MOTIVATION AT EXCELSIOR

A manufacturer of customized heavy vehicles and equipment, Excelsior Specialty Equipment Corporation, has undertaken an effort to improve productivity by evaluating the workplace environment. This evaluation includes consideration of workplace motivational factors, drawing primarily on the content theories of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and McClelland's Acquired Needs Theory. These theories posit, respectively, that individuals have a sequence of needs that they seek to fulfill, and that these needs may be characterized as achievement, social affiliation, or power. An assumption that these three loci of motivation correspond respectively to sales, production, and administrative staffs is rejected as simplistic. Instead, a means is sought to integrate these theories, and provide maximal channels of motivation for workers in every functional division of the firm.

Excelsior Specialty Equipment Corporation is a manufacturer of customized vehicles and heavy equipment such as specialized trucks, cranes, and railcars for the construction, transportation, and related industries. Faced with a highly competitive and increasingly globalized market, Excelsior has placed an emphasis on maximizing production efficiency in order to reduce costs, while maintaining its historical reputation for quality products. In order to achieve these combined goals, management has undertaken an eva

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low vs. McClelland Maslow argues that people have a hierarchy of needs, ranging from the most basic and immediate to a broader sense of fulfillment. A hungry person is not concerned with the meaning of life, but with food, but once fed, the person's motivations shift to other concerns. Maslow's hierarchy thus begins with physiological needs, then security or safety, then social relations, then self-esteem. Once these needs have successively been met, the focus of motivation shifts to the highest level, what Maslow calls self-actualization, a sense of having reached one's full potential (Antic, 2004, p. 96). McClelland, in contrast, argues that (at least when basic physical requirements have been met) people tend to be motivated toward fulfilling one of three distinct desires: a sense of personal achievement, social affiliation, or power. These desires correspond to different personality types (Antic, 2004, p. 96). A desire for personal achievement may characterize an athlete or scientist. A desire for social affiliation includes both personal friendships and a broader sense of "belonging" -- identification with a club, church, community, or other social group. The desire for power is typical of politicians, and often
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Approximate Word count = 1558
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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