Examine two contents theory of motivation that you familiar with and explain how this theory might help manager to motivate employee.

Essay by safreeUniversity, Bachelor's October 2006

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Psychologists have defined the term "motivation" in a variety of ways. According to "world book dictionary" it means the act or process of furnishing with an incentive or inducement to action. M.R. Jones (1955) has stated that:

"motivation is concerned with "how behavior get started, is energized, is sustained, is directed, is stopped, and what kind of subjective reaction is present in the organism while all this is going on" (Edward E. 1973 : p.3)

In the context of management, motivation is one of the factors apart from ability and work environment that determines individuals' performance. Individuals who are low in motivation would not be able to perform well even though he or she has the ability or skill and the right work environment. This is because he or she is unable to utilize the ability that he or she posses. Because of its significance important as a determinant of performance, the managers have no choice but have to address the issue.

The question of what motivates workers to perform effectively is not an easy one to answer.

The motivation process progresses through a series of discrete step. The process begins with towards the satisfaction of needs then the worker search for ways to satisfy those needs. After she has satisfied those need then she choose an option to pursue then evaluates her success. These processes are the framework of how motivated behavior occurs. The first part of the motivation process deal with the content perspectives and the other part deal with the process perspectives. The content perspective is the approaches to find what needs and need deficiencies that motivate people. The process theory is the approaches to find why people choose certain behavior to satisfy their needs. The purpose of this essay is to examine the two most popular...