‘Instrumentality’ is the belief that if we do one thing it will lead to another. In its crudest form, instrumentality theory states that people only work for money.
The theory emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century with its emphasis on the need to rationalize work and on economic outcomes. It assumes that a person will be motivated to work if rewards and penalties are tied directly to his or her performance, thus the awards are contingent upon effective performance. Instrumentality theory has its roots in Taylorism, ie the scientific management methods of F W Taylor (1911), who wrote: ‘It is impossible, through any long period of time, to get workmen to work much harder than the average men around them unless they are assured a large and permanent increase in their pay.’
This theory is based on the principle of reinforcement as influenced by Skinner’s (1974) concept of conditioning – the theory that people can be ‘conditioned’ to act in certain ways if they are rewarded for behaving as required. It is also called the law of effect. Motivation using this approach has been, and still is, widely adopted and can be successful in some circumstances. But it is based exclusively on a system of external controls and fails to recognize a number of other human needs. It also fails to appreciate the fact that the formal control system can be seriously affected by the informal relationship existing between workers.
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