Page 242 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Unit 11: Work Motivation

2. Need for affiliation (nAff): Individuals exhibiting this need as a dominant motive derive Notes
satisfaction from social and interpersonal activities. There is a need to form strong
interpersonal ties and to "get close" to people psychologically. If asked to choose between
working at a task with those who are technically competent and those who are their
friends, high nAff individuals will chose their friends.

3. Need for achievement (nAch): Individuals high in nAch derive satisfaction from reaching
goals. The feeling of successful task accomplishment is important to the high achiever.
High achievers prefer immediate feedback on their performance and they generally
undertake tasks of moderate difficulty rather than those that are either very easy or very
difficult. They also prefer to work independently so that successful task performance (or
failure) can be related to their own efforts rather than the efforts of someone else.
McClelland has analyzed various needs in terms of their relationship to managerial effectiveness.
He originally thought that individuals with a high need for achievement would make the best
managers. His subsequent work suggests that, to the contrary, high-nAch individuals tend to
concentrate on their own individual achievements rather than on the development and
achievements of others. As a result, high-nAch individuals often make good entrepreneurs
because initial success frequently depends largely on individual achievement. They may not,
however, make good managers in situations that require working with a number of others and
waiting to learn the results of their efforts. Similarly, individuals with a personal-power
orientation run into difficulties as managers because they often attempt to use the efforts of
others for their own personal benefit.
McClelland's work suggests that individuals with a high institutional-power need make the
best managers because they are oriented toward coordinating the efforts of others to achieve
long-term organisational goals. Thus, the need profile of successful managers, at least in
competitive environments, appear to include:
1. A moderate-to-high need for institutional power,
2. A moderate need for achievement to facilitate individual contributions early in one's
career and a desire for the organisation to maintain a competitive edge as one moves to
higher levels, and
3. At least a minimum need for affiliation to provide sufficient sensitivity for influencing
others.
The most distinctive element of the achievement motivation theory is the claim by McClelland
that the need can be learned (or unlearned). McClelland has reported numerous instances in
which individuals with a low initial need to achieve were subjected to a series of classroom
experiences that resulted in an increased need to achieve. This type of training exposes individuals
to tasks involving the achievement of goals and gradually makes the situations more challenging
as the individuals increase their ability to handle the tasks. Again, a development program may
be undertaken to reduce the need to achieve, to bring it more in line with the other two needs.
So, while the need to achieve has received the greatest publicity, McClelland's theory is actually
concerned with matching an individual's motivation patterns to the organisations in which he
is working.

Criticisms of McClelland's Theory

The following are the three major criticisms:
1. The use of a projective technique, such as, TAT to determine basic needs has been questioned.
While projective techniques have many advantages over structured questionnaires, the
interpretation of subjective comments is at best an art, and at worst an exercise indicating
the bias of the researcher, not the subject. Because of this criticism, it is useful to use
different techniques to measure McClelland's three needs.

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