Frederick Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Motivation

he founder of this two factor theory is Fredrick Herzberg. He conducted a study on

about

200 accountants and engineers because of their growing importance in the business

world, from different industries in the Pittsburgh area of America.

He asked mainly two questions, what turned you on & what turned you off. Then he realized

two types of factors which affect to this matter. One set of factors are those which, if absent,

cause dissatisfaction. And the other set of factors are those which, if present, serve to motivate

the individual to superior effort and performance. Through that he identifies the motivators as

job satisfiers & hygiene factors as job dissatisfiers. Finally in the study he realized that job

satisfiers are related to the job content & job dissatisfiers are allied to job context. These are

some expressing ways of job satisfiers (hygiene factors). Company policy & Administration,

Technical supervision, Interpersonal relations and working conditions. There is no

dissatisfaction if there is no grievances about hygiene factors. Herzberg emphasizes that

hygiene factors are not a second class citizen system. They are as important as the motivators.

Because hygiene factors are necessary to avoid unpleasantness. At work & to deny unfair

treatment. The motivators are which if present, serve for motivate the individual to superior

effort & performance. The strength of these factors will affect feelings of satisfaction or no

satisfaction, but not dissatisfaction. In here he believes that satisfaction is not the opposite of

dissatisfaction, but rather no job satisfaction; and similarly the opposite of the job

dissatisfaction is not satisfaction, but no dissatisfaction.

And also there is a connection between the two factors theory and the Maslow’s Need

Hierarchy. The hygiene factors equivalent to Maslow’s lower level needs and motivators

roughly equivalent to higher level needs.

When considering the contribution to the work motivation this theory emphasized that

concentrating only on hygiene factors, management cannot motivate their employees.

When analyze Fredrick Herzberg’s theory we can conclude that he extend the Maslow’s Needs

Hierarchy & compared with the work motivation. This side was not discussed before. Job

enrichment is also one of Herzberg’s contributions. In vertical loading of job enrichment

consists of giving workers more responsibility. In other words employees take on chores

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normally performed by their supervisors. Responsibility, recognition, achievement, growth &

learning are some of motivators include in here.

But there are some failures too. His model which means the Two Factor Theory doesn’t discuss

the whole content of work motivation. Only one part has been discussed. And it does not

describe the complex motivation process of the organization. On the other hand we can describe

the criticisms on this way. There are two common general criticisms of Herzberg’s Theory.

I. The theory has only limited application to manual workers.

II. The theory is methodologically bound.

It’s often claims that this theory applies least to the people with largely unskilled jobs or whose

work is uninteresting.in another example the writer Weaver stated that such kind of theories

of motivation have less related to hourly workers in the hotel and restaurant industry. Because

these kind of staff doesn’t change much among different companies so they have a little

attachment to the company. So there the job offers little opportunity to career development,

and people work for their direct cash rewards for above- average productivity.

There have been many other studies to test the theory. So some of the studies supported to this

theory. But some writers attacked this theory and they said that two factor theory was one of

the conclusions that could be drawn from the research. For example we can consider about the

writer vroom’s idea. In that he stated that the given factor may be affect to both satisfaction

and dissatisfaction. Or this factor’s affect may be different from individual to another

individual. House and Wigdor research conclude that two factor theory is an oversimplification

of the sources of satisfaction and job satisfaction.