Motivation and Attitudes in the Workplace

Motivation and Attitudes and their Consequences in the Workplace

Acknowledgement of Country:

• Acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land, the Wallumattagal people of the Dharug nation.
• Pays respects to Elders and knowledge holders, past, present, and future.

Motivation Learning Outcomes

• Describe what motivation is.
• Explain the different types of theories of motivation.
• Identify the practice implications of those theories.

What is Motivation?

• (Vinacke, 1962) Those conditions responsible for…
  • Direction of effort
  • Intensity of effort
  • Persistence
• "Motivation concerns conditions responsible for variations in intensity, quality, & direction of ongoing behavior" (Conte & Landy, 2019)
• Making connections: Motivation & Performance (Week2)
  • $(Motivation \times Ability) - Situational Constraints = PERFORMANCE$
• Consistent relationships exist between personality characteristics & performance motivation
  • Neuroticism negatively related to performance motivation
  • Conscientiousness positively related to performance motivation
• Making connections: Motivation & Personality (Week 9)

Theoretical Approaches to Motivation

Motivational Metaphors

• Person as scientist theories
• Person as machine theories

Theoretical approaches to motivation

• Behavioural theories
• Content & Need-based Theories
• Process Theories

Behavioural Theories

• Behaviour more likely to occur when reinforced
  • People are motivated to do things that have previously been rewarded, and to avoid things that were punished
  • To motivate people to do something, reward them every time they do it (or offer a reward);
  • to discourage, punish
  • Example: Theory X management (McGregor, 1960)

Content & Need-Based Theories

• Behaviour is motivated by basic needs
• Situational factors affect motivation by their influence over which needs are met / unmet at any time
• Example theories
  • Maslow’s hierarchy
  • Herzberg’s two factors
  • SDT (Self-determination theory)
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943)
  • People are motivated to meet all these needs but are motivated most by the lowest level of need that is unmet
  • Not well supported by evidence
  • Self-actualization
  • Esteem
  • Affiliation
  • Safety/Security
  • Physiological

Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory (1959)

• Hygiene factors
  • Pay and benefits
  • Safe environment
  • Comfortable environment
  • Job security
  • Opportunities to interact with other people
• Motivator factors
  • Opportunities for promotion
  • Recognition
  • Responsibility
  • Opportunity to develop new skills
  • Interesting work
  • Achievement
• Demotivation Motivation
  • Not the case that work characteristics simply range from good to bad
  • Hygiene factors are needed at some level, but high levels don’t motivate
  • “Motivators” needed for higher-level, intrinsic motivation

Person-as-Scientist: Process Theories

• Describe the processes by which needs are translated into behaviour
• Most focus more directly on the cognitive processes underlying motivation
• Examples
  • Equity theory
  • Expectancy theory
  • Goal-setting theory

Equity Theory (Adams, 1965)

• People compare themselves to others and evaluate their own situation in relation to others’ situations
• Looks at inputs (e.g., effort, time, training & experience) & outcomes (e.g., pay, opportunities, recognition)
• Underpayment inequity
  • Investing more inputs and/or getting fewer outcomes
  • Equity theory is good at explaining people’s motivations and actions here
• Overpayment inequity
  • Investing less inputs and/or getting more outcomes
  • Equity theory is poor at explaining people’s actions here – it is likely that altering our perceptions is preferable to acknowledging overpayment
• When facing inequity, a person can
  • Change inputs
  • Change outcomes
  • Alter perceptions of self
  • Alter perceptions of other
  • Choose a different “other”
  • Avoid / exit

Expectancy Theory (or VIE Theory) (Vroom, 1964)

• Motivations are influenced by three important cognitive evaluations

  • Expectancy – the likelihood that you can, through your actions (e.g., by working hard) achieve the desired level of performance
  • Instrumentality – the likelihood that if you perform at that level, you will get a particular outcome
  • Valence – the extent to which you value an outcome … or the activity or performance

• Intrinsic Motivation: Action itself is rewarding…

Goal Setting Theory (Locke & Latham, 1984)

