Organizational Behavior as Depicted in The Social Network Movie

Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
MGMT 4401 Management and Organizational Behavior
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Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................3
The Concept of Motivation.......................................................................................................................3
Understanding Intrinsic Motivation in Relation to The Social Network...........................................5
Theories of Motivation as Depicted by Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg)...................................6
McClelland’s Human Motivation Theory............................................................................................6
Self-Concordance Theory (SCT)..........................................................................................................9
Impact of the Movie on the Behavior of Individuals in Organizations................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................................13
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Introduction
Organizations involve complex systems that depend on people, structural systems, and
technology to accomplish goals. In the process different people are brought together to form a
functional unit. Managers and supervisors attempt to learn more about these people to increase
the efficiency of the organization in what has led to the need for understanding organizational
behavior. There are many ways of understanding organizational behavior and one aspect this
paper wants to focus involves the use of movies particularly The Social Network film. As
organizations expand in different domains of employee strength, business expansion, and annual
turnover, it becomes essential to examine the influence these factors would have on the success
of an organization. In the same line of thought, motivation is another element of an organization
that is important altogether. The Social Network film shows its appropriateness in exhibiting the
elements of organizational behavior from the perspectives of an organization that is starting up.
In one way or the other, the film investigates the accomplishments of Mark Zuckerberg. He
chooses to drop out of college to pursue an idea that later becomes popularly known as
Facebook. He undergoes various challenges in the process but keeps on persevering to achieve
the course. For instance, he sacrifices his relationship to pursue his goal. This makes him to be a
perfect example of how motivation, particularly intrinsic motivation can help one to achieve
milestones in the workplace. Also, he perfectly fits into the McClelland’s Human Motivation
Theory in terms of how he uses his needs for power, affiliations, and achievements to remain
pursuant to the pattern of motivation. Therefore, using the film, this paper seeks to discuss
motivation as an organizational behavior concept while integrating the McClelland’s theory with
a particular focus on Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg).

