Need theory

Need theory

McClelland's Need Theory, created by a psychologist David McClelland, is a motivational model that attempts to explain how the needs for achievement, power and affiliation affect the actions of people from a managerial context. It is often taught in classes concerning management or organizational behavior.

Contents

Need for Achievement

People who are achievement-motivated typically prefer to master a task or situation. They prefer working on tasks of moderate difficulty, prefer work in which the results are based on their effort rather than on luck and prefer to receive feedback on their work.

Need for Affiliation

People who have a need for affiliation prefer to spend time creating and maintaining social relationships, enjoy being a part of groups and have a desire to feel loved and accepted. People in this group do not typically make effective managers because they worry too much about how others will feel about them.

Need for Power

This motivational need stems from a person's desire to influence, teach or encourage others. People in this category enjoy work and place a high value on discipline. The downside to this motivational type is that group goals can become zero-sum in nature. For one person to win, another must lose. However, this can be positively applied to help accomplish group goals and to help others in the group feel competent about their work.

McClelland proposes that those in the top management positions should have a high need for power and a low need for affiliation. He also believes that although individuals with a need for achievement can make good managers, they are not suited to being in the top management positions.

See also


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Need for achievement — (N Ach) refers to an individual s desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards. The term was first used by Henry Murray[1] and associated with a range of actions. These include: intense, prolonged and… …   Wikipedia

  • Need for power — (N Pow) is a term that was popularized by renowned psychologist David McClelland in 1961. McClellend s thinking was influenced by the pioneering work of Henry Murray who first identified underlying psychological human needs and motivational… …   Wikipedia

  • Need — For other uses, see Need (disambiguation). A need is something that is necessary for organisms to live a healthy life. Needs are distinguished from wants because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as dysfunction or death.… …   Wikipedia

  • Need for affiliation — The Need for affiliation (N Affil) is a term that was popularized by David McClelland and describes a person s need to feel a sense of involvement and belonging within a social group; McClellend s thinking was strongly influenced by the… …   Wikipedia

  • Theory of International Politics — is a 1979 international relations theory book, written by Kenneth Waltz that elaborated a new theory, the neorealist thory of international relations, and surpassed the cognitive limitations of the past. Taking into account the influence of… …   Wikipedia

  • Theory X and theory Y — are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s that have been used in human resource management, organizational behavior, and organizational development. They describe …   Wikipedia

  • Theory m — – A Theory of Leadership Management = Theory M X Y The Theory M style of leadership is one that recognizes that it is necessary to employ a variety of tactics for varying management situations. This type manager / leader is confident in his… …   Wikipedia

  • Theory of justification — is a part of epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and… …   Wikipedia

  • Theory of Deep Democracy — Theory of Deep DemocracyThe theory of deep democracy makes a distinction between merely formal and deeper forms of democracy. Formal democracy is an important part of deep democracy, but it is merely a beginning or a necessary condition. In order …   Wikipedia

  • Need To Know (newsletter) — Need To Know, also known as NTK, was an email newsletter, published late on Fridays, written by former Wired journalist and Irish Times columnist Danny O Brien and former Wired and Future journalist Dave Green. NTK was published weekly from 1997… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”