Читать книгу Foundations of management - Juan Antonio Pérez López - Страница 16

It is generally acknowledged that people work to satisfy their needs or desires. Disagreement ensues when it comes to defining what these desires are.

Of course, the philosophers have discussed the issue at considerable length, and very intelligently, throughout the centuries, but often their discussions have served as a basis for formulating theories, without any intention to convert them into practical action. From the practical viewpoint, these theories have sometimes been useful for bringing to light real situations in which certain needs went unsatisfied, and consequently have been an influential force to bring about changes in reality, although the way in which they had influenced is not always clear.

When making decisions in the practical world of business, it is assumed that plain common sense is sufficient to understand everything we need to know about human needs. Given that the activity of business is to produce goods and services that satisfy human needs, it also seems evident that if a person cooperates with a business organization, he must be doing so in order to obtain some part of these goods and services, or the equivalent in economic value.

If the business operates well, it seems that it will be able to generate the sufficient economic value to satisfy those who contribute with their effort to generating it. Otherwise, it will not be able to induce them to work in exchange for what it can offer them.

Although we may not be particularly aware of it, these are the underlying ideas—the basic paradigm—in the back of our minds when we try to understand what is happening within business organizations. For instance, if we ask anyone why he works for a company, he will most likely answer, “to earn some money”. Very seldom will we stop to think that although he has told us the truth, it is not the whole truth. It is very easy to find out that, most probably, there are many other factors that motivate him to perform the particular job he is doing, instead of some other, different job that he might also have the opportunity to do. If we were to be offered a different job in which we could earn a little more money, probably many of us would not accept the change. The only argument given for not changing may be “better the devil you know than the devil you don't”. However, even this shaky argument is enough to show that it is not only money that motivates us.

These trivial truths, basically a matter of common sense, are not easy to take into account when formulating theories; it is therefore no surprise that for many years they have been ignored by theorists of human work in business organizations. In the following pages, we will briefly discuss the various theories on the subject.