The Concept of Motivation

There could be several definitions of motivation but this paper considers that of Maund
(2001 cited in Opu, 2008) where motivation is defined as the process through which an
individual wants and chooses to base his/her actions in a certain way. This involves internal or
external forces in the scope of the person’s behavior that lead him to acting in a goal-directed
perspective. In other words, it is making decision from a cognitive perspective with the intention
to inculcate a behavior that is geared towards goal achievement while monitoring oneself. In
work environment, management does reviews using appraisals which might have predetermined
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standards in terms of evoking emotional reaction among the employees which later expresses
their satisfaction or dissatisfaction behavior. Obviously, according to Badubi, (2017), good
marks in appraisal reflects an employee’s high level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction depending
on the questions used. However, a point worth noting is that every employee has his/her own
source of motivation which might be external factors (extrinsic motivation) such as monetary
rewards, or internal factors (intrinsic motivation) such as feeling the desire to accomplish better
things. Despite the source of motivation, both of them lead to one thing – goal attainment. In
other words, it can be deduced that goal attainment is the primary factor for motivation and it is
manifested in different dimensions that include the level of goal, commitment, and feedback.
These aspects according to Downes, Kristof-Brown, Judge and Darnold (2016) have been found
to strengthen the linkage between the goals and their accomplishment.
It is possible to relate this to the theory of self-concordance which asserts that underlying
motives are always related to the accomplishment of goals and the well-being that one is likely to
enjoy at work (Downes et al., 2016). According to this theory (as it will be seen later), people
will experience happiness and increase the level of their goal attainment when they act with
autonomy (intrinsic) rather than controlled (extrinsic) motives. Acting with autonomy indicates
that pursuing the goals are fun and one has a strong belief that it is important to achieve the goal.
Consequently, the goals pursued with such thoughts can be perceived as self-concordance as they
come from within a person based on the essential core values of a person and the interests. On
the other hand, controlled motives, also known as extrinsic motives as already mentioned
involves pursuing goals to avoid the feeling of being guilt or the anxiety that comes with not
pursuing the goals. in this form of motivation, there is a feeling that one is obliged to act based
on external factors outside the core self of an individual (Downes et al., 2016). Such a form of
motivation might not just conform to the interests of an individual.
As far as this paper is concerned, it is possible to deduce that Jesse Eisenberg displayed
both the forms of motivation in the film but later, the intrinsic motivation took over which led to
his greater accomplishments since Downes et al. (2016) document that there is always a higher
chance of achieving goals under intrinsic motivation as compared to extrinsic motivation. In the
film, motivation can be seen in the perception that, the peers of Jesse seem to snub him. They
access Ivy League clubs and other bachelor parties in greater magnitude than Jesse. Being a nerd
and an introvert, Jesse finds it hard to intermingle with people, particularly women. His
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girlfriend develops some cold about his ambition to be in socializing places such as the clubs. As
a result, she dumps him. He becomes so angry and decides to write a blog dissing Erica. Later,
after sometime, the two meet again at a party and this time Jesse wants to apologize for bragging
to Erica in a blog. Erica expresses her distaste for what Jesse did claiming that it was childish of
him to act in that manner. Jesse gets annoyed again and decides to expand his Facebook
territories to Yale, Columbia, and Stanford. The anger due to dumping by Erica extrinsically
motivates Jesse to start Facebook. However, the desire to bring out a new trend that is unique to
its time motivates Jesse intrinsically to expand Facebook to various parts of the world.
Understanding Intrinsic Motivation in Relation to The Social Network
Wanting to expand Facebook to many parts of the world despite the challenges of
lawsuits leads to a deduction that Jesse was intrinsically motivated. He was doing that for
inherent satisfactions that came with the activity instead of the separable consequences. Intrinsic
motivation according to Bhattacharjee and Miah (2011) is manifested in terms of curiosity,
challenge pursuance and the need to develop competency. When one becomes liberal from
emotion and intrusion of drives, he/she is likely to seek interesting situations that appeal to them.
For such people creativity and resourcefulness become part of their goal pursuance. The emotion
of interest seems essential in directing one to be motivated intrinsically and naturally pursue
what interests them (Bhattacharjee & Miah, 2011).
Translating all these to The Social Network movie, it is evidently clear that Jesse was
intrinsically motivated in a number of ways. However, from a deeper analysis, this was only after
his first website ‘Facemash’ made a huge hit across Harvard college. Basically, the website was
meant to act as away of cooling of the emotions of being dumped by Erica. Before that, Jesse
made an insulting blog in his dorm about Erica as a way of paying back what she did to him.
Later, while still in the dorm, an idea came to him about developing a website which would rate
women in terms of their attractiveness. It was a campus website which he made by hacking into
the database of the college to retrieve all the female students’ photos. People would then access
the website and rate the women in terms of their attractiveness. In a few minutes, the traffic on
the website crashes the Harvard’s network system which causes Jesse to be placed on academic
probation for 6 months. A point worth noting is that at first, Jesse was only being driven by
emotions to act in a way that would show Erica that her beauty is still inferior in the campus.
First, he insulted her in the blog as way of achieving vengeance for dumping him. Then Jesse
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developed Facemash perhaps for two reasons, one to show Erica that ‘you are not the most
attractive after all. There are others better than you’ and two, maybe to find pout the thoughts of
men about women in the campus. That is, what aspects in a lady do they consider in a woman
that make them say she is attractive and magnificent. So, it would be appropriate to say that Jesse
was experiencing an external drive in his early pursuance of his dream.
Nonetheless, with the popularity of Facemash other students became attracted to Jesse’s
work. The twin brothers, Cameron, and Tyler (Winklevoss twins) and their partner in business
Divya Narendra invited Jesse to work on another website specific only to Harvard students with
aim of dating. This time, Jesse got a privilege of setting foot in the elite club where he had
always wanted to be. However, after the meeting, Jesse goes to his friend Eduardo with a
different idea that he terms Thefacebook. He describes it as an online social platform for
networking specifically for Ivy League students. It could be this dream emanated from the
‘Facemash’ idea. Of from another perception that leads to intrinsic motivation, Jesse would have
thought of a solution to keeping one company after heartbreak or a boring event without
necessarily involving a face-to-face interaction. In fact, there is a scene where Jesse utters that
the increased popularity of Facebook will convince people that there is no need of one-on-one
interaction as far as making friends is concerned (Fincher, 2010). So, his ambition grew from this
perspective and with willingness to take risk he thrived.
Theories of Motivation as Depicted by Jesse Eisenberg (Mark Zuckerberg)
The intrinsic motivation that drove Jesse into his dream pursuance can be well explained
using two theories namely McClelland’s Human Motivation Theory and Self-concordance
Theory. This section describes each of these theories in details and how they relate to the film.
McClelland’s Human Motivation Theory
Maslow created the theory of needs in the early 1940s. His theory established the human
needs in the ranking of their essentiality in terms of physiology, safety, self-esteem, and self-
actualization needs (Mindtools, n.d.). After about two decades of establishing the theory,
McClelland developed Maslow’s theory further in a book he wrote titled The Achieving Society.
McClelland identified three needs related with motivation namely, achievement, affiliation, and
power. He deduced that people are likely to exhibit different attributes based on the what
motivates them dominantly. In other words, McClelland denoted that irrespective of age, culture,
or gender, people have three drivers of motivation, and one of them will always be the dominant
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driver. The dominant motivator largely relies on one’s culture and experiences gathered in life
(Mindtools, n.d.). In summary, the motivating drivers can be summarized in a table as follows.
Table 1: Characteristics of Dominant Motivating Factors of McClelland's Human Motivational
Theory (Source: Mindtools, n.d)

