This theory suggests that to improve job attitudes and productivity, administrators must recognize and attend to both sets of characteristics and not assume that an increase in satisfaction leads to decrease in dissatisfaction.
The two-factor theory developed from data collected by Herzberg from interviews with 203 engineers and accountants in the Pittsburgh area, chosen because of their professions' growing importance in the business world.
Regarding the collection process: Briefly, we asked our respondents to describe periods in their lives when they were exceedingly happy and unhappy with their jobs.
The factors on the right that led to satisfaction (achievement, intrinsic interest in the work, responsibility, and advancement) are mostly unipolar; that is, they contribute very little to job dissatisfaction.
Conversely, the dis-satisfiers (company policy and administrative practices, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, and salary) contribute very little to job satisfaction.From analyzing these interviews, he found that job characteristics related to what an individual does — that is, to the nature of the work one performs — apparently have the capacity to gratify such needs as achievement, competency, status, personal worth, and self-realization, thus making him happy and satisfied.
Instead, dissatisfaction results from unfavorable assessments of such job-related factors as company policies, supervision, technical problems, salary, interpersonal relations on the job, and working conditions.
Thus, if management wishes to increase satisfaction on the job, it should be concerned with the nature of the work itself — the opportunities it presents for gaining status, assuming responsibility, and for achieving self-realization.
If, on the other hand, management wishes to reduce dissatisfaction, then it must focus on the workplace environment — policies, procedures, supervision, and working conditions.
Another problem however is that these and other statistical theories are concerned with explaining "average" behavior, despite considerable differences between individuals that may impact one's motivational factors.
In effect, this diagram of expectancy depicts an employee asking themselves the question posed by one investigator, "How much payoff is there for me toward attaining a personal goal while expending so much effort toward the achievement of an assigned organizational objective?
[citation needed] Fourth, it relates motivation to ability: A study by the Gallup Organization, as detailed in the book First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman,[page needed] appears to provide strong support for Herzberg's division of satisfaction and dissatisfaction onto two separate scales.
In this book, the authors discuss how the study identified twelve questions that provide a framework for determining high-performing individuals and organizations.