Contents

• Introduction 2
• Part A 2
• Theoretical concepts 2
• History 4
• Recent Developments 6
• Future direction 7
• Part B 8
• Reflection 8
• References 10

Description

Productivity has long been the driving force of many an institution. With the liberalization of ownership and the emergence of private enterprises, productivity has been the main objective. It was however, not long ago that human capital was regarded just as any other material resource. Of the many resources that contributed to the produce of an organization, the income generating resource was given the most importance such as raw materials for a manufacturing firm or a copying machine for a service firm, etc. It is only recently that the human resource was given the attention that it deserves mainly due to a realisation that it has a considerable amount of potential. This interest has been furthered by the introduction of computers that have managed to automate a number of monotonous functions previously carried out by humans. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to look at the various aspects of human behaviour that affect the productivity of an organization. In particular, the issue of motivation and its evolution is interesting since it encompasses a number of topics that include cognition to autonomy to management.