Motivational Theories And Hard & Soft System Approaches To Organizational Change

Content and Process Theories of Motivation

Discuss about the Quality of Implementation in Physical Activity.

In the modern day organisations there are many changes that are going on from time to time. It is essential responsibility of the managers to make sure that these changes does not bring dissatisfaction in the minds of the employees (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). For this, it is essential that all the aspects related to the organisation are addressed. In the amount of competition that is going on in the industries, it is essential that employees contribute to the business at their maximum potential. This can be done by improving the morale and efficiency of the employees. This can be done with the help of motivational theories given by different researchers. It is also to be noted that there are soft system and hard system approaches that can be used for having control over the change process (Lichtenberg, Lachmann & Fosshage, 2016). It is essential for an organisation to determine organisational situation and hence making evaluation that will be appropriate to implement hard system approaches. This report signifies the use of motivational theories in contemporary business to find its effectiveness in enhancing the efficiency and morale of the employees. In the later section of the report, there is evaluation regarding the situations in an organisation that is appropriate or inappropriate for employing hard system model for change.

In the modern day business environment there are many issues that are influencing motivation (Dweck, 2013). Some of the key issues that influence motivation are:

• Ineffective leadership qualities always lead to lowering of employee’s motivation.
• Conflicts between different departments and co-workers due to lack of understanding influence motivation (Huczynski, Buchanan & Huczynski, 2013).
• Incentives and appraisals also act as an influencer in the motivational level.
• Workplace safety and culture also plays a very major role in influencing the motivational level of the organisation (Miner, 2015).
• Education, learning and growth within the organisation also play a very major role in shaping the motivation.
• Communicational gap at the workplace also acts as a reason for the lowering of motivation (Weiner, 2013).

There are two basic approaches to motivation i.e. content and process theories. Content theories of motivation were considered to be as earlier theories of motivation (Quested, Ntoumanis, Thøgersen-Ntoumani, Hagger & Hancox, 2017). These theories are also known to be as the theories of needs as these theories focuses on importance of things that motivates people. These are the theories that aim to find out the needs of the employees and hence fulfilling it to attain higher employee’s morale (Peters, 2015). These theories are also understood to be as the theories that are used for allocating energy so as to maximise the satisfaction of needs.

On the other hand process theories are related with thought processes that is directly or indirectly influencing the behaviour (Reiss, 2012). Where content theories focuses on the questions like ‘what’ motivates people, the process theories addresses more on the issues addressing on how the process works and sustains itself over a period. It includes the factors that identify the continuation of efforts, degree of efforts as well as the modification of efforts etc.

Relation between Motivation and Morale in Organizational Performance

Motivation plays a very crucial role in increasing the productivity of not only the employees but to the whole organisation (Tan & Waheed, 2011). In this regards, there are many motivational theories that can be used in this regards.  Some of the motivational theories that are used within the organisation for improving the morale and efficiency of the employees are as follows:

• Maslow’s need Hierarchy Theory: It is crucial and most widely used theory within the organisation for determining the needs of the employees. It is a fact that when all the needs of an employee get fulfilled him or her automatically gets motivated (Taboli, 2012). This theory is highly appropriate for analysing various levels of motivation and hence helps in building the level of morale within a person. This theory is for the employees at different levels within the organisation irrespective of the industry they are working in.
• Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene theory: This is another theory that helps in understanding the facts that employees feels good when they are generally linked with job satisfaction and bad feelings were linked with dissatisfaction in job (Barto, 2013). This theory presents the job satisfiers motivators and job dissatisfies hygiene or maintenance factors. Hence this theory was also known to be as the two factor theory. In the industries that are dealing with unhealthy workplace conditions, this theory can be highly useful such as manufacturing and healthcare industry (Petri & Govern, 2012).
• Vroom’s expectancy theory: This theory aims to explain the way people select from the existing actions. Motivation is as a process that governs someone choices among alternative forms of voluntary behaviour (Pinder, 2014). There are three factors in this expectancy theory namely expectancy, Instrumentality and valence. This theory is helpful in the process of increasing motivational level as this helps in signifying that there is no single thing that can boost up the motivation rather there are series of things that needs to be working together for increasing the motivational levels (Güss, Burger & Dörner, 2017).
• Adam’s equity theory: This theory is highly significant for the work group that is on the lower side of the organisational structure. This theory administers the fact that employees get motivated when they are treated in an equal manner (Kanfer, Chen & Pritchard, 2012). Since many kinds of discriminations exist in any workplace which lowers down their motivational level. This theory underlines that people expects to receive what they consider appropriate for their cost and efforts.

