Motivation , cantent and process theory

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Motivation Examine the differences between the content and process approaches to motivation, using one theory from each approach to illustrate your answer. Motivation is described as the set of forces that cause people to behave in a certain manner (steers and porter 1991) Examples of what motivate people are good exam grades, and money. Once these needs are satisfied they will no longer motivate the person. The content theories are needs based theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs see fig1. This hierarchy is divided into five different groups 1. Physiological needs- this involves providing good working conditions, an attractive wage package and subsidised housing/catering. 2. Safety needs- this involves needs such as health cover, a pension scheme, and safe conditions in the workplace. 3. Belongingness –this encourages the membership of a company sports club, it also encourages the involvement in company outings and office parties and this factor also encourages open communications. 4. Esteem needs- this involves regular positive feedback, the issuing of job titles to make the employee feel more important. This also involves promoting staff, this can make employees feel valued and can encourage better behaviour in the workplace and may also cause the employee to perform better if they show more self-worth. 5. Self-actualisation needs- this involves setting challenging assignments for employees with this need, they may feel their work is meaningless unless they receive a challenging assignment, employees at this level need to feel they are working for a good reason. The ability to self-actualise is mostly related with the privileged The process theories of motivation attempt describe and analyse how personal factors (internal to the person) interact and influence each other to produce certain kinds of behaviour. The equity theory is an
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