Professor called me on sitting at the back of the class and not participating. He’s right about that. So, I’ve relocated up a lot closer to the front. Need to participate. I do better in classes when I speak up and am involved.Talking about motivation today.
Equity Theory deals with people being treated fairly. Not how I’m usually used to seeing equity used. Equity, in this case, is used in the sense of “Equitable Treatment”.
Your equity ratio is the ratio of your compensation to your value. It’s fairly subjective. Research suggests that people are most motivated when their equity ratio is essentially the same a people around you in comparable jobs. People who are underpaid are unmotivated. Surprisingly, people who are overpaid are also often less motivated.
Expectancy Theory of Motivation suggests there are three primary components to a person being motivated to complete a task. Those components are:
- Valence – the value or importance placed on a particular reward
- Expectancy – the belief that good performance will result in rewards
- Instrumentality – the belief that expending effort will result in good performance.
If any of the three factors are low, it reduces motivation. This reminds me of the training challenges at Video Insight. We had a bunch of techs being trained. We would give challenges to be completed between other work. First one to complete everything to satisfaction would get points; at the end of a few months, the person with the most points got a modest reward. The first challenge, all the techs worked hard to finish quickly. One tech won, of course, but the others weren’t far behind. There was a lot of actual competition between the techs; it was a race. The second challenge, the guy who won the first challenge won again. This time, though, the other techs were much slower. The third challenge, the same guy won again, quickly, and the others didn’t even complete the challenge at all. Viewed by this theory, the other techs lost motivation because they lost their belief that working harder would be rewarded.  The reward didn’t become less desirable, but there was no belief that working for it would get it, so they didn’t bother working. The guy who kept winning worked hard, even though he didn’t need to, because he’d learned that working would pay off.
Chapter 14 deals with job design.
Herzberg pioneered job enrichment as a concept.
A job is a set of specified work and task activities. Work is mental or physical activity which has productive results. The meaning of work is the way a person interprets and understands the value of work as a part of life.
There are six general ways to define work.
- Value comes from performance
- Provides positive personal affect and identity
- Profit accrues to others by work performance
- Physical activity directed by others and performed in a workplace
- Generally unpleasant, physically & mentally strenuous activity
- Activity constrained to specific time periods, no positive affect through its performance
Traditional approaches to job design:
- Scientific Management – Classical management style. Motion studies. Empasizes work simplification. Very effective for getting things done. Great up to a certain point, after which you get morale problems. Undervalues human capacity for thoguh and ingenuity.
- Job Enlargement is adding new tasks to a job. Job Rotation is moving a worker from job to job periodically. Either way, aimed at reducing the monotony of simple jobs.
- Job Characteristics Theory is a framework for understanding person-job fit through the interaction of core job dimensions with critical psychological states within a person. AKA the Hackman-Oldham Model, AKA Job Characteristics Model or JCM.
- Job Enrichment is designing or redesigning jobs by incorporating motivational factors into them. Emphasis on recognition, responsibility, and advancement opportunity.
Job Characteristics Model has three components.
- Core Job Dimensions combine with
- Critical Psychological States to produce
- Personal and Work Outcomes