In the professional world, morale and motivation are interlinked with each other. There is a very close relation between morale and motivation. A highly motivated employee can help in having an increased morale. This can be understood by the fact that a highly motivated employee always has a high morale. Morale is understood to be as the total satisfaction deduced by the employees from his job, his work-group, and his superior as well as the environment that is present in an organisation. Morale is a mental condition of individuals and group that may determine their attitude. The same is the case with the motivation that is an internal-psychological drive of an employee that urges them to behave in a particular manner (Facer Jr, Galloway, Inoue & Zigarmi, 2014). As stated higher motivation often leads to higher employee morale but on the vice-versa is not true as higher morale does not essentially results in highly motivated employees.  Motivation is an individual concept while morale is understood to be as the group concept. For increasing motivation individual’s differences needs to be tackled while for improving the morale of the person factors that influences group scenario must be considered.

For any organisation motivation is a primary concern while morale is understood to be as the secondary phenomenon. This is underlined by the fact that higher motivation can lead to higher productivity while the higher morale may not do the same (Weber & Rohracher, 2012). Motivation improves the performance of the employees while morale enhances the group’s performance. Both these are highly essential in any organisation and theories of motivation could be highly beneficial in this regards. It is the role of the leaders and managers to make sure that they motivate their employees by constantly interacting with them. Appraisals and incentives can be highly crucial in this regards.

All these theories of motivation help in improving the effectiveness and organisational performance. These motivational theories have many advantages and disadvantages in enhancing performance and effectiveness of an organisation. Advantages and disadvantages of various theories are as follows:

• Maslow theory: This theory has an advantage that it gives the idea about the things that motivates people from lowest of levels to the highest of levels. This theory gives the basics about the ways in which motivational level of an individual can be increased from basics to the highest of levels (Klerkx, Van Mierlo & Leeuwis, 2012). Hence this is advantageous in improving the performance of organisation as well as its effectiveness. On the other hand the disadvantages are that not all the individuals have the same thinking or say they have cultural difference among them.
• Herzberg’s Motivation Hygiene theory: This theory helps the managers to understand the reasons due to which employees need particular things and hence allowing managers to channel the motivation of staffs in a better manner. This plays an effective role in the managing the performance of the organisation. On the other hand the disadvantage of this theory is that the factors that can motivate a person can change in due course of life. Hence the same factors cannot improve the performance of the organisation for the longer duration of time (Yudhvir & Sunita, 2012).
• Vroom’s expectancy theory: This theory suggests the perfect ways in which rewards and incentives may boost up the motivational level of the employees (Van Gigch, 2013). It suggests the ways in which proper goal may trigger the motivational level and hence may increase the performance of the employees. This theory gives the grasp to the employees that they can employ the concepts to accumulate more effective team work for accomplishing business goals. The disadvantage in improving the performance and effectiveness is the fact that this theory does not work in practice without active manager’s participation. There is an assumption that all the components are known beforehand (Hicks, 2013). This is not so as leaders must make an efforts to find out what their workers value as rewards.
• Adam’s equity theory: This theory lets the organisations to understand that when any employee works he or she wants to get treated in an equal manner. If the biasness exists in the work then there is always a chance that the discriminated person feels low and his motivational level remains on the lower side. If any organisation follows this theory then there is a very good chance that he or she can make a healthy organisational environment. This theory also has a disadvantage that it is very general and does not consider the fact regarding the cultural difference among the people. It is also not considering the organisational behaviour while understanding the motivational factor. It also does not provide the idea regarding the leadership approach and hence may not add highly towards the increase of performance of the organisation.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Motivational Theories

All these theories have higher practicability in the contemporary organisations. This is due to the fact that competition is increasing at a much faster rate in the industries. In such an intense rivalry, it is essential that the performance of the organisation needs to be on the higher side. This cannot be possible without the efforts of highly motivated employees. For motivating employees, leaders can take use of these theories as they let the leaders and managers to understand the basic needs of the employees. For example the rewards and incentives which are provided to the workers by the leaders on their performance basis help in boosting up their motivational level.

In the case when the companies are making any kinds of changes in their working methodologies or styles, there is huge disappointments that is going on in the minds of the employees at the lower level. In such cases the role of the motivational theories becomes highly essential. Motivational theories help in improving the effectiveness in the situations when there any employee is facing hard times (Chance, 2013). These theories are also helpful for the employees in the times of poor performance. Such theories are also essential in the case when the employee’s expectation is something different from the organisation while the company is not able to fulfil them. The usefulness of this theory can be understood by the fact that these theories helps in employee retention. In the case of dissatisfaction also this is helpful like due to unhealthy work environment or unsafe work standards.

In any change process, there is the use of strategies for managing the changes in any organisation. In this regards there are two major strategies that can be used in organisation namely hard and soft systems. These models of changes are used in any organisation based on the requirements in any change process. The idea of difference between the two change processes is that hard system model of change is very stiff and consider all the factors to accessed before the change actually starts to take place (Clayton & Radcliffe, 2015). On the other hand, soft system changes are different as they aim to learn continuously during the whole change process.

