Critique of Motivation Theories in a Modern Business Context

This report critically evaluates the use of motivation theories within a contemporary business setting, specifically analyzing their effectiveness in enhancing employee task performance. It begins with an introduction to the challenges of motivating a workforce, particularly within a company like Walmart. The report assesses the industry context, explores various motivation theories, including Maslow's hierarchy of needs and McClelland's Three Motive theory, and analyzes observable practices to improve task performance, such as job satisfaction and employee engagement. A critique of how these theories might work is provided, along with an examination of their advantages and disadvantages. The report offers recommendations for practical application and concludes with a summary of key findings. The study emphasizes the importance of motivation in driving productivity and leadership styles for employee satisfaction. The report provides practical insights into how businesses can improve their approach to motivate employees.

Critically evaluate the use of motivation theories within a contemporary business setting to determine
their effectiveness in improving employee task performance
Report

Contents
Part1..................................................................................................................................2
Introduction........................................................................................................................2
Assessing the context like industry....................................................................................2
Theories surrounding motivation.......................................................................................2
Analysis observable practices to enhance task performance...........................................3
Critique on how theories might work.................................................................................5
Advantages and Disadvantages of theories......................................................................6
Recommendations.............................................................................................................6
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................7
References.........................................................................................................................7

Part1
Introduction
The managers in a company are challenged continuously for motivating the workforce
to perform activities. The major challenge is to motivate the employees for working
towards helping the organization for achieving the goals. Meeting the needs and then
achieving the desired goals is difficult for the managers. In the company like Walmart,
the employees need to work in a collaborative manner with delivering and paying for
care. The motivation is a set of force that initiate, direct and makes the people persistent
to make efforts. The intrinsic rewards are achieved by motivation that is driven by
interests or enjoyment in a particular task.
Assessing the context like industry
Vroom works on higher points which are related to inferences, motivation that is
considered an invisible process. The managers are seen to come and be able to
motivate the people for controlling the circumstances. The industry needs to work on
handling the people with skills and abilities to offer prospects that are considered
important needs for satisfying the people (Rollinson, 2008). The main aim is to focus on
the processes which are for the external and internal development of an individual. The
consequences of the organization operating without any purpose of motivation leads
towards its employees with catastrophic outlook. In the companies like Walmart, there is
a need to focus on driving employees towards achieving the goals and the
organizational development. Walmart focus on the motivation with proper outcomes that
requires to ensure about the job satisfaction. This includes the content, contemporary
and the process theories which are for working towards explaining the expectancy
theory by Vroom (Lloyd & Mertens, 2018). Walmart deals in retail industry sector was
started in 1962, with operations in 11200 stores in 27 countries. There are more than
2.2 million associates in different parts of the world and they are increasing every year
(Walmart, 2018).

Theories surrounding motivation
Walmart has been working on defining the goals with motivating employees effectively.
The company needs to take care of the hygiene factors with working conditions, salary
and the incentive payments for the employees. The self-motivated workforce help in
emphasizing the job content or motivation factors effectively. Here, the rewards are
considered to be a major factor for motivation that help in encouraging the retention in
the organization. The idea is about providing the employees with complete security at
job and also better working conditions, loyalty and the belongings for the enterprise.
Motivation: This is about handling the positive emotional state with appraisal of one’s
job experience. It is considered important for Walmart to bring the change through self-
concept, social norms and the past experiences. There is a need to understand about
strengthening and weakening processes by company through training (Boxall, Guthrie &
Paauwe, 2016). As per the analysis, the workplaces reviews are done through the
appraisals which have pre-determined standards, and their outcome can impact the
emotional reaction for the employees as well.
Maslow hierarchy of needs could be determined through analyzing the basic needs and
then focusing on self-actualization. The pyramid is to describe the levels of the needs
with the examples that are related to the self-esteem and self-actualization. They are
important for a better simplicity and logical growth. Here, the digital disruption of the
theories where my organization has been able to handle the issue of working with 3000
words across the different countries (Wahba, 2015). The digital tools are for handling
the basic needs which are mined of the employees and how the workers need to work
on growth and advancement.
Analysis observable practices to enhance task performance
The job satisfaction: There is a need to understand about the underpinnings with
motivation that comes with exploring what job satisfaction means with motivated
employees. It is the responsibility of Walmart to support their employees to bring about
the loyalty at work and improve the retention process. This could be done through
varying qualifications or experiences. Some of the theories that could be used are:

Maslow Theory of Needs: The theory is about working on motivational programs for the
employees to match with the theory of need for affiliation. The strategy of Walmart is to
work on the workforce as associates where the sense of belongingness is to the
company employees with creating a family-oriented business. The theory includes:
a. Physiological Needs: They are for enabling the employees for accessing the
shares of the company with selling stocks at a much-discounted price. Walmart
holds the cash incentive plans which are for the additional income which is
depending upon the performance of company (Walmart Stores, 2015).
b. Safety: the motivation comes through the healthy and the well-being benefits
where the employees are seen to be involved in getting a proper health
insurance at a very low price. It includes the primary doctors and the visions
along with giving them free confidential counselling.
c. Belongingness: Walmart has been working on treating the associates by calling
them through the first name. The company is initiated by calling the others’ first
name as this can create a better and a family-oriented business.
d. Esteem: Walmart has been able to expand the gender antidiscrimination policy
with families working on same-sex partners. There is a need to solve the gender
imbalance in management along with making sure about motivating the female
employees as they feel respected by the other people as well. This is an effective
way for motivating the female employees as they are respected by the others in
the workplace.
e. Self-actualization: Walmart is generally targeting the graduates and then offer the
leadership development program. There are opportunities for the people who
work through the mentoring programs, sponsorship and the courses. The
standards of diversity is set through the company with performance evaluation
scores that is tied to diversity goals achievement.
Another example is McClelland Three Motive theory which is about focusing on the
needs of achievement, power and the affectability. Here, Walmart is involved in working
through training and improving the effectiveness through enhancing the different needs
as per the development of personality (Pearson, 2016).