• Motivation arises from clear perceptions of purpose and objectives
• Goals assist most with direction, but also helps with intensity and persistence of effort
• Compared to vague statements like “do your best”, difficult-but-attainable goals have been shown to motivate better work performance is for specific
• More specific goals provide clearer direction for action is for measurable
• Measurable goals provide clearer indications of progress is for agreed-to
• A key requirement for motivation is that the employee accept the goal is for realistic
• Challenge is good, but unrealistically difficult goals undermine motivation is for time-limited
• Shorter time-limits enhance specificity and direct immediate action SMART goals

Summary

• Content theories distinguish between basic needs (e.g., pay, safety), intermediate needs (e.g., esteem), and higher-level needs (e.g., competence, freedom)
  • Higher need-fulfillment linked to intrinsic motivation, but not all behaviour is about fulfilling such needs!
• Process theories focus on the ability of cognitive mechanisms (comparisons, expectancies & goals) to effect behaviour-related judgements
  • But “cold” cognitive processes don’t drive all human behaviours!

Work Attitudes Learning Outcomes

• Describe what “attitude” means
• Describe four different work-related attitudes
• Identify a work behaviour associated with each attitude

What are Attitudes?

• Things we call “attitudes” can have up to three components
  • Affect
    • Moods / emotions
    • e.g., feeling angry at your boss
  • Cognition
    • Judgments, beliefs/values
    • e.g. thinking your pay is too low
  • Behaviour
    • Effort, compliance, voluntary acts
    • e.g. applying for other jobs while at work
• “Relatively stable feelings or beliefs directed toward specific persons, groups, ideas, or jobs”
• Types of work attitudes
  • Job satisfaction
  • Turnover intention
  • Organisational commitment
  • Engagement
• While most attitudes reflect a positive—negative dimension, there are important differences between different attitudes

Job Satisfaction

• What is Job Satisfaction?
  • “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences” (Locke, 1976)
  • This definition highlights two elements of job satisfaction
    • Affective
    • Cognitive

Measuring Job Satisfaction

• Affective vs Cognitive
  • How you feel vs appraisal and judgement
  • Cognitive measures tend to be more specific about the source of satisfaction
• Specific vs Global
  • Specifics can include
    • Job content
    • Work environment
    • Pay, benefits, opportunities
    • Policies and processes
    • Supervision and leadership

Effects of Job Satisfaction on Behaviour

• General compliance (e.g. attendance), tenure
• Willingness to perform required tasks
  • related to job performance
• Willingness to perform OCBs (Moorman, 1993), and to help the organisation (Brief, 1998)
  • related to organisational performance

Satisfaction – Performance Association

• Many different views, including…
  • Job Satisfaction à Job Performance (attitude theories)
  • Job Performance à Job Satisfaction (via rewards; motivation theories)
  • Both associated with 3rd variable (e.g., self-esteem)
  • No relation
  • It depends… (e.g., on reward contingency)

Turnover Intention

• How likely someone is to leave the job

Turnover Intention

• Associated with, but different from turnover
  • Turnover can only be measured at group or organisation levels
• Associated with other attitudes (e.g., satisfaction), but also influenced by other factors, such as:
  • Interest in study or other careers
  • Partner’s job opportunities
  • Family responsibilities

Organisational Commitment

• How strongly are employees connected to their organisations, and in what ways?

• Three levels (Allen & Myer, 1990)

  • Affective commitment
    • feel good about being part of the organisation
  • Normative commitment
    • feel a sense of loyalty to the organisation
  • Continuance commitment
    • feel unable to leave

• Continuance commitment may be better explained using two factors (Hartman & Bambacas, 2000)

  • Sacrifices
    • Leaving the organisation unfeasible because it would involve too high a personal cost
  • Alternatives
    • Leaving the organisation unfeasible because there are too few employment alternatives

• Research shows that “positive” organisational policies (e.g., training, performance feedback, goal setting, valued benefits):

  • are positively associated with affective and normative commitment
  • are (weakly) negatively associated with continuance commitment

• Employees high in any form of commitment are more likely to stay with the organisation

• Employees high in affective and normative commitment are

  • Much more likely to have positive attitudes to the organisation
  • Slightly more likely to perform well in the organisation

Engagement

• The extent to which employees…
  • feel positive and energetic while at work
  • get a sense of meaning and value from their jobs
  • feel good about their organisation
  • are motivated to act in ways that help the organisation
• Overlaps with job satisfaction, organisational commitment and intrinsic motivation
  • But more active than “satisfaction”, with stronger links to behaviour

Motivation and Attitudes: What’s the Difference?

