Organisational Behaviour – Essay Overview

Organisational Behaviour – Essay Overview

Part of this module is to answer a question which is worth 50% of the total marks available for the course. You can pick between two questions, the first being about knowing a management role well and explaining the likely appeal of motivational theorists to the position and the second question which is what I did.

Question

“Compare and contrast content theories and process theories and explain why (or why not) they are likely to appeal to managers.”

Now I’m probably going to get a rubbish mark but I thought I’d type up the type of structure that I have done for this essay question. (I hope it’s right!) – so don’t take any notice of what I say.

Essay Structure

I have started off with an introduction to motivation and asking myself what is motivation. I then went on to talk about the early stages of motivation such as Taylors Scientific Management and the Hawthorne studies.

I then have introduced content theories of motivation and explained what ‘content’ theories mean and then introduced Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. I then mentioned over content theorists which use Maslow as a platform to their theories.

I have then talked about process theories, using the same principle of defining what they are and the four main theorists.

Now onto the second half of the essay, looking at the likely appeal to managers. I thought that I was going to struggle with this half because I was trying to wonder why managers would want to listen to Maslow, Herzberg or McClelland etc.

That’s when I came to the conclusion that they won’t! – Many businesses these days are already using key factors from both sets of theories but perhaps without knowing it.

Businesses can influence motivation through organisational structure, culture and management style. However these can be limited and may be difficult to change. They also link with certain theorists so it’s good to mention them.

Examples/ Case Studies

I also thought it would be difficult to find an example of a business using say Maslow’s or Herzberg’s theory, but it isn’t! – Like I said they won’t publicly or rarely say that they using a particular theorist because businesses need to use a mix of theorists in their business. They also may not know they using a theorist.

However, businesses do say some of the things that they do such as pay bands, team working and groups to removing levels of the organisational hierarchy to influence betting decision making.

So the examples and studies are endless!

Related posts:

1. Organisational Structure – basics
2. Improving your Essay Grades at University
3. Empowerment – The Success of your Business
4. Powercut – Aberystwyth University Lectures
5. Are Monetary methods of Motivation Effective?
6. Perfect Competition – Firms, Markets and Pricing
7. Additional Reading Material – Aberystwyth University
8. Recognition Motivates Workers