Need for Achievement: They are for reaching the goals and taking complete
responsibility of the task. The employees with the higher needs for achievement tends
to avoid the lower or the higher situations of risks, which is mainly to attain success and
that is not considered as a good challenge. There are motivations by challenging goals
with able to work effectively with the group of people.
Need for Affiliation: The employees look for the people’s approval and then avoid the
conflicts as well. There are affiliation motivated with higher needs to have a good
harmony relationship that will help in feeling accepted and approved by other people.
The employees who are generally seen to be motivated by the affiliation generally want
to be liked by the other people as well (Kanfer & Chen, 2016). They do not like to take
any risks which could lead to uncertainty at the time of providing a feedback.
Need for Power: This is when the employees hold a higher need for the power with
desire of controlling environment and is considered to be power motivated. The
controlling people and the influences on others makes the people to work with charge of
group. The self-motivation is about understanding and seeking ways to win a
competition with ability to be recognized by the others (Ryan, 2017). The effectiveness
is in the negotiation situation which is mainly due to the ability to control and influence
the people as well. The feedback for the people is good to be directed to them, where
they keep on motivating by giving them opportunity for managing the other people.
Critique on how theories might work
Considering the changes, the learned needs theory of Walmart will require to focus on
evaluating the different perspectives. This includes the proper evaluation of the
designing and then working over preventing the employees who feel dissatisfied over
the evaluation results. Walmart needs to pay attention to make use of the strategies
which are relevant to the attitudes of new employees. The problem is about the current
strategy of Walmart which is related to the need for power which is the time needed for
the promotion set from one to the other level (Kuvaas, Buch, Gagne, Dysvik & Forest,
2016). Here, the corporation holds its associates to be promoted with the capability to
properly handle the poses and new generation of workforce. There are forms and
structures related to handling the meeting of needs and the requirements of the

employees. The employees prefer a higher minimum wage with payments done for the
overtime hours as well. The employees who are involved in the anti-discrimination
campaign will have to strive for esteem needs more. The satisfaction on the job is when
the employees are treated equally, and their suggestions are considered important.
The study determines how one can help the organization to cultivate the conducive
atmosphere and the relationship for the employees to foster positive attitudes for the
work. The motivation is as per the critical processes that are linked which leads to the
serving of satisfaction for the employees as well (Ritholtz, 2015). The content and
process theories need to practice about motivating the employees in effective manner.
The employees need to work on the achievement processes, with affiliation and power.
It is important to understand that there are goals which are about highlighting the needs
for achievement to avoid the lower or the higher risks situations.
Advantages and Disadvantages of theories
The advantage of the theories are that they are easy to understand which takes into
account human nature. Here, the consideration is about understanding the options
which is for food and then addressing the nature of greed as well (Argyris, 2017). The
relevance is about the problems where not all the individuals work think in a same
manner, with individuals working on social affect and respect that is more important
than the safety standards. The cultural differences is another limitation which is
considered for different nations with focusing on difficulty to measure the satisfaction.
The subjective approach is to deal with the human minds where the people gets
satisfied after fulfillment of physiological and safety needs. The team work is about
operating the same authority and the responsibility with good training, educating and
setting new technologies (Rollinson, 2008). The motivation can change is done at the
lifetime of individual, where the young employees sees job security as a major hygiene
factor.
Recommendations
Wal-Mart can work on using the theories with improving the efficiency at work. Here,
there is a need to make sure of innating drives for acquiring, bonding, learning and then
defending in the corporate with emotions and rationality (Miner, 2015). The models are

defined with attitude where the responsibilities are defined for achievements of their
employees. The four-drive theory could help in forming the social relationship with
mutual caring that is when there are evaluation procedures as well. One can work on
solving the problem of new employee attitude and then driving the operations at the
workplace among other employees. Hence, to solve the problems of promotion,
Walmart needs to evaluate and work on the workplace development from lower to the
upper management level.
Conclusion
Motivation is needed for the employees in the productivity and the management with
leadership styles that are considered to be major role to play (Shields et al., 2015). The
individuals have the expectations with leadership responsibility to properly develop and
then align with theories that are related to bring the job satisfaction to employees. With
the empowering of the workforce, the employees need to be encouraged with giving a
platform for voice out the concerns and how one can be motivated.
References
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organisational performance. Human Resource Management Journal, 26(2),
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Kuvaas, B., Buch, R., Gagné, M., Dysvik, A., & Forest, J. (2016). Do you get what you
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