Sweet Rewards: An Exercise to Demonstrate Process Theories of Motivation

Abstract

Motivation is a fundamental component in management and organizational behavior courses. At the same time, it can be a complicated topic for teaching and learning due to the number of popular models and theories. The activity described here is a simple and fast way to illustrate the components of two of the most important and practical motivation theories—Equity Theory and Expectancy Theory. The impact of the activity will be realized the moment a disproportional reward is made. We outline implementation steps and provide an extensive list of questions to check students’ understanding of motivation theories. We also provide additional resources (i.e., media suggestions, discussion slides) to enhance classroom presentations. This exercise is designed primarily for management and organizational behavior courses. It can be used effectively with a variety of audiences (i.e., undergraduate, graduate, executive).

Keywords

motivation process theories equity fairness social comparison expectancy

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adams

J. S.

(1963). Toward an understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 422-436.

Adams

J. S.

(1965). Inequity in social exchange. In Berkowitz

(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 267-299). New York, NY: Academic Press.

Anderson

M. H.

(2007). Why are there so many theories? A classroom exercise to help students appreciate the need for multiple theories of a management domain. Journal of Management Education, 31, 757-776. doi:10.1177/1052562906297705

Arnold

T. J.

Landry

T. D.

Scheer

L. K.

Stan

(2009). The role of equity and work environment in the formation of salesperson distributive fairness judgments. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, XXIX, 61-80. doi:10.2753/PSS0885-3134290104

Bandura

(1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191

Godeanu

(2012). The antecedents of satisfaction with pay in teams: Do performance-based compensation and autonomy keep team members satisfied? Eastern Journal of European Studies, 3, 145-168.

Goldman

Cropanzano

(2015). “Justice” and “fairness” are not the same thing. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36, 313-318. doi:10.1002/job.1956

Hatfield

Rapson

R. L.

(2005). Social justice and the clash of cultures. Psychological Inquiry, 16, 172-175. doi:10.1207/s15327965pli1604_06

Latham

G. P.

Pinder

C. C.

(2005). Work motivation theory and research at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 485-516. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.142105

10.

Nagel

(1995). Equality and partiality. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195098390.001.0001

11.

Stecher

M. D.

Rosse

J. G.

(2007). Understanding reactions to workplace injustice through process theories of motivation: A teaching module and simulation. Journal of Management Education, 31, 777-796. doi:10.1177/1052562906293504

12.

Thorndike

E. L.

(1911). Animal intelligence. New York, NY: Macmillan.

13.

Trotter

R. G.

Zacur

S. R.

Stickney

L. T.

(2017). The new age of pay transparency. Business Horizons, 60, 529-539. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2017.03.011

14.

Vroom

(1964). Work and motivation. New York, NY: Wiley.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.69 MB