• “Motivation” means all factors driving behaviour
  • attitudes refer to thoughts/feelings which may or may not influence behaviour
• Attitude constructs tend to be differentiated by specific conditions and characteristics
  • e.g., Organisational commitment
• Attitudes can have motivational aspects
  • e.g., Engagement

Values and Attitudes: What’s the Difference?

• Values are about preferences and priorities
• Values can affect attitudes when an employee’s personal values are not consistent with the values of the organisation
  • Person-Environment Fit theories

Types of Person-Environment Fit

• Supplementary
  • A match between the characteristics of an individual employee with the characteristics of the team or organisation
    • Attraction-Selection-Attrition Model
• Complementary
  • The extent to which an individual employee’s otherwise-unmet needs are fulfilled by the team or organisation (or vice versa)
    • Theory of Work Adjustment
• Attraction-Selection-Attrition
  • Perceiving fit involves employees forming “an implicit estimate of the congruence of their own personal characteristics and the attributes of… work organizations” (Schneider et al., 1995)
    • Can include values, goals and norms (Cable & Edwards, 1984; Muchinsky & Monahan, 1987)
    • Supplementary fit
  • This model suggests that people are attracted to, selected into, and choose to stay or leave based on supplementary fit.
• The Minnesota Theory of Work Adjustment
  • Complementary Fit (Dawis & Lofquist, 1984)

Summary

• Attitudes involve affective and cognitive responses to work, and can influence work behaviour
  • A wide range of attitudes can be identified and differentiated (more than just “good” and “bad”)
  • Different attitudes influence different behaviours
• Theories such as ASA and TWA have been used to predict how supplementary and complementary forms of person-environment fit influence attitudes, performance and turnover

Discretionary Work Behaviour

• Learning Outcomes
  • Describe four categories of work behaviour (other than completing required job tasks)
  • Explain the importance of each type of work behaviour for organisational performance

What is Discretionary Work Behaviour?

• Actions undertaken voluntarily
  • Can include actions that are not formally required, but are informally expected (e.g., attending meetings)
• Compared to in-role behaviour (doing your required job tasks), discretionary behaviours are more strongly influenced by attitudes, values, and personality

Other Terms

• Voluntary work behaviour
• Extra-role behaviour
• Contextual performance
• Different from
  • In-role behaviour / task performance

Why Look at Discretionary Behaviour?

• Job performance was traditionally treated as a single, homogeneous construct
  • Hard to predict job performance
• Research has demonstrated that by increasing specificity in job performance (or job behaviour) constructs, predictions are possible
  Some types of discretionary behaviour
• Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB)
  • Discretionary behaviours beyond formal job requirements that contribute to the goals of the organisation
• Counterproductive work behaviour (CWB)
  • Discretionary behaviours beyond formal job requirements that harm the wellbeing of the organisation

OCB: Different Factor Structures

• Two-factor model
  • Altruism
  • Generalised compliance
• Three-factor model
  • Personal support
  • Organisational support
  • Conscientious initiative
• Five-factor model
  • Altruism
  • Civic virtue
  • Courtesy
  • Conscientiousness
  • Sportspersonship
• Five factors of OCB (Organ, 1988)
  • Altruism: Helpful behaviours directed toward others within the organisation
    • Example – helping out a colleague who has a tight deadline
  • Civic virtue: Acts showing involvement in and concern for organisational life
    • Examples – attending regular meetings, office functions
  • Courtesy: Behaviours that prevent interpersonal conflict & maintain harmony
    • Example – notifying a colleague about a change that will affect them
  • Conscientiousness: Actions going beyond minimum requirements to further org. goals
    • Example – staying back after work to ensure work is of high quality
  • Sportspersonship: Acts that show tolerance of undesirable conditions
    • Example – NOT complaining about a short-term inconvenience

OCB: Causes and Effects

• OCBs influenced by
  • Personality
    • Conscientiousness
    • Agreeableness
  • Situation
    • Autonomy
    • Politics / trust
• OCBs influence…
  • Career success (Van Scotter et al, 2000)
  • Performance ratings (Motowidlo & Van Scotter, 1994)
  • independently of task performance
    Complex issues with OCBs
• To what extent does OCB research reflect truly voluntary behaviour?
• Are OCBs always beneficial for the employee?
• Are OCBs always beneficial for organisations?
• Do all OCBs have pro-social motivations?

