Motivation And Performance In Organization

Abstract

The aim of the research is to structure and highlight both existing and novelty concepts of motivation, to analyze their impact on employee performance within the organization. The motivation has been extensively analyzed over time and a set of theories and models have been formulated to find answers to the question: "Are people born self-motivated or motivation has to be induced?" Performance at individual, organizational and macroeconomic level have direct implications on the competitiveness of a firm and a country. The organization can only cope with the required competitiveness changes by focusing managers efforts on what the customer wants or the market; in daily work between subordinate managers, employee motivation/satisfaction will or may not favor the firm's effort on the market. In order to succeed in daily work with subordinates, managers / decision-makers need to know, understand as fully as possible the motivation process within the organizational framework. There are several theoretical developments that emphasize the organizational factors in trying to explain the motivation of the employee at work, namely the factors that predominantly belong to the company or organization (the salary system, the management team, the control-supervision system, the communication among the members teams, feedback, how to promote positions, admitting employee initiatives, participation in decision-making).

Headnote

Abstract: The aim of the research is to structure and highlight both existing and novelty concepts of motivation, to analyze their impact on employee performance within the organization. The motivation has been extensively analyzed over time and a set of theories and models have been formulated to find answers to the question: "Are people born self-motivated or motivation has to be induced?" Performance at individual, organizational and macroeconomic level have direct implications on the competitiveness of a firm and a country. The organization can only cope with the required competitiveness changes by focusing managers efforts on what the customer wants or the market; in daily work between subordinate managers, employee motivation/satisfaction will or may not favor the firm's effort on the market. In order to succeed in daily work with subordinates, managers / decision-makers need to know, understand as fully as possible the motivation process within the organizational framework. There are several theoretical developments that emphasize the organizational factors in trying to explain the motivation of the employee at work, namely the factors that predominantly belong to the company or organization (the salary system, the management team, the control-supervision system, the communication among the members teams, feedback, how to promote positions, admitting employee initiatives, participation in decision-making).

Keywords: motivational phenomenon, performance, environmental factors, motivating factors, motivation systems, nonfinancial motivation.

1. Motivation in the organization

In global management theory, there are several attempts to explain the motivation within the organizational framework, to explain what motivates the employee to be performing in the work he has done. These theories are especially offered by psychologists, sociologists and other specialists, and are based on various hypotheses or social contexts presumed.

None of the approaches, including motivation theories, can be considered as the most correct; each contributes to the understanding of human behavior in an organization and has its limits; on the whole, they suggest what the manager needs to do to motivate his subordinates.

Scientific papers and themes that address the subject of motivation in organizations are numerous. Motivation is a much-researched research theme both in the past and present, supported by the fact that it is a basic element for the disciplines that study the organizational environment - human resource management, organizational psychology and organizational behavior (Latham, 2007) but also by the central position of motivation and work satisfaction.

In more recent approaches about employee motivation and the impact of human potential in the modern economy, we are discussing about identifying the special talents of each employee. Coffman and Molina are of the opinion that the individual's emotions are given by mechanisms that hierarchies the objectives of the human brain; the two authors propose the concept of emotional economy of a complex mechanism of motivation / empowerment of employees.

The research titled "Theoretical Elements of Motivation in Organizations" has as a subject of study the analysis of the issue of the motivation of employees in a double perspective, on the one hand it addresses the motivation through the individual's perspective and its psychology, and on the other hand the motivational practices used organizations.

From a theoretical point of view, the study aims to bring more insight into the definition and analysis of the concept of motivation. It is necessary to understand what motivates/demotes an employee in his work. People are the most important asset category that an organization can use, respectively employee's process information to value other assets; in fact, no organization can exist without the human resources that make up it. Paradoxically, however, people are the only asset that can act against the organization's goals; Simply put, if they are not motivated and interested in the objectives proposed by the company, various groups/teams in the organization will end up dismantling their efforts, generating major conflicts, acting against others and/or against the interests of the organization.

Behavior is a result of the interaction of the personality of the individual with the organizational and working environment, and man, as a social and organizational being, is under the pressure of material, physiological, aesthetic, moral, ideological needs, etc., and under the pressure of some motivational factors which managers direct and direct the behavior of the individual towards the achievement of organizational goals.

