“Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge. It involves the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that activate behavior”( Cherry, 2012). Since there has been massive work done by many theorist and researchers on motivation and each theory is quite different from each others, therefore this essay will introduce the different studies of thoughts and explore the work of F.W Taylor. This essay will also cover the theories of Maslow, Herzberg and many other which take a different approach then Taylors theory of motivation. Situational and individual factors will also be taken into account with regards to that effects on work motivation- what works at one time will not necessarily work another time. The conclusion to be arrived at will be financial reward are not the one best way to motivate an individual.
Work can be classified as of being two kinds which is - job performance and citizen ship behaviour. Job performance are “behaviors that are directly involved in the transformation of organizational resources into the goods or services that the organization produces” (Colquitt, LePine, Wesson, 2011, pp. 36).Citizen ship behavior “which is defined as voluntary employee activities that may or may not be rewarded but that contribute to the organization by improving the overall quality of the setting in which work takes place”(Colquitt et al., 2011, pp. 41).. The difeerence between Job performance and citizen ship behavior is that, Job performance is the requirement of an organization to perform a task which is given to an employee, if that task is not finished then the job of an employee can be jeopardized, but on the other hand citizen ship behavior is an act done by an individual which is the extra work done by an individual as a volunteer for example helping other employees if they are struggling to complete their task or it can be good behavior with other etc. (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001, pp 287-321).
F.W Taylor 1856 – 1915 , often called the father of scientific management, his primary motive for hard work is Pay the workers ‘piece rates’ i.e. earnings relate to productivity. To organize the role of management is to work as efficiently as possible, therefore that high wages can be earned. F.W Tyalor was the man who introduced financial reward system. Taylor’s theory of ‘The Economic Man’ believed that in order to motivate any employee is to link the rewards with the output that they produce hence the more productive they are higher they will be paid. The major reasons due to which Taylor promoted the reward based remuneration system was that people value goods and services and their urge for such goods and services would require them to earn more money and if they are working in a system where the rewards are linked with their performance it would naturally motivate them to work more effectively and Efficiently and earn the maximum wage as per their capability and thus enable them to afford the goods and services which they value. Taylor believed that when the employees enjoy a luxury life style then they are more likely to satisfy the need for self-actualization. . Henry ford was the first one to adopt his theory which and there is no doubt that it delivered positive results in his project T-ford. On the other hand F.W Taylors theories widely criticized as many theorist believed that the financial benefits are not the sole motivational factors the social factors are equally important to motivate the workers . they think Taylors motivation theory views and individual as a machine ignoring the major human factors which could also play a vital role to motivate them. The research also suggests that the employees are not only motivated by the financial benefits, there are many others non financial factors such as the social