A journey through motivational theories

Abstract

Nowadays, the topic of employees’ motivation plays a key role within the companies. Managers believe that employees’ motivation can directly affect the performance at any level and, by consequence, they try to study how to motivate their employees at all stages, taking care of different tasks like managerial ethics, leadership and decision making development skills. Before introducing the topic of motivation within the companies, it is important to analyze the semantic origin of this term that derives from the Latin word ‘movere’ that means movement. For instance, Atkinson defines motivation as "the influence on vigor, direction, and persistence of action". Motivation is strongly related to leadership and to the ability to persuade and convince people to act in a particular way. This thesis delves into different topics like job satisfaction, job motivation and performance, presenting different theories and research. In particular, this thesis has the objective to outline different theories about motivation through the history. First of all, the research starts with a brief definition of motivation and, then, it outlines how the organization’s management should affect employees’ motivation within the company. Furthermore, this thesis deals with motivational theories. The first motivational theories date back to the Ancient Greece, where some philosophers started talking about this topic. These philosophers were able to understand the importance of motivation for the well-being of human beings within a society. Then, the research deals with some of the most famous motivational theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Alderfer’s ERG theory and Herzberg Two Factor Theory. Most of these theories date back to the 1960s, a period that is still remembered as the Golden Age of the motivational theories. The aim of this research is to understand how to keep employees motivated and psychologically involved in their work, this is a fundamental issue in order to increase their productivity and to achieve astonishing results. Motivation and Job Satisfaction help the company to increase the performance of the employees and, by consequence, the profit and the revenue of the company. However, there are many different reasons for which it is really important to keep an employee motivated, in fact when an employee is satisfied with his work, it is more unlikely that he will look for another job position and this helps the organizations to decrease substantially the turnover rate. From an analytical point of view, reducing the turnover rate means that the company will save money, cause it will have to spend less money during the recruiting phase as well as during the training phase. This thesis outlines some of the most important motivational theories along the history and try to actualize them. This is why, it is essential for managers to get familiar with these theories and to understand how to manage people within their division/company. Everyone is different, everyone needs different objectives, purposes, responsibilities and bonuses to work at its best, a good manager is able to understand what are employees’ needs and what they need to give their best. Furthermore, many research show that employees do not look just at the salary, but sometimes their motivation is the result of the work they are dealing with. For instance, when an employee is stimulated from its job, he feels important within the company and so he is happier and works at his best. Moreover, the possibility to grow within a company is another key determinant for employee motivation, this is essential for employees, otherwise they would feel frustrated and unmotivated because of the lack of objectives in their lives. In addition, providing the employees with learning opportunities and free courses within the working hours is fundamental for the performance of the company.