Although motivation is a kind of emotion not a tool in organizational management, it plays an increasingly important role in companies and organisations no matter what sizes they are. They want to stand out in the fierce competition in order to achieve the organizational goals. So, employee motivation should be a priority to consider as work strategy by all company owners and managers. Helping all staffs maintain a high level of motivation can help keep employees committed to contributing as much value as possible to the organization and make the workplace run as efficiently as possible.
Job satisfaction is also completely important to an employee in an organization because it is what productivity depends on. If the employees feel satisfied they would produce excellent quality performance in optimal time and create increasing profits. Satisfied employees may well to be innovative, creative and come up with breakthrough that allows an organisation or company to grow and change actively with time and changing market conditions.
So, there are several models are used into the job motivation and job satisfaction to help managers more understand what their employees needs and how to motivate them. Personal relationships outside of work, different culture background, unknown domestic situations are uncertain factors acting on the staff. In this report, mainly used popular management models to explore whether these models can apply to all stuff and culture under different circumstances.
In my opinion, I totally agree with this view universal management models cannot meet all individual circumstances. Because the word “all” is too absolutely we should critically treat this question. I will explore the shortcomings of the management model and finding solutions.
2. Job motivation
2.1 Motivation
Motivation is considered as a psychological process, it can be simply defined as a drive to do something. Arnold (2005) describes three factors that make us behave in certain way. These are:
“direction – what a person is trying to do; effort – how hard a person is trying; persistence – how long a person continues trying.”
In order to be motivated, one must have a sense of direction, a goal that may be achieved. Purpose is one of the factors that needs to be present so that one can stay motivated. Motivation can also be evaluated in terms of effort put into doing something. The more we strive to do something, the more motivated we stay. Persistence is the last component of motivation concept. The level of how motivated we are can be measured by the time we spend on trying to achieve something. The more motivated one is, the more persistent one will be.
2.2 Job Motivation
When motivation detailing to work, job motivation has been defined as “a set of energetic forces that originates both within as well as beyong an individual being, to initiate work-related behavior, and to determines its form, direction, intensity, and duration”(Meyer et al., 2004).
2.3 Motivation Models
According to Arnold (2005), motivation is not the only factor which assesses work performance. Work conditions, our abilities, communication with other staff members can all affect work performance.
However, when discussing job motivation, motivational theories have been categorized into content theories (Maslow’s Needs Theory, Herzberg’s Two-factor Theory, Alderfer’s ERG Theory, McClelland’s Theory of Learned Needs) and process theories(Vroom’s Expectancy Model, Equity Theory, Goal-Setting Theory and Attribution theory). The former focus on the intrinsic parts of work and what motivates human behaviour at work (Arnold, 2005). The latter are based on how those parts influence motivation and behaviours connected with it. This report mainly focus on Maslow’s theory, Vroom’s Valence-Expectancy Model.
2.3.1 Content Theories
Content theories concentrate on the factors that motivate people at work. They are based on the premise