Essay --

Motivation can be described as a psychological process that causes the excitement, direction and persistence of intended actions that are goal directed (Mitchell, 1982). In other words motivation is the force within an individual that begins, directs and keeps goal oriented behaviours. Morgan (1961) describes the following words as synonyms of motivation and these include wants, strivings, desires, needs, motives, goals, aspiration, drive and aims. Motivation is the wish that helps an individual to do certain things based on the desires and needs. If an individual wants to meet these goals and needs, in that case it requires the person to motivate him or herself in order to make certain moves. Morgan (1961) illustrates that motivation is a behaviour instigated by needs within the individual and directed toward goals that can satisfy the needs. Motivation is the determined power which will assist the employee to work up to their efficient level. It is commonly expected that good motivated employees will work better than that of other employees. As indicated by Ber- elson and Steiner (1991) motivation is the procedure of motivating the workforce to actions in order to achieve the organisation goals. Work motivation is a combination of external and internal power that begins the behaviour connected to work and create its direction, form, duration and intensity (Pinder, 1998). External forces can be identified as the nature of work to be performed and the reward system of the organisation. The internal forces can be described as the motives and needs of the individual on the behaviours linked to work. According to Moorhead and Griffin (1998) to motivate employees with the intention of performing to the greatest of their ability and t... ...t. Looking at the day to day responsibilities of a manager, motivating their employees is the most important and difficult function (Handy, 1944). Content theories seek to describe and categorise the needs that influence behaviours. Perry (2006) explains that content theories are the most influential theories as they analyse the behaviours of individuals. Motivation is the force that helps a person to do certain things based on the desires and needs. Investigating the definition of motivation, content theories such as Maslow hierarchy of needs and Herzberg dual factor theory are the most powerful theories that describe motivation works as motivation is controlled by the desires and needs of the people. Maslow (1943) hierarchal theory of needs suggests that humans strive to reach the highest levels of their capabilities with the aim of satisfying their desires. â€Æ'