Thus, only through a collaborative effort, through appropriate mechanisms to attract employees towards the objectives proposed by the firm, through mechanisms to motivate / influence them through the construction of efficient management teams can create an organizational climate that favors consumption energy and latent creativity of employees.

2. Methodology for defining organizations

In the perspectives of the contemporary authors "Organizations are human creations. They are entities in which individuals interact and interdependently work in a structure to achieve common goals. They are presented in many forms, and their purposes are varied and cannot always be implicitly/explicitly shared among all members of the organization "(Furnham, 1997, p. 6).

At the same time, Furnham release the opinion that "Organizations are complex systems that have inputs and outputs of many different types and paths to turn them into the last ones" (ibidem). The two French researchers Petit and Dubois use the organization cannot be summed up by the sum of individuals, groups, workshops, offices or services - these elements are in a state of necessary interdependence in order to achieve an official objective "Interdependence is the foundation of the unity of the organization, being not only operative, but also of a social nature, enrolling in the psychology of individuals and groups as well as in the relationships of these" (Petit and Dubois, 1998, p. 10 ).

In our opinion, the extensive definitions become enumerating-descriptive without surprising the defining elements of the organizations, and the restrictive ones seem to be elliptical, with many other explanations and additional information. As such, we will present the definition of organizations combining the historical criterion with the problematic one:

- stage 60s - organizations were defined in terms of goals, formal structures and in integrative terms;

- the 1970s and 1980s define organizations in terms of human activities;

- the third stage in the late 1980s and the current period in which we define organizations in terms of controlled performance.

Among the many definitions are in terms of purpose and structure. Defining organizations in terms of goals is based on a general idea present in sociology that sociologists tend to associate and assign goals to any form of social organization, and how organizations are such extremely important forms; it was considered the fulfillment of the goals for which they were created is their defining element:

- "organizations are social units (or human groups) built and rebuilt intentionally to pursue specific objectives" (Etzioni, 1961, p. 207);

- "organizations are structured to achieve a particular type of objective" (Parsons, 1964, p. 118);

- "organizations have explicit, limited and formal objectives" (Udy, 1965, p. 51).

It can be concluded that there are at least two essential characteristics of the organizations: the first - the presence of the purpose as defining notes, and the second characteristic the presence of collective, specific, explicit, limited, official goals, etc.

The major advantage of defining organizations in terms of purpose is that we are provided with information about the specifics of the organization, the purpose of which is to specify the nature of the organization. Then, depending on the degree of achievement of the goal, we can know the level of efficiency or development of the organization. An organization that achieves its intended purpose at a maximum level can be considered as mature, efficient, while another that achieves its goal at a minimal level or even at all will certainly be a troubled organization. Organizational success or failure is therefore directly proportional to the degree of goal completion.

3. Theories about motivation

The human resource is one of the most important resources of the organization (Burlea-Şchiopoiu, 2008). Therefore, one of the factors influencing the quality of human resources is motivation.

From the definition of the motivation concept to the elaboration of human resources motivation strategies in organizations, a series of stages have been carried out and more motives have been developed. Ancient Greece was the cradle of hedonism, through which philosophers explained what motivated human behavior: in pursuit of pleasure, with the least effort, individuals headed for things that would produce comfort and satisfaction (Cherrington, 1989, p. 167-168). The complex issues of the field of motivation generated the formulation of a large number of theories, whose competition and limitation, together with controversies regarding the concept of motivation, are also transferred to the attempts to classify or systematize them.

By chronologically approaching the concept of motivation, it can be seen that, even with Frederick W. Taylor, all authors have attempted to explain the factors that motivate people, but have shown less concern about the causes and ways in which it occurs and sustains motivation in time. Thus, Nicolescu and Verboncu (1999, p. 474) present three categories of theories, delimited by the Spanish professor Juan Pérez Lopez, depending on the hypotheses regarding the nature of the motivation of the staff:

- mechanistic theories, which presuppose that employees are motivated only by extrinsic motivations, human behavior being conceived as a mechanistic system in which a person receives from the outside any stimulus - salary, prize, social status - in exchange for the action he made;

- psychosocial theories, in which human behavior is conceived as a biological system, which considers that employees are motivated by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, the latter through the development of abilities, the enrichment of knowledge, the pleasure to perform a certain work generating the satisfaction of needs or desires the person concerned;

- anthropological theories, which also take into account the transcendent motivations besides the extrinsic and intrinsic ones. Transcendent motivations mean those consequences that a person's action generates over others or others, positive consequences that are related to the assumption of satisfaction of needs.

