Motivation In Groups
Motivation in Groups
Introduction: The Motivation to study Motivation
Organizations can be seen as pools of humans, whose collective output represents the organization's output delivering the organizational goal(s). Therefore, there exists a continuous search for ways and means to attract, develop, retain and motivate talent for continuous improvement in performance. In this context, the study of motivation assumes great importance, and at individual level represents the most widely researched human behaviour.
As a large part of organizational functioning is in groups, the identification and nurturing of group motivation are crucial. This paper attempts to review the available literature on group motivation and attempts to propose a few hypotheses which could help improve the present understanding of group motivational behaviours.
Literature review
Being a well addressed topic in the past, literature covers a wide horizon of motivation, however, majority of it is focused
on individual human beings. Abundant research shows that the behaviour of people is different as individuals and in groups. Modern organizations can no longer afford to depend on individual brilliance, and highly competitive environment calls for building of teams in organizations which represent the wide variety of knowledge, skills and abilities which can steer it to success.
The most widely discussed and critiqued human behaviour theory has been the one propounded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). He stated that the unconscious is the source of our motivation. He vehemently claimed that the unconscious was a vast majority of the mind compared to preconscious and conscious, and sex was the primary motivator, albeit largely unconsciously, for human actions. A large number of theorists since Freud have challenged and suggested alternative models of human motivational behaviour. The most prominent amongst them are discussed below.
Alfred Adler...
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