MGT5OBR - Analyzing Goal Setting Theory and Maslow's Hierarchy

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of two key organisational behaviour theories: Goal Setting Theory and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It begins by introducing the core concepts of each theory, discussing their benefits and limitations within an organisational context. The analysis of Goal Setting Theory explores how specific and challenging goals, coupled with feedback, can enhance employee performance and motivation, while also acknowledging potential drawbacks such as increased risk-taking and conflict between organisational and managerial goals. The discussion of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs examines how fulfilling different levels of needs, from physiological to self-actualisation, impacts employee satisfaction and performance, while also addressing criticisms regarding its simplistic representation and cross-cultural inflexibility. Furthermore, the essay explores the link between these two theories, highlighting how organisations can use Maslow's framework to understand employee needs and then apply Goal Setting Theory to drive productivity and achieve organisational objectives. The importance of feedback mechanisms in both theories is also emphasised, demonstrating how it can boost employee confidence and guide them towards achieving their goals, ultimately enhancing organisational behaviour.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Organisational behaviour
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The growing job market has plethora of jobs catering to so many
professionals every day. Motivation can be anything money, incentives,
childcare, other benefits the list could go on. However, there are only handful
of organisation were workers feel valued, motivated and happy to work. It
maybe astonishing that often need based on materialistic goals is not often
satisfying for employees or employers, people need a more psychological
satisfaction from the job role, same goes for the employers. Each one seeks
something more from the other without proper communication the gulf
between the two grows while the organisation suffers. Behaviour pattern
remains similar all over the globe; after all human psychology is the same.
Examination of the behaviour pattern may shed a light on the real
conditions, expectations and motivation of the workforce as well as the
employer. Organisational behaviour is a study of behaviour exhibited by
group of employees or individuals within an organisational setting. An
important factor to help the organisation to improve their understanding of
their employees consequently improving the work environment followed by a
motivated team of workers who are happy and hence add to the growth of
the company (Wood et al, 2016). The following essay will discuss on the
theories of organisational behaviour namely, goal setting theory and Maslow
need hierarchy theory.

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Discussion
Analysis of Goal Setting theory
Edwin Locke put the goal setting theory of motivation forward in 1960.
The theory states that task performance is directly related to goal setting.
When challenging and specific goals are met with suitable feedback, it
contributes significantly to improve the task performance (Locke & Latham,
2012). Goals provide the employee an indication about the type of the work
expected and the amount of effort the task requires. Goal setting theory is
characterised by the willingness to achieve the goal that provides the
motivation of the attainment of the task. Firstly, specific and clear goals with
a deadline tends to give better output and performance. When goals are
vague, not measurable and unclear, it results in tardiness, confusion and loss
of motivation and consequently leads to lower output and performance.
Secondly, when goals are realistic and challenging it gives a feeling of joy
and pride after the completion of the task. The reward attached to overcome
the challenge and complete the task is a great motivational factor for an
individual. Thirdly, when the accomplishment of task is followed by feedback
it contributes positively to increase the performance, opposite effect follow
when no feedback is provided. Feedback helps the employees to work with
greater motivation and leads to further involvement with their job role.
Fourthly, goals are effective methods to evaluate performance of an
employee. When employees understand, their performance is based on
attaining set of goals, the importance of goals increases (Osabiya, 2015,

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p.62-75). To take for example, some jobs such as sales is target oriented,
the efficiency of the employee is judged on the number of sales made on
weekly and monthly basis. CEOs are also judged based on their performance
in increasing revenue, achievement of crucial goals, meeting the growth
performance of the company. Lastly, when employees are given a learning
goal orientation rather than a performance-oriented goal, they tend to do
better. Research show that it helps to improve the problem solving,
creativity skills and enables them to adapt to new skills and situations
(Miron-Spektor & Beenen, 2015, p. 53-65).
The goal setting theory has its benefits and limitations. Firstly, the
advantage of the goal setting theory reduces the use of resources and time
taken by the employees to attain a goal as well as raises their incentive. For
example, content writers in magazines have a deadline within which they
need to deliver their work, this ensures that the performance is at par with
the standards of the organisation and ensures the employee does not lag in
their work. The implementation of this theory increases performance by
increasing the effort and motivation in the work force and improves the
quality of feedback and response.
The disadvantage of the theory is that it falls short to resolve the
conflict between organisational and managerial goals. When goal conflict
arises, it has a detrimental effect on the performance of the organisation.
Secondly, setting challenging goal for the employees may improve the
performance but when the challenges increase and become complex it can

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stimulate riskier behaviour. To illustrate, sometimes when employees feel
the pressure to perform and achieve they may resort to substance abuse
because it may be the only way they feel relaxed and confident to work
(Kiresuk, Smith & Cardillo, 2014). Thirdly, if an employee does not have the
needed skills to achieve the goal it might result in failure and lead to
undermining of their performance. Lastly, there is lack of substantial
evidence that indicates goal-setting theory leads to job satisfaction.
Analysis of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory
Abraham Maslow proposed hierarchy of needs theory in 1943; the
theory explains the basic reasons behind human motivation. According to
this theory, Maslow depicted each need on a pyramid where the very basic
need was at the very bottom of the pyramid that was physiological need,
followed by safety needs, social needs, esteem need and the top tier is self-
actualisation needs (Upadhyaya, 2014). These needs required to be met to
progress to the other one above, in the pyramid of hierarchy of needs.
Firstly, the physiological needs, these are the very basic needs that is
required by an individual to survive. Things such as clothes, food, shelter,
clean drinking water and others. These are the very basic amenities that
every human needs in life. Example, organisation should provide appropriate
remunerations to their employees so that they can afford necessities of life.
When this criterion is met, it moves on to safety needs it includes physical,
psychological and environmental protection. To illustrate, when a job
provides security such as pension, an employee feels relieved that their

