variables such as monetary benefits on performance. Job performance is affected by goal setting because goals provide a regulatory basis for the employee to observe, examine, analyze, and change behavior to achieve the goal.
The impact of goals on performance takes place through four mechanisms including the fact that they act as a directive function. Through directive function, goals guide attention and effort toward initiatives that are goal-oriented and away from those that are not goal-oriented. The effect of directive function takes place from a cognitive and behavioral aspect i.e. attention and effort towards goal-centered activities. The second mechanism is an energized function in which higher goals result in greater efforts than low goals. This mechanism is evident in tasks that directly involve physical effort, repeated performance, subjective effort, and physiological indicators. The third and fourth mechanisms are persistence and action respectively where hard goals prolong effort while action leads to arousal, identification, and use of relevant knowledge and strategies towards particular tasks.
In contrast, Social Cognitive Theory was developed by Albert Bandura and emphasizes on the significance of goal setting on workplace motivation. Social Cognitive Theory states that behavior is an ongoing mutual interaction between cognitive, environmental, and behavioral variables (Latham, 2006, p.71). This perspective is viewed on the argument that behavior is determined by and influences environmental consequences that in turn impact the individual's conscious goals and intentions. The theory offers a theoretical basis that includes the basic variables in cognitive and behaviorist aspects. This theory identifies two individual-difference variables that play a crucial regulation role between the stimulus i.e. outcome expectancies and self-efficacy. While outcome expectancies is a person's belief that a specific result will occur if he/she engages in the behavior, self-efficacy is an individual's belief that he/she can execute a specific behavior in a particular setting.
Using these Theories in the Non-profit World:
As previously mentioned, the workplace motivation theories can be used to explain employee motivation across various settings including the non-profit world because they are relevant to every working environment. Similar to for-profit organizations, employee motivation in non-profit organizations is dependent on both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. However, in non-profit organizations, intrinsic motivation is derived from the performance of an activity for the intrinsic satisfaction of the activity itself. Therefore, money is not a significant motivation factor for employee motivation in the non-profit world. Employees in this sector obtain intrinsic motivation from internal rewards associated with pride or satisfaction in an accomplishment.
The intrinsic rewards or motivation in the non-profit world is related to the Goal Setting Theory since an individual is motivated when he/she accomplishes the established goals. The ability of a person to obtain satisfaction or pride from an accomplishment is dependent on the goals he/she sets that guides his/her activities and initiatives. The established goals act as the object or result to aim for and a standard for determining satisfaction or achievement. Therefore, intrinsic motivation or satisfaction in the non-profit world is impossible to achieve without goal-setting and focusing on goal-oriented activities.
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