Devil Wears Prada

Motivation

Motivation according to OB book, is defined as the process that account for an individual's intensity(effort), direction(goal) and persistence(endurance) of effort toward attaining goal. In simple laymen term, motivation is the reason that keeps a person going to achieve their target or goal. Motivation plays a crucial part in an organization. In The Devil Wears Prada movie, it shows that working for Runway is a job million girls would kill for. The character Emily and Andrea/Andy works for Runway magazine as assistants for the merciless editor-in-chief of Runway, Miranda Priestly. We can see contrast of motivation between Emily and Andy. What drives them to go to work if different from one another.

Emily for example is really engaged with her job as Miranda's assistant. She worships the magazine and really is into fashion. She invest her physical, cognitive and emotional energies to execute her tasks. She did not even go to the toilet because she has to man the table while Andy, the second assistant, is out. Emily is so enthusiastic about fashion that she starve herself to be extremely thin to fit into the designer labelled clothes, which Nigel said in the movie "two becomes the new four and two becomes the new four". Emily also went to work and the night benefit even though she has flu. Emily values Runway so much that she said " I refused to be sick. I am wearing Valentino for crying out loud". Her engagement toward her job results in low absenteeism and turnover and also high performance. However it also can be a bad thing since she neglected her health for work.

While Andy, who wants to be a journalist just considers the assistant job as only temporary. Since working as an assistant to Miranda is the only option she have(aside from working for AutoUniverse), she do not like her job in the fashion industry as much as Emily does. This is shown in the scene from the movie when Andy chuckled upon the difficult decision to pick two blue belts. Andy ended up being harshly lectured by Miranda about the importance and impact of fashion in daily life. Andy is so stressed out with her job when she tells her boyfriend about it. Her only motivation to stay working for Miranda could be is to prove herself to Miranda that she is capable of performing tasks. Quoting her dialog,"I can't let Miranda get to me. I won't", shows her determination to survive the hostile environment working as Miranda's assistant. Her motivation is relevant to the self efficacy theory which definition is "an individual's belief that he or he is capable of performing tasks". Andy has high self efficacy. She tried so hard to challenge herself to complete every tasks given by Miranda. This is reflected in several scenes in the movie such as Andy trying to get a plane for Miranda which is impossible due to the weather, change her appearance to