case study motivation in the workplace

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The Science of Improving Motivation at Work

The topic of employee motivation can be quite daunting for managers, leaders, and human resources professionals.

Organizations that provide their members with meaningful, engaging work not only contribute to the growth of their bottom line, but also create a sense of vitality and fulfillment that echoes across their organizational cultures and their employees’ personal lives.

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

In the context of work, an understanding of motivation can be applied to improve employee productivity and satisfaction; help set individual and organizational goals; put stress in perspective; and structure jobs so that they offer optimal levels of challenge, control, variety, and collaboration.

This article demystifies motivation in the workplace and presents recent findings in organizational behavior that have been found to contribute positively to practices of improving motivation and work life.

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This Article Contains:

Motivation in the workplace, motivation theories in organizational behavior, employee motivation strategies, motivation and job performance, leadership and motivation, motivation and good business, a take-home message.

Motivation in the workplace has been traditionally understood in terms of extrinsic rewards in the form of compensation, benefits, perks, awards, or career progression.

With today’s rapidly evolving knowledge economy, motivation requires more than a stick-and-carrot approach. Research shows that innovation and creativity, crucial to generating new ideas and greater productivity, are often stifled when extrinsic rewards are introduced.

Daniel Pink (2011) explains the tricky aspect of external rewards and argues that they are like drugs, where more frequent doses are needed more often. Rewards can often signal that an activity is undesirable.

Interesting and challenging activities are often rewarding in themselves. Rewards tend to focus and narrow attention and work well only if they enhance the ability to do something intrinsically valuable. Extrinsic motivation is best when used to motivate employees to perform routine and repetitive activities but can be detrimental for creative endeavors.

Anticipating rewards can also impair judgment and cause risk-seeking behavior because it activates dopamine. We don’t notice peripheral and long-term solutions when immediate rewards are offered. Studies have shown that people will often choose the low road when chasing after rewards because addictive behavior is short-term focused, and some may opt for a quick win.

Pink (2011) warns that greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible, and seven deadly flaws of rewards are soon to follow. He found that anticipating rewards often has undesirable consequences and tends to:

• Extinguish intrinsic motivation
• Decrease performance
• Encourage cheating
• Decrease creativity
• Crowd out good behavior
• Become addictive
• Foster short-term thinking

Pink (2011) suggests that we should reward only routine tasks to boost motivation and provide rationale, acknowledge that some activities are boring, and allow people to complete the task their way. When we increase variety and mastery opportunities at work, we increase motivation.

Rewards should be given only after the task is completed, preferably as a surprise, varied in frequency, and alternated between tangible rewards and praise. Providing information and meaningful, specific feedback about the effort (not the person) has also been found to be more effective than material rewards for increasing motivation (Pink, 2011).

They have shaped the landscape of our understanding of organizational behavior and our approaches to employee motivation. We discuss a few of the most frequently applied theories of motivation in organizational behavior.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory

Frederick Herzberg’s (1959) two-factor theory of motivation, also known as dual-factor theory or motivation-hygiene theory, was a result of a study that analyzed responses of 200 accountants and engineers who were asked about their positive and negative feelings about their work. Herzberg (1959) concluded that two major factors influence employee motivation and satisfaction with their jobs:

• Motivator factors, which can motivate employees to work harder and lead to on-the-job satisfaction, including experiences of greater engagement in and enjoyment of the work, feelings of recognition, and a sense of career progression
• Hygiene factors, which can potentially lead to dissatisfaction and a lack of motivation if they are absent, such as adequate compensation, effective company policies, comprehensive benefits, or good relationships with managers and coworkers

Herzberg (1959) maintained that while motivator and hygiene factors both influence motivation, they appeared to work entirely independently of each other. He found that motivator factors increased employee satisfaction and motivation, but the absence of these factors didn’t necessarily cause dissatisfaction.

Likewise, the presence of hygiene factors didn’t appear to increase satisfaction and motivation, but their absence caused an increase in dissatisfaction. It is debatable whether his theory would hold true today outside of blue-collar industries, particularly among younger generations, who may be looking for meaningful work and growth.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory proposed that employees become motivated along a continuum of needs from basic physiological needs to higher level psychological needs for growth and self-actualization . The hierarchy was originally conceptualized into five levels:

• Physiological needs that must be met for a person to survive, such as food, water, and shelter
• Safety needs that include personal and financial security, health, and wellbeing
• Belonging needs for friendships, relationships, and family
• Esteem needs that include feelings of confidence in the self and respect from others
• Self-actualization needs that define the desire to achieve everything we possibly can and realize our full potential

According to the hierarchy of needs, we must be in good health, safe, and secure with meaningful relationships and confidence before we can reach for the realization of our full potential.

For a full discussion of other theories of psychological needs and the importance of need satisfaction, see our article on How to Motivate .

