Literature Review on "What Really Motivates People"

Literature Review 5 pages (1355 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Motivation)

The success of any endeavor, either business or personal, depends on how motivated an individual is. The Fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defined it as 'an inducement or incentive,' which by the definition itself can be thought of as either tangible or intangible. However, no matter the form, a motivation's purpose is to move a person towards another state, which can be deduced as either pleasing or rewarding for it to be effective.

As defined and on a personal level, motivation helps a person achieve his wants and goals in life. These can be through simple things like acquiring an object or experiencing a dream vacation or achieving a more difficult goal like receiving a doctorate degree or becoming a CEO.

In a workplace, motivation helps employees work hard in their duties and responsibilities. Their efforts may propel their company to be accredited or it may reach a targeted sales and profits figure that will help secure the company and provide it more prestige.

The absence of motivation is a danger to ones' productive and satisfying life. Without it, an individual may never achieve his/her dreams or in the end suffer discontent and despair.

On the other hand, lack of employee motivation is also a threat to a company. Dissatisfied employees may only come up with mediocre performances that may result to company losses or breakdown and closure.

Therefore, be it in a personal or professional level, motivation is important to look at and its uses has to be directed and maximized to be able to help people achieve more in life and contribute more to workplaces.

Background

Specifically, this review of literature will focus on motivation to human resources in the workplace. It will present ideas and theories on motivation and later on come up with conclusions on what really motivates people in their work.

Whiteley (2002) shared that the motivation of an individual in his workplace centers on why he is doing the work and how it relates to his personal directions. On a managerial level, it focuses on how the supervisor harnesses his team's capacities and potentials and how it will contribute to the goals of the company. Whiteley further provided that researches nowadays show motivation to be constantly linked to the company's success. The more motivated employees are in working for the company's goals, the more chances their companies will have in succeeding. Some have even associated employees' aims like 'high quality and strong ethics' with their philosophy so it will become more realistic and achievable in the workplace.

Kerr (1997) shared that there are two types of motivation: the intrinsic and the extrinsic. According to him, intrinsic motivation is the 'enjoyment and challenge' that an individual will experience in accomplishing his tasks while extrinsic motivation is the reward or recognition that he will gain from the completed tasks.

Intrinsic motivation is how one sees his work. It is not focused on remuneration but rather on how one loves or enjoys what he is doing. Excellence, according to Kerr, is best achieved through intrinsic motivation. A technician who is not as highly paid as another may still provide quality output and services if he believes that his job is important and valuable to him and the organization.

Extrinsic motivation, meanwhile, comes in the form of an incentive or reward. It can be either an increase in pay or a promotion in post. A technician who receives an increase in pay or benefits package or is promoted to a higher position will aim at doing better as his previous hard work had been rewarded.

To further look at Motivation, Thad Green and Raymond Butkus (1999) informed about Viktor H. Vroom who developed the Expectancy Theory of work motivation in the 1960's. Vroom concluded that motivation at work depends on an employee's expectation or belief that his effort will lead to performance, that his performance will result to outcome and that the outcome will provide him satisfaction. Vroom also believed that an employee will be motivated… READ MORE

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