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future is secured. Next is the social need. Man is a social animal and needs
to establish social needs such as love, affection, friendship. Example,
employers should encourage interpersonal interaction through teamwork
and others to ensure their social needs are met and they can perform better
(Slack, Corlett & Morris, 2015, p. 537-548). The fourth category is the
esteem need are two kinds internal esteem needs which include self-respect,
confidence and others while external esteem includes, recognition,
admiration, influence and others. This aspect is very important in
organisational behaviour as well. When an employee feels appreciated for
their work it boosts their confidence and enables them to strive harder. The
very last tier is the self-actualisation where Maslow states when an individual
has fulfilled all the above needs, they have the urge to fulfil the purpose of
their being signified by the need to grow, learn more, be content. Therefore,
an organisation should ensure that they provide appropriate opportunity to
their employee so that they can reach their true potential and grow within
the framework of the organisation.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this theory. Firstly,
analysing the advantage in an organisational setting, many factors affect the
behaviour of the employees, as the workforce is varied their needs are also
diverse. When the employers generalise the needs of their employees, it
does not work for the benefit of the employees. Some employees may
require their safety needs to be met while others need a better environment
to work in; therefore, motivation differs according to situation. Therefore, this

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theory is beneficial to address various needs within an organisation and
Maslow’s theory is valid in organisational behaviour in this way.
The major disadvantage of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is that it is a
very simplistic representation and is not possible to examine it empirically;
therefore, there is no way to measure the exact satisfaction level of an
employee when one level of need is met. A single need cannot be held for
motivation. When one level of need is addressed, it is replaced with a newer
set of need that are not supported empirically. The theory is also inflexible
from a cross-cultural perspective (Bouzenita & Boulanouar, 2016). The recent
workforce is very diverse culturally therefore; the theory is more suitable to a
western work culture.
Link between Goal setting theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs
There are often several theories that are at work in an organisation,
and they are often interconnected to achieve certain organisational
behaviour. Most organisations recognise the need of motivation to influence
the employees to perform better and achieve their goals. With the diverse
workforce, the organisations are aware they need to cater to various
employee needs. Therefore, to illustrate, a company uses Maslow need
hierarchy to figure the needs of the employee. The company is aware they
have varies needs so they find individual needs during interview and make
sure the new recruits understand the organisational expectation. While

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certain employees find motivation in the monetary gain, there are
employees who seek validation at work to cater to their self-esteem needs.
There are others who are attracted to the organisation owing to the housing
benefits fulfilling their safety needs hence; the company uses these
motivational aspects to set certain goals to increase the productivity. The
employees are given clear, specific and challenging goals to fulfil their roles
in the organisation. Fulfilling these roles enables them to achieve their
respective motivations and improve their personal as well as group
productivity that in turn improves the growth of the organisation. Therefore,
using motivation to set goals is an effective method to link both the theories.
Another aspect that finds interrelation between the two theories is the
feedback mechanism is an important aspect that helps to improve the
organisational behaviour. To illustrate this, a situation is taken where a
certain employee works very hard at his or her job but never receives any
feedback regarding their work, positive or negative. Therefore, the employee
does not understand if they are doing enough or they may feel they are not
valued within the organisation. This can also harm their organisational
behaviour that increases job stress, demotivation, and reduces their
productivity (Deery & Jago, 2015, p. 453-472). This is harmful for the
organisational behaviour. On the other hand, when an employee receives a
feedback for their work, it boosts their confidence and they are able to
perform better if the feedback is positive, when the feedback is negative, the
employee can revaluate their goal and examine their performance. This is

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linked with both the theories, as in Maslow, feedback meets the esteem
needs required to be met for growth of the person it boosts their confidence
and motivates them to perform better, similarly the feedback acts as a guide
for the employees to direct them to achieve further goals that is related to
the goal setting theory.
Conclusion
Organisational behaviour is an assimilation that derives its source from
various theories. The goal setting theory is an interesting and useful theory
that is used to emphasise the importance of establishing relationship
between goals and performance. It is backed by sufficient research that
validates that effective performance is the resultant of when goals are
specific, challenging, and linked with feedback it creates an environment of
acceptance and commitment from the employees. When employees are
allotted deadline for their tasks it improves efficiency and effectiveness of
setting goals. Goals also improve the learning capacity and improve
problem-solving skills of the employee. Thus, these factors make goal setting
theory a very effective mechanism to enhance the organisational behaviour.
Secondly, Maslow’s need theory allows a different perspective on motivation
while addressing several needs of an individual. The theory goes to illustrate
how there is a direct correlation between motivation and job performance of
an individual. It is a good method to be implement in an organisational
setting and aims to increase job satisfaction of the employees (Elnaga &
Imran, 2014, p. 13-26). However, both the theory have some limitation to its

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use. Yet these theories provide valuable input to improve organisational
behaviour.

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Reference
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