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Mcclelland's Theory of Needs

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Mcclelland's Theory of Needs
1. Introduction to McClelland’s Theory of Needs

Many of the differences in employee motivation, management styles and organizational structures of companies throughout the world can be of people in different national cultures. However, this report will be only focused detail on the employee motivation. Motivation plays a crucial role in driving the organization towards target or goal or even mission and vision. Even though, there are various version of motivation theories but in the report will highlight theory of Needs by McClelland.

Motivation is the internal process leading to behaviour to satisfy needs. The primary reason people do what they do is to meet their needs or wants. Like Maslow, Alderfer, and Herzberg, manifest needs theorist believe people are motivated by their needs. In McClelland’s Theory of Needs, in acquired-needs theory, McClelland proposed that individuals ‘specific needs acquired over time and shaped by one’s life experiences. Most of these needs can be classified as achievement, affiliation and powers which are will be explained further on this report.

According to Business Knowledge Centre (NBA), McClelland used the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) as a tool to measure the individual needs of different people. The TAT is a test of imagination that presents the subject with a series of ambiguous pictures, and the subject is asked to develop a spontaneous story for each picture. The assumption is that the subject will project his or her own needs into story. The psychologists have developed fairly reliable scoring techniques for the TAT. Then, the test concludes the individual’s score for each the needs of achievement, affiliation, and power which means that the score can be used to suggest the types of jobs for which the person might be well suited.

McClelland’s Theory of Needs is a personality-based approach to motivate and does not have a classification for lower-level needs. The affiliation needs are the same as social and

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