Gene Broadwater, coach of the Hamilton high school cross-country team, gave his squad this last word before they approached the starting line for the league championship race each one of you is physically ready. Now get out there and do your best. No one can ever ask more of you than that”. You have heard the sentiment a number of times yourself:’ just do your best. That’s all anyone can ask for.” But what does” do your best” mean? Do we ever know if we have achieved that vague goal? Would the cross-country runners have recorded faster times if coach Broadwater had given each a specific goal shoot for? Might you have done better in your high school English class if your parents had said,” you strive for 85 percentage or higher on all your work in English” rather than telling you to “do your best”? The research on goal-setting theory addresses these issues, and the findings, as you will see, are impressive in terms of the effect that goal specificity, challenge, and feedback have on performance.

Number of contemporary theories is available, and they have one thing in common: each has a reasonable degree of valid supporting documentation. Of course, this does not mean that the theories are about to introduce are unquestionably right. We call them “contemporary theories” not because they were all developed recently but because they represent the current state of thinking in explaining employee motivation. These theories have received wide recognition, particularly among practicing managers. This can be attributed to the theory intuitive logic and ease of understanding. Old theories, especially ones that are intuitively logical, apparently die hard. Although the need hierarchy theory and its terminology have remained popular with practicing managers, there is little evidence that need structures are organized along the dimensions proposed by maslow or alderfer

Psychologist Frederick Hertzberg proposed the two-factor theory, also called motivation-hygiene theory. Believing that an individual’s relation to work is basic and that one’s attitude toward work can very well determine success or failure. Hertzberg investigated the question” what do people want from their jobs?” he asked people to describe, in detail, situations in which they felt exceptionally good or bad about their jobs. The response were then tabulated and categorized. From the categorized responses, Hertzberg conclude that the replies people gave when they felt good about their jobs were significantly different from the replies given when they felt bad. Certain characteristic tend to be consistently related to job satisfaction and others to job dissatisfaction. Intrinsic factors such as advancement, recognition, responsibility and achievement seem to be related to job satisfaction.

Douglas McGregor proposed two distinct views of human beings one is basically negative, labeled Theory X, ant the other basically positive, labeled Theory Y. after viewing the way in which managers dealt with employees. McGregor concluded that managers views of the nature of human beings are based on a certain grouping of assumptions and those managers tend to mold their behavior toward employees according to these assumptions. Under theory X, managers believe that employees inherently dislike work and must therefore be directed or even coerced into performing it. In contrast to these negative views about the nature of human beings, under theory Y, managers assume that employees can view work as being as natural as rest of play, and therefore the average person can learn to accept, and even seek, responsibility

It is probably safe to say that the most well known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow hypothesized that within every human being, there exists a hierarchy of five needs such as physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization. Physiological includes hunger, thirst, shelter, sex and other bodily needs. Safe means that the security and protection from physical and emotional harm. Social means that the affection, belongingness, acceptance and friendship. Esteem means that the internal factors such as self-respect, autonomy and achievement and external factors such as status, recognition and attention. Self-actualization is drive to become what one is capable of becoming, includes growth, achieving ones potential and self fulfillment.