MRKT 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Trait Theory, Equity Theory, Abraham Maslow
Document Summary
Motivation are the processes that account for the intensity, direction and persistence of an individual"s effort to achieve a goal. Sometime people make the mistake of thinking that motivation is a personality trait, that is, something that some have and some do not. In practice, inexperienced administrators call employees who are not motivated to be lazy. This qualifier assumes that the individual is always lazy or always lacking motivation, but our knowledge of the subject indicates that it is not true. What we know about motivation is the result of the employee"s reciprocal influence and situation. The three fundamental elements in our definition are intensity, direction and persistence. It"s the element we think about almost always when we talk about motivation. However, high intensity is unlikely to produce good performance results if the effort is not channeled in a direction that benefits the organization. Therefore, we need to consider the quality of the effort as much as its intensity.