Hawthorne effect

The Hawthorne effect, named after a series of social experiments on the influence of physical conditions on productivity at Western Electric’s factory in Hawthorne, Chicago, in the 1920s and 30s, was first described by Henry Landsberger in 1958 after he noticed some people tended to work harder and perform better when researchers were observing them.

Although the researchers changed many physical conditions throughout the experiments, including lighting, working hours, and breaks, increases in employee productivity were more significant in response to the attention being paid to them, rather than the physical changes themselves.

Today the Hawthorne effect is best understood as a justification for the value of providing employees with specific and meaningful feedback and recognition. It is contradicted by the existence of results-only workplace environments that allow complete autonomy and are focused on performance and deliverables rather than managing employees.

Expectancy theory

Expectancy theory proposes that we are motivated by our expectations of the outcomes as a result of our behavior and make a decision based on the likelihood of being rewarded for that behavior in a way that we perceive as valuable.

For example, an employee may be more likely to work harder if they have been promised a raise than if they only assumed they might get one.

Expectancy theory posits that three elements affect our behavioral choices:

• Expectancy is the belief that our effort will result in our desired goal and is based on our past experience and influenced by our self-confidence and anticipation of how difficult the goal is to achieve.
• Instrumentality is the belief that we will receive a reward if we meet performance expectations.
• Valence is the value we place on the reward.

Expectancy theory tells us that we are most motivated when we believe that we will receive the desired reward if we hit an achievable and valued target, and least motivated if we do not care for the reward or do not believe that our efforts will result in the reward.

Three-dimensional theory of attribution

Attribution theory explains how we attach meaning to our own and other people’s behavior and how the characteristics of these attributions can affect future motivation.

Bernard Weiner’s three-dimensional theory of attribution proposes that the nature of the specific attribution, such as bad luck or not working hard enough, is less important than the characteristics of that attribution as perceived and experienced by the individual. According to Weiner, there are three main characteristics of attributions that can influence how we behave in the future:

Stability is related to pervasiveness and permanence; an example of a stable factor is an employee believing that they failed to meet the expectation because of a lack of support or competence. An unstable factor might be not performing well due to illness or a temporary shortage of resources.

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”

Colin Powell

According to Weiner, stable attributions for successful achievements can be informed by previous positive experiences, such as completing the project on time, and can lead to positive expectations and higher motivation for success in the future. Adverse situations, such as repeated failures to meet the deadline, can lead to stable attributions characterized by a sense of futility and lower expectations in the future.

Locus of control describes a perspective about the event as caused by either an internal or an external factor. For example, if the employee believes it was their fault the project failed, because of an innate quality such as a lack of skills or ability to meet the challenge, they may be less motivated in the future.

If they believe an external factor was to blame, such as an unrealistic deadline or shortage of staff, they may not experience such a drop in motivation.

Controllability defines how controllable or avoidable the situation was. If an employee believes they could have performed better, they may be less motivated to try again in the future than someone who believes that factors outside of their control caused the circumstances surrounding the setback.

Theory X and theory Y

Douglas McGregor proposed two theories to describe managerial views on employee motivation: theory X and theory Y. These views of employee motivation have drastically different implications for management.

He divided leaders into those who believe most employees avoid work and dislike responsibility (theory X managers) and those who say that most employees enjoy work and exert effort when they have control in the workplace (theory Y managers).

To motivate theory X employees, the company needs to push and control their staff through enforcing rules and implementing punishments.

Theory Y employees, on the other hand, are perceived as consciously choosing to be involved in their work. They are self-motivated and can exert self-management, and leaders’ responsibility is to create a supportive environment and develop opportunities for employees to take on responsibility and show creativity.

Theory X is heavily informed by what we know about intrinsic motivation and the role that the satisfaction of basic psychological needs plays in effective employee motivation.

Taking theory X and theory Y as a starting point, theory Z was developed by Dr. William Ouchi. The theory combines American and Japanese management philosophies and focuses on long-term job security, consensual decision making, slow evaluation and promotion procedures, and individual responsibility within a group context.

Its noble goals include increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life, focusing on the employee’s wellbeing, and encouraging group work and social interaction to motivate employees in the workplace.

There are several implications of these numerous theories on ways to motivate employees. They vary with whatever perspectives leadership ascribes to motivation and how that is cascaded down and incorporated into practices, policies, and culture.

The effectiveness of these approaches is further determined by whether individual preferences for motivation are considered. Nevertheless, various motivational theories can guide our focus on aspects of organizational behavior that may require intervening.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory , for example, implies that for the happiest and most productive workforce, companies need to work on improving both motivator and hygiene factors.

The theory suggests that to help motivate employees, the organization must ensure that everyone feels appreciated and supported, is given plenty of specific and meaningful feedback, and has an understanding of and confidence in how they can grow and progress professionally.