Mathis et al. (1997, p. 40) propose the classification of the main motivational theories into three main groups: content theories, process theories and cognitive theories, whose presentation is in Table no. 1.

Motivation is an essential element of success combined with competence; it allows individuals to accomplish what they have proposed. Motivation means working smart, not just working hard. In essence, motivation is the engine, the energy that starts the action. It is also often said that a motivated man is a happy man. However, we must not confuse motivation with satisfaction. Even though the two notions can often be associated, it also happens that dissatisfaction may give rise, due to the state of dissatisfaction it creates, to a great motivation to achieve the set goals. There may also be a link between frustrated degree and motivated degree; as the actual situation of the individual is difficult to bear, even producing frustrations, the more the desire to achieve the goals that allow him to achieve satisfaction is great.

Another interesting proposal found in the literature is Buzea (2010, p. 26) and is based on the combination of two criteria - the chronological evolution in the field of motivation proposed by P. Latham (2007) and the evolution of the organization management theory of the human resource - based on them, resulting in the diagram of the development stages of the work motivation research presented in Figure 1.

However, the most significant theories can be grouped into two categories, based on the thematic criterion and agreed by many researchers (proposed in 1970 by Campbell, Dunnett, Lawler and Weick), depending on the focus on either the causes of motivation, or on the actual behavior:

- motivation content theories that address the issue of motivation in a traditional manner, addressing the factors that motivate people, direct, support, and stop behaviors;

- theories of the motivation process that promote the approach from a dynamic perspective of work motivation, the way in which behavior is committed, directed, sustained and stopped, and targets the motivational mechanisms that drive human behavior.

As far as we are concerned, we consider it appropriate to analyze the motivational theories according to this final criterion, the thematic one, here being the most influential and presented the theories in the field studied, with implications and applicability in the organizational environment, together with the representative approaches of at the beginning of the last century (scientific management and the school of human relations), which illustrates the issue of motivation.

The theory of expectation or expectation theory was developed and presented by Victor H. Vroom in his work called "Work and Motivation" (1964), being the most well-known process theory and a model developed in the rational choice paradigm. Vroom argues that employee motivation is the result of three key variables, expectation, instrumentality and valence, and has as its starting point expectation or hope - as energizing forces of motivational behavior. In this theory it is stated that motivation depends on the extent to which people want something specific and the degree to which they think they can get it.

Waiting is an action-outcome association; it has a subjective dimension, as it is the result of a cognitive process of assessing the relationship between behavior and outcome, and expresses the employee's belief that engaging in an action will lead to a certain outcome. Waiting can take different forms of intensity, taking the maximum intensity (value 1 - the action is followed by a result) when the employee is convinced that a certain level of effort will lead to a certain result and the minimum intensity (value 0 - the action is not followed of a result) when the employee is not perceived as capable of successfully pursuing an activity (either due to his / her deficiencies in certain qualifications or abilities required by the activity or due to organizational deficiencies linked to the lack of technical endowment, lack of information or appropriate equipment, etc.), or if the employee expects to be rewarded even if he has successfully completed his work.

Instrumentality is a result-result association and expresses the employee's belief in the likelihood of obtaining rewards commensurate with his performance or contribution to work.

Valence represents a person's preference (desire, attraction) to certain results and is reportable to his or her own work valorization system. Thus, the individual associates work, specific attributes depending on context, from positive to negative, which enhances his attraction, indifference or rejection of engagement in a given work action. Valencia can be: positive when the person prefers to get the expected result of his engagement; null, if the person is indifferent to whether or not he obtains the result; negative, when the person does not want to get the expected result.

Vroom approached his problem theory and the problem of work satisfaction, considered as a dimension of motivation, which he considered to be the conceptual equivalent of labor valence. Thus, he considers that the employee's desire to achieve a positive outcome (positive valence) or to avoid it (negative valence) is not based on the intrinsic value of the outcome, but on the anticipated satisfaction or dissatisfaction associated with the achievement of the results.

