Mc Cleland's Need Theories Of Motivation Analysis

Motivation in an organization consists of several theories of many psychologists and social scientists concerning the meeting of human’s needs. According to Griffin and Moorhead (2010), motivation is the set of forces that leads people to behave in particular ways. There are several types of motivational approaches, including the need theories of motivation (Griffin & Moorhead, 2010). Under the need theories of motivation we will discover one of the famous theories in organizational behaviour which is Mc Cleland’s need theory. This motivation need theory has been discovered by David Clarence Mc Cleland, a Harvard psychologist. In general, the Mc Cleland’s need theory consisted of three types of needs which is the need for achievement, the need

He stressed that an individual with a high need for achievement has higher levels of each element of the definition, such as taking risks that not too low or high, being competitive with others, ready to do more work than assigned and so forth. This high need for achievement is the central concept of his theory, refers to a motivation a “dynamic restlessness” (Mc Cleland, 1961, pg 301). Money is a weak motivator, except when it provides feedback and recognition compared to those with low need for achievement where they will work better money is used as an incentive (McShane, Olekalns, & Travaglione, 2013). Besides that, Moriarty (2014) refers the person with high need for achievement as someone who likes to find solutions. They tend to set their objectives and taking risks in moderate level. He stressed that they will not feel a sense of achievement if they set their objectives and risks too low, at the same time they are also afraid of getting great failure if they set their objectives and risks too high. So, they set both of it as

They prefer to socialize with all the workers in the organisations because of their instinct to be loved by everyone. In fact, they do not mind to work with many people. (Uduji & Ankeli, 2013) said they are very anxious to be established and keep strong interpersonal relations, being liked and get along well with other people in surrounding. However, despite of the loving and caring behaviour, for the top management, the persons with high-need of affiliations cannot be successful managers or leaders simply as they usually have hard times to make important decisions without concerning about being disliked. (Jha, 2010). They will try to keep thinking about other’s saying as they do not realise these deep thoughts will affect their performances at the workplace. If not treated well, they might get worsened and finally get laid off due to bad quality of works. In fact, the persons with high need of affiliation usually do well in the field of marketing or sales. They seek interactions with other people during working to enlarge their community group to avoid the fear of being left. (Moore & Grabsch & Rotter, 2010). For example, these people will tend to spend more time interacting with others, such as talking on the phone and writing letters, and they are more likely to be members of social groups