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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is an excellent model for understanding human motivation the current paper throws light on the relevancy of the hierarchy of needs theory in business organizations today, the review explores the relevance of the theory on organizational culture, human resource management and employee's performance and its application towards achieving results in the attainment of organizational goals and objectives.
Keywords: hierarchy of needs theory, organizational culture, HRM and employee's performance
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology anticipated by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation". Maslow consequently extended the idea to include his observations on humans' innate curiosity, over the years researches and authors has tend to criticizes the theory as being irrelevant in most part of the world for is western in nature Contrary to such assertion, Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory remains relevant in every sector of our business today as its best analyzes below Maslow's hierarchy of needs where the lower order needs (physiological and safety needs) may be linked to organizational culture. Every new organization passes through this lower order stage in which they struggle with their basic survival needs.
At the third level of the Maslow's hierarchy, social needs would correspond to the formation of organized roles within the organization into distinct units, depicting the human resource management function which resonates according to the tone set by organizational culture. The positive interaction of organizational culture and human resource management would result in self-esteem and self-actualization. This is manifested through the employees' performance which showcases the strength and reliability of their organization in the face of competitors. It also implies that the organization through its employees has excelled and met their objectives, mission and vision statement, i.e. a stage that can be considered parallel to self-actualization.
Organizational culture
Organizational culture has proven to be very elusive because of the lack of a single definition that is generally accepted by all organizational culture literatures. One of the issues involving culture is that it is defined both in terms of its causes and effects (Shili, 2008). Organizational culture is a complex network of values and norms that guides an individual's behaviors. It involves a set of beliefs, values, assumptions and experience that...