Motivation

Motivation: refers to factors affecting the initiation, direction, intensity,

and persistence of behavior.
The three key elements of our definition are intensity, direction, and
persistence:
Intensity is concerned with how hard a person tries. This is the
element most of us focus on when we talk about motivation.
Direction is the orientation that benefits the organization.
Persistence is a measure of how long a person can maintain
his/her effort. Motivated individuals stay with a task long enough to
achieve their goal.
I. The Psychology of Motivation:
A. The psychology of motivation is concerned with the whys of behavior.
(why do people do this or that?)
1. Motives are hypothetical states that activate behavior towards goals.
a. Hypothetical states because motives are not measured directly;
they are inferred from behaviour. E.g Mary was motivated to stay
in my good graces as she brought me an apple ( I came to this
conclusion by observing her behaviour).
b. Motives may take the form of:
i. Needs
ii. Drives
iii. Incentives

A Need is a state of deprivation.

1) Needs come in two types: physiological (of the body) and
psychological (emotional needs).
a) Physiological are needs necessary for survival (e.g. oxygen,
food, etc.)
b) Psychological include needs for achievement, power, selfesteem, etc.)
c) Physiological and psychological needs differ in two ways:
(1)Psychological needs are not necessarily based on
deprivation.
(2)Psychological needs may be acquired through
experience.
(3)Physiological (or the body) needs are built into the
makeup of the organism.
d) Needs give rise to drives which arouse us to action.

A drive is a condition of arousal in an organism that is associated

with a need.
1) E.g depletion of food gives rise to hunger,
2) Depletion of liquids give rise to thirst
3) Psychological needs for approval, achievement and belonging
also gives rise to drives
4) Drives tend to stronger when we have been deprived longer.
5) We can also be driven to obtain incentives.

Incentives: are objects, persons, or situations viewed as capable

of satisfying a need or as desirable for its own sake. Eg. Money,
food a sexually attractive person, social approval, and attention
can all act as incentives that motivate behaviour.
Theories of Motivation
1. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs (Humanistic Theory)
2. Herzbergs Two Factor theory
3. McClellands Achievement Motivation Theory

Content theories explain the specific factors that motivate people. They
explain what drives human behavior.

1. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs (Humanistic Theory)

Abraham Maslow believed that people are motivated by the
conscious desire for personal growth.

Humanistic theory is perhaps the most well know theory of

motivation. According to this theory, humans are driven to
achieve their maximum potential and will always do so unless
obstacles are placed in their way. These obstacles include
hunger, thirst, financial problems, safety issues, or anything else
that takes our focus away from maximum psychological growth.

Abraham Maslow developed the famous pyramid the Hierarchy

of Needs. Maslow believed that humans have specific needs
that must be met and that if lower level needs go unmet, we can
not possible strive for higher level needs.

Maslows hierarchy of needs ranges from physiological needs

such as hunger and thirst through self actualization.

Throughout our lives, we work toward achieving the top of the

pyramid, self actualization, or the realization of all of our
potential.
According to Maslow, nobody has ever reached the peak of his
pyramid. We all may strive for it and some may even get close,
but no one has achieved full self-actualization.

Self-actualization is a self initiated striving to become whatever we

believe we are capable of being. It means a complete understanding of
who you are, a sense of completeness, of being the best person you could
possibly be.

To have achieved this goal is to stop living, for what is there to

strive for if you have learned everything about yourself, if you
have experienced all that you can, and if there is no way left for
you to grow emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually.

2. Herzbergs Two Factor Theory

Two-Factor Theory
The Two-Factor Theory is sometimes also called motivation-hygiene
theory.
Proposed by psychologist Frederick Herzberg when he investigated
the question, What do people want from their jobs? He asked
people to describe, in detail, situations in which they felt
exceptionally good or bad about their jobs. These responses were
then tabulated and categorized.
He proposed that two factors, motivators and hygienes, are

important in determining worker satisfaction and motivation.

Motivators are elements related to the job content that when
present lead to job satisfaction.
Hygienes are elements related to the job context that when absent
cause job dissatisfaction.

