Maslows hierarchy of needs theory is important
in many ways. First , it made management aware that
employees are motivated by a wide
variety of needs. Therefore, if management wants maximum productivity, it must provide
an opportunity for workers to satisfy these needs, by creating and sustaining a
conducive work environment that will motivate people to achieve organization goals
Secondly,
maslows theory can be helpful to management in the motivation of staff. As maslow (1970)
reightly observes, status is
unimportant to the average worker, if physiological security and love
needs the unsatisfied. Thus a
complnay indulging in vast expenditurte
on glossy magazines style premises, may well be disappointed by employee
response of it has not taken care to estalsih a fair and secure remuneration policy.
Limitations
of maslows theory
While
maslows hierarchy makes sense from an
intuition stand point, there is
little evidence to support its hierevchical aspects. In fact, there is evidence
that contradicts the order of needs
specified by the model. For example , some cultures appear to place social needs before any
others maslows hierarchy also has difficulty explaining cases such as the “starving artist” in which a
person neglects lower needs in pursuit of higher ones. Finally, there is
little evidence to suggest that
people are motivated to satisfy
only one need level at a
time, exceptin situtation where there is a conflict between needs.
Maslows
theory has also been criticized on the
ground that it is difficult to
fit motivators into categories for example a company car satisfyies
physiological and ego needs critics have
also argued that individual need
patterns are so varied as to render any
generalization witless.
Critics have also questioned the practicability of the theory since it fails
to provide any time scale to
indicate when satisfaction is supposed to occur at a particular level . as croft(1996:48( rightly point out, the organization will therefore need to be constantly checking an
rechecking the satisfaction level of
employees, this is a difficult if not
impossible task.
REFERENCES
Adebayo
A. (1992) Principles and Practices of
Public Administration in Nigeria
Nigeria: Spectrum
Akamoa
P.U and Anyanwu A. (1999) Introduction to Management . Nigeria:
Avan Global Publications.
Alugbu
C.C. (2000) Elements of Management.
Nigeria :
Concave Publishers Ltd.
Ezeani
E.O (2005) Fundamentals of Public Administration.
Enugu: Nigeria
Gallerman.S.w
(1953) Motivation and Productivity N.Y.
American Management Association.