Motivation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Motivation - Essay Example This piece of research work addresses motivation as an important tool that managers take in to account to get things done successfully through others. Based on Bratton’s (2012, p. 191) view that motivation highlights the nature of employment relationship, this paper explains different ways that managers use to motivate their employees. Motivation and Management Motivation is an important management strategy with which managers can accomplish their goals and lead the organization to a high performing and out-performing organization. Robbins and Judge (2011) defined motivation as a â€Å"process that accounts for an individual’s intensity, direction and persistence of efforts toward attaining a goal† (p. 204). They identified basic three elements in motivation- intensity, direction and persistence. With intensity, they meant the way people try to work hard. High or low intensity may not always lead to favourable outcome unless people’s effort is channeled th rough direction. They also argued that motivation has persistence dimension because it is important to see how long a person can maintain effort. Motivation is something that influences people’s behavior and attitude towards pursuing a specific outcome. As Lussier, Achua and Lussier (2009, p. 79) noted, motivation is a quest for a personal gain and therefore managers have to consider it as an opportunity to be seized to help the organization achieve its goals such as increased productivity, competitive advantage and long term profitability. Daft and Lane (2008, p. 226) argued that motivation is a force, either internal or external to people, that stimulates enthusiasm and persistence to pursue a specific action that managers or leaders want them to do. Both Robbins and Judge (2011) and Daft and Lane (2008) have considered persistence as a very important element in motivation. Managers and leaders are required to use motivation as strategic link between people and their ways t o achieve organizational goals. In making motivation such as link, it should in turn direct people’s skills, talent, knowledge and experiences towards the accomplishment of organization’s goal and managers’ vision. Management creates a specific environment internal to the organization in which individuals work in groups with a view to perform efficiently and effectively towards attainment of a group or common goal. As management is a process of creating, developing and affecting organizational objectives and available resources to realize organizational aspirations, managers’ central task is managing people and motivation is at its heart. Management is simply getting things done through others and therefore managers need to understand people in the organization and their varying requirements in order to influence them by helping them meet their needs and requirements (Msoroka, 2012, p. 2). Newstrom and Davis (2004, p. 30) found that the result of an effec tive organizational behavior is motivation and therefore when motivation is combined with employee skills and abilities, it results in the achievement of performance goals and individual satisfaction as well. Motivation thus builds two-way relationship. The two-way relationship created by motivation is mutually supportive because manager and employee are jointly influencing each other as well as jointly benefiting. It highlights the view

Parent-Child Relationships in a Diverse Society Research Paper

Parent-Child Relationships in a Diverse Society - Research Paper Example Following this we will discuss how this issue has been viewed from a historical perspective and discuss the impact of the employment of women in the public sphere on relationships within the family unit. Following his, we will explore the change and challenges associated with this trend at both a personal and a societal level (MacKinnon, 1999). Gender is an underlying characteristic all societies and the social construction of gender roles, behaviors and expectations is an importance aspect of modern American society. In a lucid essay entitled â€Å"Gender Role, Behavior and Attitudes†, Aaron Devor explores the socially constructed nature of gender in modern society and persuasively argues for a reevaluation of traditional gender role expectations in modern society. Unlike sex, gender is artificially imposed and although based upon biological differences between men and women, gender is socially constructed. As a social construct, gender roles, behaviors, attitudes and expectations are created by society and enforced by social norms. The idea that a woman belongs in the home to cook, clean and raise the children is a socially constructed concept that many people believe without questioning. The funny thing about gender is that we are led to believe that it is innate and something that we are born with. As Aaron Davor so eloquently points out, gender is created, acquired and constructed by the greater society at large. Sex has a biological basis and is predetermined at birth. Gender, on the other hand, is a social construction and gender roles and expectations are unique to each and every society. As social actors, individuals play an important role in the construction and creation of gender roles, attitudes and expectations and are not simply passive recipients of societal expectations about how men and