Herzberg concluded:
Intrinsic factors (motivators), such as advancement (promotions),
recognition, responsibility, and achievement seem to be related to job
satisfaction.
Extrinsic factors, such as type of supervision, pay, company policies,
and working conditions can cause dissatisfaction.
The opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction.
As different things determine whether an individual is satisfied
or dissatisfied with their job.
Removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job does not
necessarily make the job satisfying.
Job satisfaction factors are separate and distinct from job dissatisfaction
factors. Managers who eliminate job dissatisfaction factors may not
necessarily bring about motivation.
When hygiene factors are adequate, people will not be dissatisfied;
neither will they be satisfied. To motivate people, emphasize factors
intrinsically rewarding that are associated with the work itself or to
outcomes directly derived from it.
3. McClellands Achievement Motivation Theory

This model of motivation emphasizes the importance of three needs:

achievement, power, and affiliation, in determining worker motivation.
A. Need for achievement: The compelling drive to succeed and get the job
done. Individuals with a very high need for achievement are those who
love the challenge of the work.
Some people have a compelling drive to succeed. They are striving for
personal achievement rather than the rewards of success per se. This
drive is the achievement need.

McClelland found that high achievers differentiate themselves from

others by their desire to do things better.
They seek personal responsibility for finding solutions to problems.
They want to receive rapid feedback on their performance so they
can tell easily whether they are improving or not.
They can set moderately challenging goals. High achievers are not
gamblers; they dislike succeeding by chance.

B.

High achievers perform best when they perceive their probability of

success as 50-50.
They like to set goals that require stretching themselves a little.

Need for power: The need to make others behave in a way that
they would not have behaved otherwise. The need to direct and control the
activities of others and to be influential. Individuals with a high need for
power are status oriented and are motivated by the chance to gain
influence and prestige than to solve particular problems.
The need for power is the desire to have impact, to be influential,
and to control others.
Individuals with a high need for Power enjoy being in charge.
Strive for influence over others.
Prefer to be placed into competitive and status-oriented
situations.
Tend to be more concerned with prestige and gaining influence
over others than with effective performance.

C. Need for affiliation: The desire for friendly and close interpersonal
relationships. The desire to be liked and accepted by others.
The need for affiliation.
This need has received the least attention from researchers.
Individuals with a high affiliation motive strive for friendship.
Prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones.
To assess an individuals motivational needs, McClelland used a variation of
the Thematic Apperception Test. ( a projective test that uses ambiguous
pictures to assess psychological motivation).

Module 7a- Conflict

We define conflict as a process that begins when one party
perceives that another party has negatively affected, or is about
to negatively affect, something that the first party cares about. It
is a behavior by a person or group that is intended to inhibit the goal
attainment of another person or group.
There may be:
Task conflict: relates to the content and goals of the work. Low-tomoderate levels of task conflict are functional and consistently
demonstrate a positive effect on group performance because it
stimulates discussion, improving group performance.
Relationship conflict: focuses on interpersonal relationships.
These conflicts are almost always dysfunctional.
The friction and interpersonal hostilities inherent in relationship
conflicts increase personality clashes and decrease mutual
understanding.
Process conflict: relates to how the work gets done.
Low-levels of process conflict are functional and could enhance
team performance.
For process conflict to be productive, it must be kept low.
Types of Conflicts
Lewin (1935) identified three patterns of conflict: approach-approach,
avoidance-avoidance, and approach-avoidance.
1. APPROACH-APPROACH CONFLICT
Approach-approach conflicts are unstable
The individual is faced with the necessity of making a choice
between two (or more) desirable goals. Since both goals are
desirable, this is the least stressful situation and decisions are
usually made quickly.

"Shall I fly or take a boat to Europe?" might be easily resolved if

both means of travel are seen as pleasurable. Such situations
produce a state of unstable equilibrium.
As soon as one goal is approached, its desirability increases and
completely dominates, thereby making the choice easy. The choice
becomes easier the closer one moves toward either goal.
The approach-approach conflict situation: an unstable equilibrium. A
step toward either goal is sufficient to resolve the conflict by making
that goal seem more attractive than the other.

