Critical Literature review on Motivation

Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW 0
Management

LITERATURE REVIEW 1
Introduction
In the new era of liberalization and globalization, employees are really becoming competitive
advantage for the organisation. Due to this, it is essential to keep the retainment of
employees. Guest (2017) considers employee motivation as the powerful tool that triggers
and reinforces the tendency to continue. It is a procedure that begins through the
psychological and physiological need that stimulates people to perform. In addition to the
financial resource, human resource also has the capability in creating the competitive
advantage. Employee performance generally depends on the different factors such as
appraisals, motivation, job satisfaction, training, as well as development. Niessen, Weseler
and Kostova, (2016) suggested that a motivated employee has its goal in relation to the
organisation as employees always look for improving the work. On the other hand, Gkorezis
and Kastritsi, (2017) explains that organisational effectiveness is the extent to which any
organisation fulfils its goals by using some of the resources. In the paper, discussion has been
carried on the different viewpoints and arguments of different authors.
Critical literature review on motivation
Motivation is said to be the attribute that tends to motivate employees for doing something. In
this regard, Pindek, Kessler and Spector (2017) stated that intrinsic motivation is animated by
interest, personal enjoyment as well as pleasure. It has also observed that intrinsic motivation
sustains as well as energizes activities through the unplanned satisfaction inherent in effective
and efficient volitional action. As compare to this, Hewett, Shantz and Mundy (2019) said
that motivation involves the constellation of perception, beliefs, interest, values and actions
that are closed. Due to this, several approaches of motivation give emphasis on the cognitive
behaviour. Furthermore, the research was extended by Becker, Kernan, Clark and Klein
(2018) by stating that motivation and performance are two major element for the organisation
achievement and success. In a dynamic and complex business environment, it is also required
by the organisation to embrace change. The behaviour of employees can also be change
through the motivation factor in organisation. In his research, it also said that motivation
helps in enhancing the execution, profitability, as well as constancy. In comparison to the
highly motivated employees, less motivated employees mostly arranged toward the self
reliance and freedom. By arguing on this statement, Pak, Kooij, De and Van Veldhoven

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(2019) claims that intrinsic motivation is usually affects the extrinsic motivation. By further
arguing on this topic, it said that if fiscal or monetary measures are not regulated effectively,
intrinsic motivation tends to diminish. Responding on this discourse, other authors said that
although intrinsic and extrinsic motivation work divergently, it also has the supporting
impact. There are people who intrinsically as well as extrinsically motivated to perform any
special task. Both concepts of motivation can strengthen the employees. It is true that
organisation has different goals to achieve. Resource such as man, machines, money, and
material are being used to meet the goals. According to him, labour is one of the most
essential one out of explained respires. For meeting any organisational objective, manpower
is required.
Driver (2017) explained the significance of motivation related to the productivity. In this
regard, it has stated that attitude of manager directly shows the development and wellbeing of
workers. Therefore, motivation is the most significant factor for the quality and productivity.
Due to this, motivation is quite significant for the officers and managers to understand as well
as know why people behave differently at the organisation and how to manipulate their
behaviour so that they give their best for achieving the organisational objective. It has
proposed that the motivation is directly influenced by the two orientations. The first
orientation named integrative orientation is of someone who finds, value the target
community, language, and the one who approaches language with the positive intention of
entering into that community. This type of individual thought to have more enduring and
internal motivation for the language study. On the contrary, Alam and Singh, (2019)
highlighted that instrumentally motivated learner likely to see the language learning to do
more useful things but do not have important significance in itself. These types of learners get
motivated when they see language learning as their career prospective. Therefore,
instrumental and integrative motivation is quote significant in motivation field, but Gabriel,
Cheshin, Moran and van Kleef (2016) argues by stating that it is not easy to differentiate
between the instrumental and integrative motivation.
According to Pregnolato, Bussin and Schlechter, (2017) management directly depends on the
rewards like money for the major factor of motivation because money is found to be the
unique factor that satisfies the needs of employees. It believes that money can help the
employees in satisfying their different needs. As compare to this Liao and Han (2019) stated
that non-monetary rewards also attract the person by satisfying the high need for affiliation