Dominant Motivator The Person’s Attribute

 Strong desire to set goals and accomplish them.
 Takes calculated risks while pursuing the goals.
Achievement  Enjoys regular feedback regarding their progress towards
achievement.
 Likes working alone.
 Enjoys being associated with a group.
 Yearns for likes, and will mostly go along with what the
Affiliation group wants.
 Prefers collaboration to competition.
 Hates high risk or uncertainty.
 Wants to have control over others.
Power  Hates losing in arguments.
 Likes competition and winning.
 Likes status and recognition.

From the table, there is need to note that if one has power as the dominant motivator the
such a person can be seen from two dimensions namely power in a personal dimension and
power in an institutional dimension. Power in the dimension of the former seeks to exercise
control over others while in the dimension of the latter, power drives the efforts of an
organization to work as a team towards goal accomplishment. The latter can be the best way to
drive an entire organization towards goal accomplishment.
The Social Network movie tally well with McClelland’s Human Motivational Theory.
Jesse seems to be dominated by achievement with partial achievement. Being in the achievement
segment of the theory, he turns down working with Winklevoss twins despite promising to
collaborate with them to develop the Harvard connection website. He pursues his ambition for
developing Facebook while collaborating with his friend Eduardo. This is what makes him to
partially fall in the category of affiliation. He seems to never compete with Eduardo for
recognition. He only wants collaboration. Besides, as an achiever, he seems to make a risky
move in deciding not to work with the Winklevoss twins. The twins seem to live a rich life as
they are members of Ivy League. Upon learning about Facebook while clubbing, they are forced
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to believe that Jesse stole their idea while he kept lying to them about building the Harvard
connection website. This makes them furious and decides to report the matter to Harvard
President who dismisses their claims and sees no need for taking disciplinary actions against
Jesse or his site. Later, the twins still sue Jesse for intellectual property theft after realizing that
Facebook has spread across Europe. Along with this, Eduardo also seems to dislike the fact that
his investments for the site were diluted. In a nutshell, Jesse takes the risks of being sued by
everyone around him but with the help of his lawyer, he manages to settle everything with the
complainants and continues to pursue his dreams.
Still on the notion of achievement, Jesse and Eduardo meet a couple of girls as they
attend a guest lecture. The girls seem to congratulate them on their achievement. Also, guys
congratulate them in the streets for Facebook – they are now celebrities. As an achiever, Jesse
definitely enjoys the feedbacks he gets as he knows that they are ones that will help him know
how to tweak the site further to make it more appealing. In the same line of thought, it seems
evident that Jesse never wants to receive any recognition at the moment as those seeking
personal power would do. This is evident when Eduardo wants to pose an ad to capitalize to
symbolize their success. Jesse refuses as he wants to continue developing the site (Fincher,
2010). He might be seeing that early recognition might deter him from goal accomplishment.
Therefore, he continues working with little focus on being recognized for the site.
Shifting the focus to other round characters, it is clear that McClelland’s theory applies to
them in one way or the other. The Winklevoss twins seem to be people who want to belong to a
group and go with what the group wants. They rely on their dad to make their moves to sue
Jesse. Also, they seem like people who are more interested in gaining personal power
particularly enjoying competition and winning as well as status and recognition. On the other
hand, Eduardo is also after power and this could be his dominant motivating factor. When he
realizes that the new investment deals involving Jesse and him is likely to dilute his shares in
Facebook, he becomes mad and even wants to sue to sue Jesse for the shares. He gets his name
removed as the co-founder of Facebook. However, in the end, he is settled with unknown amount
and his name gets restored as the co-founder Facebook website. He never seems annoyed with
that thereby indicating that it is what he perhaps wanted.
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Self-Concordance Theory (SCT)

