How Motivation Theory Influence Business Performance.

Lots of people are interested in motivation; they try to find out the reason why someone behaves in a particular way. What is motivation? There are a number of definitions of motivation: Baron (1991) stated “motivation is the internal process that activate, guide and maintain behaviour (especially goal-directed behaviour).” This definition assumes all behaviour is a consequence of motivation which ignored how and why it is instigated. So, Kanfer (1998) declared that “motivation is only about the ‘free will’ element of behaviour and defines it as ‘the psychological mechanisms governing the direction, intensity, and persistence of action not due solely to individual differences in ability or to overwhelming environmental demands that coerce or force action” (Sarah ,2002). A survey carried out 500 of top 1000 businesses in UK, 95 per cent of those companies responded they hope their employees could be more motivated. ‘To motivate others is the most important of management task’. It comprises the abilities to communicate, to set an example, to challenge, to encourage, to obtain feedback, to involve, to delegate, to develop and train, to inform, to brief and to provide a just reward” (Richard Deny, 1993). From all have been mentioned above we could find no matter employees or managers and leaders they are need to be well-motivated in a successful company. The purpose of writing this essay is to explore how motivation theories has developed overtime and then we will discuss how motivation theories can influence business performance by give an example.

The most common classification was proposed by Thierry and Koopman-Iwema (1984) has classified theories as two main theories: content theories and process theories. If make this classification more wide other two kinds of theories will be considered, its behaviour modification theories and work design theories. So in this essay we will analyse how these four kinds of theories developed over time. See the diagram1 back of