2. AVOIDANCE-AVOIDANCE CONFLICT
The other two types of conflict produce stable equilibrium.
In the avoidance-avoidance conflict, the individual is faced with two
goals, both of which are negative, or repellent. He is "between the
rock and the hard place."
E.g. a child who is faced with "Either you do your homework or you
go to bed without supper." Since the equilibrium is a stable one, the
child is likely to remain balanced between the two negatives as long
as possible.
The nearer the individual comes to a goal he wishes to avoid (a
repelling one), the stronger is his tendency to avoid it.
The avoidance-avoidance conflict situation is a stable equilibrium
in which a movement away from one goal is countered by an
increase in the repellence of the other goal so that the individual
returns to the point where he was at the beginning of the conflict.

3. APPROACH-AVOIDANCE CONFLICT
Approach-avoidance conflicts involve only one goal
The third conflict pattern is approach-avoidance. In this situation,
the individual is both attracted and repelled by the same goal. The
same goal has qualities that make the individual want to approach it
and other qualities that make him want to avoid it.
The timid man who wishes to propose to his girl friend fears
rejection (the quality he wishes to avoid) and hopes for acceptance
(the quality he wishes to approach). Hence he is in conflict about a
single goal.
If you are tempted to eat a certain food but know from experience
that it gives you indigestion, you experience an approachavoidance conflict.
Approach-avoidance, like the avoidance-avoidance conflict situation,
produces stable equilibrium.
The approach-avoidance conflict situation is a stable equilibrium. As
the individual nears the goal , the strength of avoidance increases
more rapidly than that of approach, pushing him from the goal ; at
this point the strength of approach is higher than the avoidance
tendency. In this manner the person is brought back to the original
point of equilibrium.

Causes of Conflict (Sources of Conflict)

The sources of conflict may be environmental as well physiological.
Environmental
1. Communication Problems
(1) Communication as a source of conflict represents those
opposing forces that arise from semantic difficulties,
misunderstandings, and noise in the communication
channels.
(2) Differing word connotations, jargon, insufficient exchange of
information, and noise in the communication channel are all
barriers to communication and potential antecedents to
conflict.
(3) Semantic difficulties are a result of differences in training,
selective perception, and inadequate information.
(4) The potential for conflict increases when either too little or
too much communication takes place.
(5) The channel chosen for communicating can have an influence
on stimulating opposition.

2. Structural Problems
The term structure includes variables such as size, degree of
specialization, jurisdictional clarity, member-goal compatibility,
leadership styles, reward systems, and the degree of dependence.

(1)Size and specialization act as forces to stimulate conflict. The

larger the group and more specialized its activities, the
greater the likelihood of conflict.
(2)The potential for conflict is greatest where group members
are younger and turnover is high.
(3)The greater the ambiguity in responsibility for actions lies, the
greater the potential for conflict.
(4)Scarcity of important resources causes conflict.
(5)The diversity of goals among groups is a major source of
conflict.
(6)A close style of leadership increases conflict potential.
(7)Too much reliance on participation may also stimulate conflict.
(8)Reward systems, too, are found to create conflict when one
members gain is at anothers expense.
(9)Finally, if a group is dependent on another group, opposing
forces are stimulated.
3. Personal Variables
Include individual value systems and personality characteristics.
(1)Most important is differing value systems. Value differences
are the best explanation for differences of opinion on various
matters.
Physiological Sources of Conflict
1. Personality being genetically influenced: some
psychologists believe that personality is influenced by
genetics. Certain personality types lead to potential conflict ,
therefore an individual who thrives on conflicts, or is always
involved in one, may be like that due to their DNA [genetics
(inherited from parents)] .
2. Aggressive instinct: Biological explanations of conflict
and aggression, suggests that aggression is innate, unlearnt
and is demonstrated by each species. Freud also stated that
human beings have an aggressive instinct. Everyone
demonstrates an aggressive nature at some point but this
does not account for individual differences as we all do not
get aggressive or get involved in conflicts over the same
things.
Conflict Resolution Techniques
Five conflict resolution techniques (strategies) can be identified:
competing, collaborating, avoiding, accommodating, and compromising.

