Industrial Psychology Case Study

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's February 2008

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1. The theory of motivation that I feel best explains Simpson's recent behavior is the Goal setting theory. While his case has characteristics of other theories as well, this seems to be the theory that best explains it. This theory focuses on the idea that conscious ideas regulate a person's actions. People direct their behavior in such a way as to attain what they deem as acceptable goals. For Harry, this was the role of supervisor. He shows that he has conscious ideas of this because he knows he's been directing his actions toward these goals and states that he has been "working toward the goal of supervisor all along" to motivate himself at work and encourage him to do a superior job. However, when he came to the realization that he wouldn't achieve his goal, he lost the extra incentive to be an outstanding worker and started to slack in performance.

The other theory that fits well with this is the Equity theory, but it focuses less on the goal, which seemed to be the motivating factor. However it focuses more on the relative decrease in effort as a result of Coleman's promotion, which created a sense of inequity by Simpson. Therefore these both are a good model for describing the motivation and behavior of Simpson 2. Following Coleman's promotion, the equity theory would have predicted that Simpson would have decreased his effort. According to the equity theory a person forms a ratio of inputs to outputs, or efforts to rewards, and compares it with others. In this case, Simpson compared his efforts and rewards to that of Coleman. Before the promotion Simpson appeared to have a sense that the proportion between the two were equal, but after the promotion, Harry felt that Coleman was receiving more...