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Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes "It is essential that employees see that they are major stakeholders in the accomplishment
of the organisation's mission," Mallika Vyas, head - HR, IDBI Fortis Life Insurance Adding
to this, Vinjamoori says, "At any given point in time, irrespective of the economic scenario,
it is imperative that the associates in an organisation feel motivated and engaged. An
associate is the most important stakeholder in an organisation enabling the organisation
to achieve and surpass its goals constantly, which is why it is important to keep them
motivated and engaged."

Source: www.authbridge.com
11.2 Early Approach to Motivation

The study of motivation can be traced back to the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers.
They presented hedonism as an explanation of human motivation. The concept of hedonism
says that a person seeks out comfort and pleasure and avoids discomfort and pain. Many centuries
later, hedonism was still a basic assumption in the prevailing economic and social philosophies
of economists like Adam Smith and J.S. Mill. They explained motivation in terms of people
trying to maximize pleasure and avoid pain.
Early psychological thought was also influenced by the idea of hedonism. Psychologists in the
1800s and even in the early 1900s assumed that humans consciously and rationally strive for
(a hedonistic approach to) pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

In organisations, one of the first individuals to address worker motivation explicitly was Fredrick
Taylor, who did so through his writings on scientific management between 1900 and 1915.
Because Taylor believed that people are motivated mainly by economic factors, he advocated a
wage incentive system to encourage workers to excel at doing the job exactly as specified by
management. However, the routine and specialized nature of the work, the tendency of managers
to reduce wage incentives as production rose, and worker concerns that higher production
would lead to job cutbacks led to worker resistance. Money, especially when it was curbed as
production rose, did not seem to have the desired effects.
The apparent limitations of money as the sole motivational tool piqued the curiosity of researchers
in the human relations school. On the basis of investigations such as, the Hawthorne studies,
these researchers argued for devoting greater attention to the social aspects of the job. According
to their prescription, managers should make workers feel important, increase vertical
communication, allow some decision making on very routine matters related to the job, and
pay greater attention to work group dynamics and group incentives. Still, like the scientific
management advocates, the human relations school emphasized gaining strict compliance with
managerial directives in carrying out extremely routine, specialized jobs. As a result, these
efforts met with only limited success in motivating workers' behaviour.

By demonstrating the inadequacy of viewing workers as robot-like appendages that can be
manipulated into compliance, these early efforts laid the groundwork for a more sophisticated
approach and a better understanding of the motivation process.
The 1950s were a fruitful period in the development of motivation concepts. Three specific
theories were formulated during this time, which, although heavily attacked and now
questionable in terms of validity, are probably still the best-known explanations for employee
motivation. These theories are:

1. 'Hierarchy of Needs' Theory,
2. Theories X and Y, and
3. Motivation-Hygiene Theory.

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