1. Competition (win-lose strategy)

When one person seeks to satisfy his or her own interests,
regardless of the impact on the other parties to the conflict. It
involves persisting in a conflict until one party attains their
personal goals at the expense of the others.
2. Collaborating ( win-win strategy)
When the parties to conflict each desire to fully satisfy the
concerns of all parties. The intention is to solve the problem by
clarifying differences rather than by accommodating. It involves
both parties cooperating to reach a solution that satisfies both.
3. Accommodating ( lose- win strategy)
When one party seeks to appease an opponent, that party is
willing to be self-sacrificing. This is when a person is so intent on
settling a conflict that he gives in and risks hurting himself. It
involves making a sacrifice to resolve a conflict.
4. Compromising (lose-lose strategy)
When each party to the conflict seeks to give up something,
sharing occurs, resulting in a compromised outcome. There is no
clear winner or loser, and the solution provides incomplete
satisfaction of both parties concerns. It involves both parties
giving up some part of their goals.
5. Avoiding
A person may recognize that a conflict exists and want to
withdraw from it or suppress it. They choose to ignore the
conflict with the hope that it will resolve itself. Avoidance can be
appropriate if the timing for open conflict is not right or if both
parties need a cooling off period. Even though withdrawal can
make one feel better, often it only postpones conflict rather than
prevent it. Withdrawal behaviours include avoiding the source of
the conflict, quitting and talking behind the persons back.
Effects of Conflicts
o Not all conflicts are positive (Functional), constructive forms of
conflict support the goals of the group and improve its
performance. Conflicts that hinder group performance are
negative (dysfunctional) or destructive forms of conflict.
o What differentiates functional from dysfunctional conflict? You
need to look at the type of conflict.

Positive Effects of Conflict (Functional Outcomes)

How might conflict act as a force to increase group performance?
Conflict is constructive when it:
1. Improves the quality of decisions.
2. Stimulates creativity and innovation.
3. Encourages interest and curiosity.
4. Provides the medium through which problems can be aired
and tensions released.
5. Fosters an environment of self-evaluation and change.
6. The evidence suggests that conflict can improve the quality
of decision making.
7. Conflict is an antidote for groupthink.
8. Conflict challenges the status quo, furthers the creation of
new ideas, promotes reassessment of group goals and
activities, and increases the probability that the group will
respond to change.
Negative Effects of Conflict (Dysfunctional Outcomes)
Uncontrolled opposition and conflict breeds discontent, which
acts to dissolve common ties and eventually leads to the
destruction of the group.
Undesirable consequences:
1. A retarding of communication
2. Reductions in group cohesiveness
3. Subordination of group goals to the primacy of infighting
between members
4. Conflict can bring group functioning to a halt and
potentially threaten the groups survival.
The demise of an organization as a result of too much
conflict is not as unusual as it might first appear. One of
New Yorks best-known law firms, Shea & Gould, closed
down solely because the 80 partners just could not get
along.

Module: 7b - The Psychology of Organizational Change

Topic Introduction & Summary
If environments were perfectly static, if employees skills and abilities were
always up-to-date and incapable of deteriorating, and if tomorrow were
always exactly the same as today, and technology never improved,
organizational change would have little or no relevance to managers. But
the real world is turbulent, requiring organizations and their members to
undergo dynamic change if they are to perform at competitive levels.
Managers are the primary change agents in most organizations. By the
decisions they make and their role-modeling behaviors, they shape the
organizations change culture. For instance, management decisions related
to structural design, cultural factors, and human resource policies largely
determine the level of innovation within the organization. Similarly,
management decisions, policies, and practices will determine the degree
to which the organization learns and adapts to changing environmental
factors.
Definition: Change is making things different
I.