Counterproductive Work Behaviour: Examples

• Absenteeism
  • Non-attendance without pre-arranged leave
• Withdrawal (“presenteeism”)
  • Attending work, but doing minimum contribution
• Sabotage
  • Acts that damage, disrupt, or subvert the organisation’s operations
    • E.g., quiet quitting

CWB: Different Factor Structures

• Two-factor model
  • CWB-I (Individual)
  • CWB-O (Organisational)
• Three-factor model
  • CWB-S (self-gain)
  • CWB-O (organisation-gain)
  • CWB-D (destructive)
• Three-factor model
  • Interpersonal deviance
  • Production deviance
  • Property deviance

Effects of CWBs

• Harm to individuals
• Harm to groups
• Harm to organisation
• Harm to self

Other Types of Discretionary Behaviour

• Adaptive behaviour
  • Displays of flexibility and adaptation to changing circumstances; the extent to which an individual adapts to changes in a work system or work role
• Proactive behaviour
  • Displays of initiative; the extent to which the individual initiates action to anticipate or achieve change in a work system or work roles

Why Adaptive Behaviour?

• Beneficial due to changing nature of work
  • Changing technologies alter work tasks
  • Mergers, downsizing, & corporate restructuring
  • Globalisation & working in different cultures

Forms of Adaptive Behaviour

• Handle emergencies
  • Quick diagnosis and response in emergencies
• Handle work stress
  • Remain calm, and calm others, despite stressors
• Solve problems creatively
  • Generate novel approaches for novel problems
• Deal with uncertainty
  • Decide despite limited information, then adjust
• Learn work tasks etc
  • Continue to seek new knowledge and skills
• Show interpersonal adaptability
  • Be open-minded, consider others, handle criticism
• Show cultural adaptability
  • Respect and seek to understand other cultures
• Show physical adaptability
  • Adjust to challenging physical environments

Proactivity at Work

• Proactivity “anticipatory action that employees take to impact themselves and/or their environments” (Grant & Ashford, 2008)
• Examples
  • Creativity & problem-solving
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Networking
  • Job crafting

Benefits of Proactivity

• Product innovations
• Process innovations
• Identification of future problems / opportunities
• Entrepreneurialism
• Citizenship
• Task performance

• Academic achievement
• Job search success
• Business success (e.g., microbusinesses)
• Career success
• Job and career satisfaction

Forms of Proactive Behaviour (Parker et al., 2010)

• Focus: fit between self & the internal work environment
  • Examples: job crafting, feedback-seeking Proactive P-E fit behaviour
• Focus: internal organisational environment
  • Examples: taking charge, problem-solving Proactive work behavior
• Focus: organisation’s strategy & fit with the environment
  • Examples: issue selling, strategic scanning Proactive strategic behavior

Proactivity: Is it Always Positive?

• Often defined as a positive organisational phenomenon
• Nearly always measured in terms of positive actions and outcomes
• Proactive CWB anticipating, planning and taking action towards a proactive goal in which future harm to the organization, or its stakeholders, is intended or expected
  • Different from well-intended but misjudged proactivity (see Chan, 2006), where harm is unexpected

Proactive CWB

• Some examples
  • Premeditated theft
  • Impression management (self-promotion, negative projection)
  • Misrepresentation of products
  • Bullying/incivility and social undermining
  • Sabotage

Summary

• Much more to job performance and work behaviour than proficient completion of required job duties
  • Likely to become even more so in the future
• Different behaviours influenced by different features
  • Situational factors (e.g. autonomy, politics, norms)
  • Personality (e.g. agreeableness, conscientiousness)
  • Attitudes (e.g. satisfaction) and moods (e.g. enthusiasm)
  • Values (e.g. altruism)