The hard systems are engineered to achieve any particular kind of objectives that has been described beforehand while soft systems includes the process of engaging different aspects of change. This is because soft systems rely on the situations rather than any pre-defined goals. Hard system approaches can be used to address both quantitative and qualitative issues. It also includes step by step process, this might be repetitive. On the other hand soft system approaches is rather a longer process. In the hard system approach the time taken to solve any problem is less while the soft system approach is more complex and takes larger time to get solved. The biggest difference between the two is the fact that soft problems are much harder to resolve while the hard problems are bit easier. Hard system model is applied by the formal organisations while informal organisation focuses on soft system models.

Hard and Soft System Approaches to Organizational Change

In any change process there are various factors that are involved and are affecting hard and soft systems. Some of the factors that influences hard or soft system approaches are as follows:

• Technology: This has been one of the major influencer of the approaches to change. In modern day firms there is huge amount of technology that is involved in various processes. In such dependence over technology has also affected the hard and soft systems.
• Organisation type: The type of organisation always influences the approach of change management. This can be considered by the example of fact that when the organisation is informal and still it tries to use soft system approach then there is always a chance that he might fail.
• Complexity of change: If the change is complex in nature then there is always a chance that using a hard system can fail while the lesser complex change needs to be done in a faster way hence the hard systems could be used (Da Silva, Kernaghan & Luque, 2012).
• Time limit: Another essential factor that shapes the system thinking in any change process is the time that is provided for any change. If the time limit is less than the use of soft system approaches may be pointless.
• Leadership capabilities: It depends on the capability of the leaders that which system approach it can use in a better manner. If the leadership is capable enough to take use of any system approach then any approach can be used.

Both of these models in different organisational can be implemented in an organisational settings.  The hard systems can be implemented in the organisation by firstly describing the ways in which the changes are affecting the performance of the organisation. For this model for change the organisation must focus on the goals of the change, the structure that is present in any organisation. It also considers being having an effective management system including effective management strategies (Morecroft, 2015). A huge amount of investment is required while implementing any change as all the physical systems inside the organisation need to be changed.

On the side the soft systems model can be implemented by the help of checking the messes on the long term process. The organisation can successfully implement soft model by streamlining the soft things within the organisation like value, power, politics, attitude, organisational behaviour. This all may seem to have no effect on the change management but has huge effect on the change management. This system can be successfully implemented within the organisation if the soft variables are managed. This needs to change all the software that is present in any organisation.

In the past few decades there are many change programmes that are going on. These change programmes have been made according to the requirement of the firm. Some of the organisational change programmes are as follows:

• Technology Change: Many technologies have evolved over the years in different organisational settings hence companies have incorporated the best of technologies into their work process. For example companies adopting data management systems for managing data.
• Employees: Since every company requires a set of employees that are capable of managing the overall operations of the firm hence they need to make changes in the skill set of employees. In this regards the role of the training becomes very essential. Training and development must be given to every employee in any organisation is very important (Hounkonnou, Kossou, Kuyper, Leeuwis, Nederlof, Röling, … & van Huis, 2012). For example whenever the company makes changes in the organisational procedure like the use of machines, they have to train their employees.
• Structure: In every organisation, there is a particular type of organisational structure. Companies often do change the organisational structure for streamlining the task. For example the change in the executives in the management is one of the major organisational changes.

Both these models of change have different advantages and disadvantages. They are as follows:

• It is used for solving complex problems.
• It offers a hope of introducing a structure to a loosely-defined problem-situation.
• The process of modelling a relevant system that is agreed by all the members to be ideal not only sets the benchmark against the individual approaches (Checkland, 2013).

• It does not yield outcome at a fast pace.
• It makes animation difficult as multiple inputs and multiple outputs are in process without knowing which output depends on which inputs.

• It is easier to handle.
• Animation could be possible.

• It does not solve the problems that arise in the process.
• It is not good in the case of informal organisations.

In any change process, models can be very useful. When the firm is facing the problems related to the changes, it can be resolved with the help of hard and soft systems. When the employee’s behaviour, attitude or emotions etc. creates the problems in change management then soft system model can be useful (Siriram, 2012). On the other hand there are certain things like the investment, communication becomes a problems then hard system model can be used in any organisation.

Conclusion

From the above based report, it can be concluded that motivational theories are highly helpful in the modern day organisations. There are many issues influencing motivation and all these theories helps in improving the effectiveness and organisational performance. There is a very close relationship between morale and motivation. There are various differences between hard and soft system models. Both the systems are influence by certain kind of factors. There are many examples in this regards. Both these models are practically applicable.

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