Forces for Change

Organizations face a dynamic and changing environment. This requires
adaptation. There are six specific forces that are acting as stimulants
for change.
o Nature of the Workforce : aging population, many new
employees with inadequate skills
o Technology is changing jobs and organizations; dont need to go
into office to work.
o Economic shocks: rise and fall of dot.com stocks, the fall of US
economy
o Competition is changing: growth of ecommerce, global economy.
o Social trends during the past generation suggest changes that
organizations have to adjust for the rise in discount retailers
(Walmart etc.,)
o World politics : Iraqi war

Managing Planned Change

Some organizations treat all change as an accidental occurrence;
however, planned change are change activities that are intentional and
goal-oriented.

II.

The goals of planned change are to:

(1)improve the ability of the organization to adapt to changes in
its environment
(2)and it seeks to change employees behavior.

Examples of planned-change activities include the stimulate innovation

to compete with competitors, empower employees, and introduce work
teams.
An organizations success or failure is essentially due to the things that
employees do or fail to do, so planned change is also concerned with
changing the behavior of individuals and groups within the
organization.

Change agents: Persons who act as catalysts (acting as a stimulus) and

assume the responsibility for managing change activities.

III.

Change agents can be managers, employees of the organization, or

outside consultants.
For major change efforts, top managers are increasingly turning to
temporary outside consultants with specialized knowledge in the
theory and methods of change.
Resistance to Change

One of the most well documented findings is that organizations and

their members resist change.

Resistance to change is positive as it provides a degree of stability

and predictability to behaviour.
There is a definite negative side to resistance to change, as it
hinders adaptation and progress.

Resistance to change does not necessarily surface in standardized

ways. The may be overt, implicit, immediate or deferred.
Overt and immediate resistance (e.g. work slowdown, strike, voicing
complaints)are easiest for management to deal with.
Implicit resistance efforts are difficult to detecte.g. loss of loyalty
to the organization, loss of motivation to work, increased errors or

mistakes, increased absenteeism due to sickness, hence more

difficult to deal with.
Similarly, deferred actions blur the link between the source of the
resistance and the reaction to it.( as resistance may surface months
after the change took place)

Resistance to change may have individual and/ or organisational

sources
Individual Resistance
Five reasons why individuals may resist change are:
Habit: Life is complex, to cope with having to make hundreds of
decisions everyday, we all rely on habits or programmed
responses.
Security: People with a high need for security are likely to resist
change because it threatens their feelings of safety.
Economic factors: Another source of individual resistance is
concern that changes will lower ones income.
Fear of the unknown: Changes substitute ambiguity and
uncertainty for the known.
Selective information processing: Individuals shape their
world through their perceptions. Once they have created this
world, it resists change.

Organizational Resistance
Organizations, by their very nature, are conservative. They actively
resist change. There are six major sources of organizational resistance:
Structural inertia: Organizations have built-in mechanisms to
produce stability (formalized rules and regulations); this structural
inertia acts as a counterbalance to sustain stability.
Limited focus of change: Organizations are made up of a number
of interdependent subsystems. Changing one affects the others.
Group inertia: Group norms may act as a constraint.
Threat to expertise: Changes in organizational patterns may
threaten the expertise of specialized groups.
Threat to established power relationships: Redistribution of
decision-making authority can threaten long-established power
relationships.
Threat to established resource allocations: Groups in the
organization that control sizable resources often see change as a
threat. They tend to be content with the way things are.

IV.

Overcoming Resistance to Change

A.

B.

C.

Education and Communication

Resistance can be reduced through communicating to help
employees see the logic of a change. The assumption is that the
source of resistance lies in misinformation or poor communication.
It works provided that the source of resistance is inadequate
communication and that management-employee relations are
characterized by mutual trust and credibility.
Participation
It is difficult for individuals to resist a change decision in which they
participated.
Prior to making a change, those opposed can be brought into the
decision process, assuming they have the expertise to make a
meaningful contribution.
The negativespotential for a poor solution and great time
consumption.
Building Support and Commitment
Employee counseling and therapy, new-skills training, or a short
paid leave of absence may facilitate adjustment. The drawbacksit
is time-consuming, expensive, and its implementation offers no
assurance of success.