Thus, the model proposed by Vroom is shown in Figure no. 3. taking into account that motivation is a resultant combination of the three variables.

The theory of expectation is a complex theory because it takes into account the fact that each action (behavior) of an individual is the result of an individual decision-making process, based on subjective perceptions about the relationship between behavior and outcome. The theory implies that employees have the choice of possible actions that can lead to more results different from each other, some that the individual wants, and others he does not want, those that have the most intense positive force. In this respect, the fundamental question of motivation at work, "why do people work?", Vroom's theory states that "a person will choose to work when the valency of the results he expects as a result of work has a value more intense than the valency of the expected results in the situation when it does not work "(Vroom, 1964/1995, p. 35).

Also, some elements of motivation are treated and felt differently by each individual: thus, for one person, promotion can be primordial, wage growth and gaining experience - very important - and the sacrifice of family and social life can be of negligible importance; for another person, family and social life may be the most important, wage increases may be of medium importance, and promotion may be undesirable because it involves overtime or some additional responsibilities and tasks. In the first case, the individual may be motivated to work a lot and work long hours over the program, while in the second case, the individual may not be motivated to do so.

In essence, motivation is determined by the whole set of outputs, as well as the importance that each individual attaches to each exit, and the force or intensity of motivation according to Vroom's opinion results from the product of differentiated values of valence and expectation:

Force (motivation) = Valence · Waiting

The theory of expectation suggests that managers need to be aware of the fact that employees work for several reasons, that these expected reasons or rewards may change over time, so employees need to be clearly shown how they can get the rewards they have I want. It should also be borne in mind that performance depends on abilities and motivation (Performance = Ability · Motivation), and when one of them has low values, then the performance at work will be low. Thus, the theory suggests to managers that they should set up an effective reward system to consider linking rewards to performance levels and personalizing rewards. At the same time, this theory explains motivation as a complex process, in which individuals analyze their chances of obtaining certain results in their work and appreciates the extent to which these results are appealing and useful to them.

4 Conclusions

The organization surveyed needs to reassess the structure of the motivational system as research has shown that employees believe that the organization should have a competitive reward system in comparison with other companies and provide a competitive package of benefits and benefits. It is advisable to maintain non-monetary rewards as an optimal way to keep the motivated workforce, but also to include monetary rewards that should be directly related to individual, team and organizational performance.

Due to the complexity of motivation and the fact that there is no single answer to the question "what motivates people to work", we analyzed in the second part of the paper the different theories formulated by a number of researchers. We have emphasized that there are many reasons that influence people's behavior and performance. All of these theories provide us with a framework within which we will focus our attention on how we can motivate employees to work efficiently. It is essential for the manager to understand the basics of motivation, given that a highly motivated employee has a greater chance of reaching a higher quality product or service than an employee who is lacking motivation.

In an organization, the success of the the qualitative side of the human factor and his motivation towards the work performed are ensured to the greatest extent. Satisfaction with work is associated with performance up to a point, from which performance influences satisfaction. The direct link between performance and work satisfaction is mainly provided by the feedback and reward system.

Motivation has an essential role in preparing the action we are going to take; is the basis for the choices we make; is the sentiment generated by viewing the purpose of our action.

We found that the majority of theoreticians who developed the motivational theories, approached the motivation from different points of view, generated by the diversity and evolution of socio-cultural conditions, the theories and motivation models of the employees cannot be applied by the managers, they are correlated and combined into a reward system that will have a positive impact on employees' morale and satisfaction, increasing their motivation and involvement in the work done and implicitly in achieving the organization's goals. Only through collaboration effort, through appropriate mechanisms to attract employees to the objectives proposed by the firm, through mechanisms to motivate / influence them through the construction of efficient management teams can lead to increased performance.

From our point of view, a sufficient / appropriate, pre-neuronal or non-precursor motivation of the company's human resources, accompanied by a well-thought-out marketing policy along with appropriate management strategies at the top of the organizational chart, can ensure the success of the business in perspective. In the company's management, the real meaning of an employee's action or behavior, the attitude adopted by him in a given context cannot be perceived without understanding the reasons that have generated them. Thus, behind the action of the individual there are usually some reasons; knowledge of the reasons supports the attempt to predict human behavior, supports the attempt to unify the efforts of an organization aimed at achieving clearly defined objectives.

References

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