Organistional Studies

In this essay I will set upon doing the following two questions:

1) Explain in detail one of the theories of motivation and assess its value in the current business environment

2) Explain one of the contingency theories of leadership.

1) The one theory of motivation that I will be explaining in the first question is Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy; some may call it his content theory of motivation aswell. The theory was based around nine needs that Maslow found out through research that effected people motivation in work. The nine different needs are listed below.

1) Biological needs: These are basic needs for human life to survive, for example the need for food water rest an oxygen

2) Safety needs: These are needs for the worker to feel protected in the organisation. To feel security and comfort with in the workplace

3) Affiliation needs: These are the workers needs to feel associated by the organisation. It is a feeling of belongingness, almost like a relationship with work.

4) Esteem needs: for the worker to feel strength, achievement, recognition and appreciation. They want to be respected by other employees that they work with, they want to be valued. They want to feel as if they are progressing in the work place, as if they are working towards a goal.

5) The need to Know and Understand: The need for the employee to understand there job and gain more in dept knowledge about it.

6) Aesthetic needs: For structure and attractiveness

7) Transcendence need: This need is usually described as “ cosmic identification ”

8) The Need of Freedom and Expression

9) The needs of Self-actualization: to progress and develop to our full potential

Maslow broke the needs into a hierarchy structure ranging them in order from one to nine. The order of the needs is shown above, as you can see biological needs are at the bottom. These are the needs that are required by every employee and they are also the easiest for the organisation to provide. The top need is the desire for self-actualization; this is also the hardest need to provide for the employee. Maslow’s thoughts were that self-actualized people are rare.

Maslow’s theory is very popular among HR departments in companies across the world; however many feel that the theory has flaws aswell. It would be very rare for people at any given time to be striving for the same need. This would be a problem for the manager, how would he/she provide all the different motivators at the one time to cater to the needs of their staff.

The hierarchical structure of the needs may not be correct for every individual aswell, they may not feel has if one need dominates all the others. Humans will have mixed emotions and needs, the may require more than one need being fulfilled at one time.

All people aswell do not satisfy there higher-order needs just through work, many my find this through hobbies and different activities they do outside of work. It also does not take into account that different situations can affect these needs; it is maybe not as simple as the hierarchy makes it out to be.

“The simplicity of the hierarchy does not reflect the reality that behaviour in the real world is shaped by situational pressures and controls that are often beyond a person’s individual control” (Management concepts and practices/ Tim Hannagan)

However despite all this it still remains very popular, this may be because it presents managers with some set of guidelines which they can follow. It is correct to some degree that you do first have to satisfy the employee’s needs for food and water first before you even think about self esteem or self actualisation. So to this extent Maslow’s theory is very helpful to managers and is a good set of guidelines to follow.

2) In my next question I will be dealing with the contingency theory style approach to leadership. The theory that I will be explaining in this question is Fred Fiedler’s approach to leadership. His theory was based upon a systematic process of diagnosing the contextual factors. Fiedler’s experience of leaders was based in groups who knew who there leader was and aswell the group’s performance was easy to measure e.g. basketball teams.

He first developed a system called the leader’s least preferred co-worker score (LPC score). The system was a way of measuring a leader’s