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and high achievers through the challenging jobs. Therefore, rewards are divided into two
groups. The first group is monetary pay that includes merit pay, basic pay, commission,
incentives, healthy and bonus allowance. In addition to this, non-monetary reward includes
the promotion, recognition, company uniforms, as well as flexibility in working hours. After
doing the proper research, it also wrote that regular pay is quite significant for meeting the
safety and physiological needs. Bisharat, Obeidat, Alrowwad, Tarhini and Mukattash, (2017)
point out that reward act as the objective for which employees usually strive in the
organisation. therefore, it is said to be the symbol that presents the value to the organisation.
many of the organisation still fails in understanding the relationship that exist between the
motivation and reward. It is also argued by several authors that for using reward as the
motivation factor, some of the conditions must be met. It also assumes that financial incentive
will always motivate the employees to perform effectively. In a survey undertaken by author
stated that direct financial reward plays the critical role in finding as well as attracting the
capable employees but it keeps only short-term impact on the employees. For this, Bishrat
suggested that several devices could assist the organisation to do something for keeping
employees motivated.
The study presented by Bishrat showed that lower level employees always prefer the
flexibility in working hours, recognition and merit pay, as the top three rewards. It is direct
indication to the management that financial rewards when combined with non-monetary
reward can deliver the better results of motivation those only financial rewards. In this regard,
organisation must consider the monetary rewards as well as non-monetary rewards especially
for the blue collar workers. This also proves to be the new trend in the working society that
encourages the person to live a healthy life. By arguing this statement, Geier (2016) stated
that leadership is also one such tool for motivating the employees. In this support, it said that
leadership helps in finishing the things in progressive and correct way. It is because gaining
the trust of employees and insisting them for achieving the goals is most significant task for
nay organisation. Moreover, if any leader tends to build the trust, they can be easily
motivated. By extending the research on this, it supported the statement by stating that there
is direct relationship between the leader and employees to attain morality and higher
motivation. In his viewpoint, staff effectiveness is still on top to attain the success level. In
this manner, implementation of the training program is necessary strategy to motivate the
employees.

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There are several ways given by several researchers and authors to motivate the employees.
As per Geier (2017) the best strategy for motivating employees is keeping the culture of
praise, appreciation as well as recognition. This will lead to further improvement. At the
same time, Kamran and Shehryar, (2018) written that motivating employees is the most
challenging task for any manager. There are several cases when organisation faces tough time
in retaining employees due to the restricted opportunities or tough labour market. The loss of
employee is seen as the great loss of experience, information and aptitude that lead to the
significant cost or financial effect to an organisation. On the other hand, it also worked in the
same issues by giving emphasis on the cross cultural difference between the employees.
Culture is seen as the values, pattern of behaviour, knowledge, traditions, and norms shared
by the members in any particular group. For him, cross cultural difference is the most
perceived element in ensuring the successful motivation among employees. This point has
been further undertaken which insist that several practices can be adopted by organisation
such as engaging employees in the collective dialogues and arguments. It also draw attention
on the increasing importance of the work life balance for the stresses and modern employees.
In the viewpoint of Janardhanan and Raghavan (2017) empowerment can also be one such
reason for the employees motivation. When employees are given freedom and authority to
make decisions, they get automatically encouraged to use their full potential. In its viewpoint,
empowerment process always encourages the better productivity and growth. Empowerment
always gives people authority and responsibility to act that they are in their own control.
Similarly, customer satisfaction can also be achieved with the help of empowerment. It also
clarified that workers who get satisfied with their job trends to enjoy their work. When
employees enjoy the work, they bring better productivity in the organisation. Business
productivity is also dependent on the performance of employees. It is because when
employees feel secure, satisfied and trust their employer, they always work hard. In order to
maintain the continuity and high quality of work in any business, motivation is the key. In its
viewpoint, it helps in exploring the employee’s need which further helps them in achieving
the organisational goals by following a smooth process. At the same time, motivated
employees also provide the competitive advantage to the organisation. By extending the
research on this statement, it has stated that more will be the motivation of employees; more
will be the stakeholder and customer trust. In the perspective of other authors, motivation of
employees differs from profession to profession. It is because several professions provide the
positive working culture that directly motivates them to do work. As compare to this, some