The self-concordance theory (henceforth SCT) was established by Sheldon and Elliot
(cited in Downes et al., 2016). It was built from a previous work affiliated with self-
determination theory. SCT aims to explain the underlying motives that influence goal
accomplishment, relevant processes to goal attainment, attitude, and behavior in humans.
According to SCT, people pursue autonomous goals intrinsically or established motives. The
focal point for motivation internal or self-induced. According to Sheldon and Elliot (1999: as
cited in Downes et al., 2016), there is a high probability of accomplishing goals that are set with
autonomy since such goals seem consistent with the values of an individual which mirror the
fulfillment of one’s desire for autonomy. Consequently, as already noted earlier in this paper,
there are controlled goals that emanate from an individual extrinsically. They are driven by
introjected motives which mirror the yearning one must please a fellow individual or act in
accordance with responding to external pressure not affiliated with the core self of an individua.
Sheldon and Elliot (1999: as cited in Downes et al., 2016) suggest that, someone who pursues
goals under in fluence of controlled motives usually feels that he/she is under some grip of forces
to which no consent is given. At times, the goal motive might be rooted from the mind of the
person for example due to feelings or a sense of guilt. However, the motive behind the goal
pursuance remains outside an individual’s senses affiliated with the core-self. There is need to
note that both autonomous and controlled motives can never be perceived as mutually exclusive
since an individual can pursue a goal for two different reasons as it was with Jesse.
It has been observed that the self-concordance model is important in the theory of
traditional goal-setting as it explains why people choose and pursue particular goals. Such
individuals seem to enjoy greater accomplishment of the goals they set alongside high magnitude
of well-being. In fact, such is the case with Jesse who from a meagre goal of building an
interactive site ends up making magnificent accomplishment and becomes a billionaire at a
younger age. It is seen that he had an inner drive to pursue his goal and that is why he never
relented whatsoever. As a matter of fact, he forms a perfect symbol of how a person should
remain determined and true to a course while embracing vision in order to accomplish a goal. He
was in college but never had motivation for class grades. He valued his dreams to a point of
dropping out of college to work on the idea that has later turned out to bring the world together
in a single platform.
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Impact of the Movie on the Behavior of Individuals in Organizations