D.

Negotiation
Negotiation as a tactic may be necessary when resistance comes
from a powerful source.
It has potentially high costs, and there is the risk that the change
agent is open to the possibility of being blackmailed by other
individuals in positions of power.

E.

Manipulation and Cooptation

Manipulation refers to covert influence attempts, twisting and
distorting facts to make them appear more attractive, withholding
undesirable information, and creating false rumors to get
employees to accept a change.
Cooptation is a form of both manipulation and participation. It
seeks to buy off the leaders of a resistance group by giving them
a key role in the change decision.
Both manipulation and cooptation are relatively inexpensive and
easy ways to gain support. The tactics can backfire if the targets
become aware that they are being tricked or used.

F.

G.

V.

Selecting People Who Accept Change

People who adjust best to change are those who are open to
experience, take a positive attitude toward change, are willing to
take risks, and are flexible in their behavior.
Coercion
This is the application of direct threats or force upon the resisters.
Examples of coercion are threats of transfer, loss of promotions,
negative performance evaluations, and a poor letter of
recommendation.
The Politics of Change
Change threatens the status quo, making it an inherently political
activity.
o Internal change agents typically are individuals high in the
organization who have a lot to lose from change.
o Politics suggests that the impetus for change is more likely to come
from outside change agents.
o Managers who have spent their entire careers with a single
organization and eventually achieve a senior position in the
hierarchy are often major impediments to change.
i.
Change itself is a very real threat to their
status and position, yet, they may be expected to implement
changes.
ii.
When forced to introduce change, these
long-time power holders tend to implement first-order
changes. Radical change is too threatening.
o Power struggles within the organization will determine the speed
and quantity of change.
i.
Long-time career executives will be sources
of resistance.
ii.
Boards of directors that recognize the
imperative for the rapid introduction of second-order change
in their organizations frequently turn to outside candidates
for new leadership.

VI.

Approaches to Managing Organizational Change

Two approaches are the Lewins Three-Step Model & Kotters EightStep plan for implementing change
Lewins Three-Step Model

Kurt Lewin argued that successful change in organizations should

follow three steps
Unfreezing the status quo
Movement to a new state
Refreezing the new change to make it permanent
Unfreezing
Unfreezing

Movement
Movement

Refreezing
Refreezing

Unfreezing: Changing to overcome the pressures of both individual

resistance and group conformity.
Movement: a change process that transforms the organization
from the status quo to a desired end state.
Refreezing: stabilizing a change intervention by balancing driving
and restraining forces.

The status quo can be considered to be an equilibrium state.

To move from this equilibriumto overcome the pressures

of both individual resistance and group conformityunfreezing is
necessary and can be achieved in 3 ways.
1) The driving forces, which direct behavior away from the
status quo, can be increased.
2) The restraining forces, which hinder movement from the
existing equilibrium, can be decreased.
3) A third alternative is to combine the first two approaches.

Once the change has been implemented, the new situation needs to
be refrozen so that it can be sustained over time.
Unless this last step is taken, there is a very high chance
that the change will be short-lived and that employees will
attempt to revert to the previous equilibrium state.
The objective of refreezing is to stabilize the new situation
by balancing the driving and restraining forces.

B. Kotters Eight-Step Plan for Implementing Change

Kotters plan began by listing common failures that managers make when
trying to initiate change. His plan included the following:
1. Establish a sense of urgency by creating a compelling reason for
why change is needed.
2. Form a coalition with enough power to lead the change.
3. Create a new vision to direct the change and strategies for
achieving the vision.
4. Communicate the vision throughout the organization.
5. Empower others to act on the vision by removing barriers to change
and encouraging risk taking and creative problem solving.
6. Plan for, create, and reward short-term wins that move the
organization toward the new vision.
7. Consolidate improvements, reassess changes, and make necessary
adjustments in the new programs.
8. Reinforce the changes by demonstrating the relationship between
new behaviors and organizational success.