Frederick herzberg biography motivation hygiene theory

The major mid-twentieth century researchers in motivation — Maslow (1954), Herzberg, Vroom (1964), Alderfer (1972), McCalland (1961), and Locke et al. (1981) — devised research which Basset-Jones and Lloyd argue can be divided into content and process theories of motivation.

Content theories, such as Herzberg et al.

(1959), assume a complex interaction between internal and external factors and explore how people respond to different internal and external stimuli.

Meanwhile, process theories, such as that of Vroom (1964), consider how factors internal to the person lead to different behaviors.

Frederick Herzberg’s Approach

Frederick Herzberg and his two collaborators, Mausner and Snyderman, developed the motivation-hygiene theory in their book Motivation to Work.

Influenced by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Jones, 2011), Herzberg concluded that satisfaction and dissatisfaction could not be measured reliably on the same continuum and conducted a series of studies where he attempt