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profession have good amount of pay, which ultimately become their source of motivation. In
this way, it might also be possible that employee’s motivation in one job can be high and low
in one.
Authors have given different theories. The first theory of motivation is Maslow need
hierarchy theory. According to Maslow, Maslow hierarchy of needs states that people always
want to do something and depends on what they already have. It has proposed the five
different needs. The lower level need is physiological need that includes water, food, clothing
and shelter. However, when people do not feel hungry, second level of need comes. The
second level of need is security need where person needs to feel secure in society, family as
well as feel protected against the violence. The need for safety comes due to savings, job
security, as well as insurance for old age, health, and disability. Belongingness and love need
is the third level of hierarchy. After getting security, people required to feel they give and
receive love, they have good friendship, and they are appreciated. The next level of need is
esteem need. It refers to the need for achieving success. The last level of need is self-
actualization. It talks about the potential drive that states what one is capable of becoming. In
the critique of this theory, authors have also stated that Maslow theory is quite rigid to
describe the unstable and dynamic characteristics of the employ need. It might also be
possible that person move to the lower level of need if any circumstances change. In the
situation of recession, when jobs cut, people suddenly move to the lower level need instead of
higher level need.
The second motivation need is Herzberg motivation theory. This theory is also known as two
factor theory. The two factors are motivators and hygiene factors. The motivators include
different factors named achievement, recognition, growth possibility, responsibility,
advancement, and work. As compare to this, hygiene factors are determined through the
extrinsic factors of the employee job. It includes salary, interpersonal relation with the
supervisor and subordinate, peers, company policy, working conditions, administration,.
Status, personal life factors as well as job security. Herzberg theory is argued on the fact that
motivators are evaluated from neutrality range to the high satisfied whereas hygiene factors
tends to evaluate on the range of neutrality to the higher satisfaction. In this way, it follows
that motivator factor never affect job satisfaction and hygiene factor not affects the hob
satisfaction. It can be argue by stating that the motivation theory should define the
determinants if attitude related to the employee behaviour. As compare to this, it can also

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suggest that increasing job performance might be moral or ethical justification for the higher
job enjoyment. The another set of critique is that the Herzberg theory is not supported by
data.
According to Jonas (2017) expectancy theory of Vroom belongs to the process theories
category. This theory directly states that people are motivated for behaving in such a way that
tends to produce the expected outcomes in desired way. it can be argued by stating that
people try to behave in such a way that their actions will bring the best utility. In this regard,
expectancy theory states that the strength of any person to act in particular situation depends
on the expectation strength followed by a given outcome. Vroom theory also states that the
choice of any person among different course of action is directly related to the psychological
event occurring with the behaviour. It is rightly stated that people will become motivated
when they will start believing that their efforts will definitely bring out the better
performance. According to researchers, Vroom expectancy theory has positively outlined that
if person hold high belief for the particular outcome, it will automatically attract the positive
energy. In this way, if person place the high value on the objective but expect that the
attainment of probability is zero, in this situation, motivation will definitely be zero.
Therefore, expectancy is said to be the strength of a person belief related to any particular
outcome.
Theory X has proposed that it is better to motivate the workers by high scores and reward
rather than only the desire to do effective job so that they also prefer to be direct under X
theory of motivation. Delery and Roumpi (2017) found that there is no evidence linked with
the criteria of organisational performance. As compare to this, Theory Y might have positive
influence on the performance of organisation. it has also that through the implementation of
Theory Y, organisation can take benefit of creativity and intellect of the employees. Y
employees have their self-control and contribute to the development of organisation. On the
contrary, Theory X believes that the employees prefer to avoid responsibility and wants
security. It might not exist in organisations because without handling responsibility, it is not
possible for the person to keep its consistency.
From the above discussed factors and researches, it can be stated that motivation have several
opinion in different theory. The first theory directly states that if payment will be good,
person will be motivated. As compare to this, other theory state that people not only work for
money in the organisation but also consider what they are doing. It can be argue by stating

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that different people might have different opinions. The first factor therefore depends on the
varied social level. It means every individual have their personal economic level in the
society. It might be possible that one person have good economic condition, they do not
require working for money because they have enough money to enjoy their life. The second
factor is related to the family background. If a person has good family background, it will not
worry about the delicious food, beautiful clothes and basic needs. For such people, family
tends to create the good environment for study. Such persons have more chances to attain
their self-actualization need and are not required to get motivated by money. In this way,
every person has different perception for getting motivated. By arguing this statement, it has
been highlighted that communication is one such significant factor that helps in motivating
the employees. it is only one such effective way through which manager can find out the best
motivation method that can be used by it. Information communication, constructive
behaviour, caring as well as professionalism is crucial as it enables the manager to learn
about them as well as their work.

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Conclusion
The literature review was done on the motivation and performance. In order to achieve the
goals, the analysis and review directly contributes to the research. The result from these
research also shows that it is quite necessary for the organisation to maintain positive
relationship between the motivation and employee performance. In addition to the intrinsic
and extrinsic motivation, communication also proves to be one source of motivation for some
employees.

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References
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exploration of the impact of emotion regulation of negative performance feedback on
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Becker, T.E., Kernan, M.C., Clark, K.D. and Klein, H.J., 2018. Dual commitments to
organizations and professions: Different motivational pathways to productivity. Journal of
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Bisharat, H., Obeidat, B.Y., Alrowwad, A., Tarhini, A. and Mukattash, I., 2017. The effect of
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