Discuss critically the validity of the contention that the motivation to work well depends on more than a high salary and good working conditions.

1) Discuss critically the validity of the contention that the motivation to work well depends on more than a high salary and good working conditions.

This essay will define what motivation is, the influence and effect that money and good working conditions have on staff and the other factors and issues that motivate staff to work in the context of the workplace.

In order to critically discuss and evaluate what motivates staff in the workplace it is imperitive to firstly define the concept of motivation. Motivation can be defined as the force or process which impels people to behave in the way they do; Newcomb (1950) said that an organism is motivated:

' when - and only when - it is characterized both by a state of drive and by a direction of behaviour towards some goal which is selected in preference to all other possible goals. Motive, then is a concept which joins together drive and goal'.

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This implies that providing the drive for staff to achieve goals that have been set is a vital and important part of the managerial role.

Although it is apparent that to become or be motivated does not always rely on drive and goals - it can often arise through voluntary action as well. McDougall (1908) made this extension of the concept of motivation to 'voluntary behaviour' explicit by suggesting that instincts were the 'prime movers' of all human activity. McDougall disagrees with the drive theorists arguing that the instincts of staff in the workplace provide a major source of motivation.

Hebb (1949) also disagrees with the assumptions that directed and persistant behaviour is always preceeded by 'extra neural bodily irritants'. Hebb claims that 'The term motivation then refers to: (1) To the existence of an organisational phase sequence, (2) to its direction...