The events in The Social Network movie can be emulated in typical organization to
influence the behavior of the employees. Jesse, Winklevoss twins and Eduardo, all present how
different employees can impact organizational performance particularly under the broad
umbrella of motivation. The film brings exhibits intrinsic motivation as a magnificent way of
achieving goals. It all emanates from the intrinsic motivation that Jesse first focused on to ensure
that he demeaned Erica. According to Nduka (2016) extrinsic motivation can at times be a
reinforcing factor in the sense that once it has been addressed, intrinsic motivation sets in leading
to improved performance and satisfaction. In this context, the movie tries to inform organization
managers that they should never let extrinsic motivation be the one to motivate employees.
Rather they should learn to let extrinsic motivation lead them to inculcating intrinsic motivation
which would later lead to high performance in a work environment. Also, with intrinsic
motivation as depicted in the movie, employees are likely to be loyal to the organization and
always work industriously to be affiliated with the fruits of their hard work. This way, it becomes
easy for the organization to retain the employees.
Another impact of the movie on employees’ behavior revolves around the theory that
Professor Reiss proposed known as the theory of 16 basic desires. According to this theory
people, can be categorized into different groups that denote their basic desires. Mostly these
factors (Table 2.) normally stand for what makes one happy and induce motivation in him/her.
The movie portrays some of those factors particularly curiosity, power, status, independence, and
vengeance. Jesse is eager to embrace knowledge in another way that the school does not teach
him and therefore out of seeing the popularity of Facemash, he becomes curious to know how
whether Facebook can have a similar impact. In a work setting, curiosity is important as it leads
to exploring new ideas while being ready to take risks. From a critical perception, curious
employees are creative in a way that can lead an organization towards success. In terms of
power, it is to be understood that Winklevoss twins and Eduardo wanted power in a way through
wanting to sue Jesse. However, such a form power would seem to be personal with one just to
enjoy status and recognition. If the employees of an organization are to emulate such a form of
power, there is a likelihood that the organization might not achieve success as everyone would be
self-centered and focused on controlling others rather than focusing on the goals of the
organization. As a result, institutional power would be better as it enables employees to act as a
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team and collaborate towards goal achievement (Mindtools, n.d.). In fact, the effect of power can
be similar to vengeance. In both the cases dominance seems to be the source of motivation. A
vengeful employee in the workplace is likely to distort the smooth relationship existing among
the employees in a workplace and deter the process of goal achievement. Moving on to status,
Eduardo really wanted to remain with his shares, at least to known that he is a shareholder.
According to McClelland’s theory, Eduardo would form a perfect of employees who enjoy
affiliations. They fear high risk and uncertainty. Such employees are not good for starting
organizations that are still testing new ideas in the name of innovation for success. Finally, on the
aspect of independence, Jesse never seemed to eb concerned with education. All he wanted was
just self-reliance and standing out from the rest. A desire to be distinct as depicted in the movie
can help employees in an organization to behave uniquely while everyone working hard to
ensure that he/she emerges the best. It can be a good motivating strategy for innovation.
Table 2: The components of the 16 basic desire theory of Reiss (Sincero, 2012)

Basic Desire Explanation Basic Desire Explanation

1. Acceptance Need for appreciation 9. Physical activity Need to keep fit
2. Curiosity Need for knowledge 10. Power Need to control will
acquisition
3. Eating Need for food 11. Romance Need for sex/mating
4. Family Need to look after an 12. Saving Need to accumulate
offspring stuffs
5. Honor Need to be faithful to 13. Social contact Need to relate with
one’s culture and ethnicity people
6. Idealism Need for social justice 14. Social status Need for social
significance
7. Independence Need to be self-reliant and 15. Tranquility Need for security and
distinct protection
8. Order Need for sustainable and 16. Vengeance Need to payback a
conducive environments. person
In general, and in relation to organizational behavior, every desire depicted in the table
above an be a motivational factor. However, there would be need to exercise some with caution
to avoid tumbling the organization down due to the negative effects that come with such desires.
All in all, it depends with the positivity everyone embraces with the desire as far as goal
pursuance and the success of the organization are concerned.
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Conclusion
The Social Network movie is a perfect example of traits and other aspects managers face
in an organization or in the process of establishing an organization. As an organization grows, it
employs various employees from different backgrounds. Keeping such employees on track to
ensure they behave in the right way for the success of the organization is quite a tedious process.
It becomes important to inculcate motivation in these employees particularly intrinsic
motivation. Through the theories of self-concordance and McClelland the paper has shown that
intrinsic motivation is efficient in enabling an organization to achieve its goals. Intrinsically
motivated employees are likely to achieve the goals they set without any external motivation
since their motivation emanates from the core self and therefore, they never seem to worry much
about external rewards as long as long they remain pursuant to their goals. The paper, has also
shown that organizations can learn a lot from The Social Network movie. In particular,
organizations can learn to train their employees to embrace independence, curiosity, and
institutional power in order to steer an organization effectively towards success. However, the
management should be careful regarding how employees embrace status, vengeance, and other
basic desires of Reiss. motivation that arises from any of such factors should be trimmed to lead
to positive fruits in the same way Jesse used vengeance for instance, to achieve something great.
There is much for organizations to learn from the movie. Managers can get to know how to run
organizations, when to praise employees, how to collaborate effectively, how to deal with
introvert employees and so forth. Therefore, the management in various organizations should
train their employees to learn the ways of Jesse for the greatness of the organization.
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