To prevent job dissatisfaction, companies must make sure to address hygiene factors by offering employees the best possible working conditions, fair pay, and supportive relationships.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs , on the other hand, can be used to transform a business where managers struggle with the abstract concept of self-actualization and tend to focus too much on lower level needs. Chip Conley, the founder of the Joie de Vivre hotel chain and head of hospitality at Airbnb, found one way to address this dilemma by helping his employees understand the meaning of their roles during a staff retreat.

In one exercise, he asked groups of housekeepers to describe themselves and their job responsibilities by giving their group a name that reflects the nature and the purpose of what they were doing. They came up with names such as “The Serenity Sisters,” “The Clutter Busters,” and “The Peace of Mind Police.”

These designations provided a meaningful rationale and gave them a sense that they were doing more than just cleaning, instead “creating a space for a traveler who was far away from home to feel safe and protected” (Pattison, 2010). By showing them the value of their roles, Conley enabled his employees to feel respected and motivated to work harder.

The Hawthorne effect studies and Weiner’s three-dimensional theory of attribution have implications for providing and soliciting regular feedback and praise. Recognizing employees’ efforts and providing specific and constructive feedback in the areas where they can improve can help prevent them from attributing their failures to an innate lack of skills.

Praising employees for improvement or using the correct methodology, even if the ultimate results were not achieved, can encourage them to reframe setbacks as learning opportunities. This can foster an environment of psychological safety that can further contribute to the view that success is controllable by using different strategies and setting achievable goals .

Theories X, Y, and Z show that one of the most impactful ways to build a thriving organization is to craft organizational practices that build autonomy, competence, and belonging. These practices include providing decision-making discretion, sharing information broadly, minimizing incidents of incivility, and offering performance feedback.

Being told what to do is not an effective way to negotiate. Having a sense of autonomy at work fuels vitality and growth and creates environments where employees are more likely to thrive when empowered to make decisions that affect their work.

Feedback satisfies the psychological need for competence. When others value our work, we tend to appreciate it more and work harder. Particularly two-way, open, frequent, and guided feedback creates opportunities for learning.

Frequent and specific feedback helps people know where they stand in terms of their skills, competencies, and performance, and builds feelings of competence and thriving. Immediate, specific, and public praise focusing on effort and behavior and not traits is most effective. Positive feedback energizes employees to seek their full potential.

Lack of appreciation is psychologically exhausting, and studies show that recognition improves health because people experience less stress. In addition to being acknowledged by their manager, peer-to-peer recognition was shown to have a positive impact on the employee experience (Anderson, 2018). Rewarding the team around the person who did well and giving more responsibility to top performers rather than time off also had a positive impact.

Stop trying to motivate your employees – Kerry Goyette

Other approaches to motivation at work include those that focus on meaning and those that stress the importance of creating positive work environments.

Meaningful work is increasingly considered to be a cornerstone of motivation. In some cases, burnout is not caused by too much work, but by too little meaning. For many years, researchers have recognized the motivating potential of task significance and doing work that affects the wellbeing of others.

All too often, employees do work that makes a difference but never have the chance to see or to meet the people affected. Research by Adam Grant (2013) speaks to the power of long-term goals that benefit others and shows how the use of meaning to motivate those who are not likely to climb the ladder can make the job meaningful by broadening perspectives.

Creating an upbeat, positive work environment can also play an essential role in increasing employee motivation and can be accomplished through the following:

• Encouraging teamwork and sharing ideas
• Providing tools and knowledge to perform well
• Eliminating conflict as it arises
• Giving employees the freedom to work independently when appropriate
• Helping employees establish professional goals and objectives and aligning these goals with the individual’s self-esteem
• Making the cause and effect relationship clear by establishing a goal and its reward
• Offering encouragement when workers hit notable milestones
• Celebrating employee achievements and team accomplishments while avoiding comparing one worker’s achievements to those of others
• Offering the incentive of a profit-sharing program and collective goal setting and teamwork
• Soliciting employee input through regular surveys of employee satisfaction
• Providing professional enrichment through providing tuition reimbursement and encouraging employees to pursue additional education and participate in industry organizations, skills workshops, and seminars
• Motivating through curiosity and creating an environment that stimulates employee interest to learn more
• Using cooperation and competition as a form of motivation based on individual preferences

Sometimes, inexperienced leaders will assume that the same factors that motivate one employee, or the leaders themselves, will motivate others too. Some will make the mistake of introducing de-motivating factors into the workplace, such as punishment for mistakes or frequent criticism, but negative reinforcement rarely works and often backfires.

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There are several positive psychology interventions that can be used in the workplace to improve important outcomes, such as reduced job stress and increased motivation, work engagement, and job performance. Numerous empirical studies have been conducted in recent years to verify the effects of these interventions.

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Psychological capital interventions

Psychological capital interventions are associated with a variety of work outcomes that include improved job performance, engagement, and organizational citizenship behaviors (Avey, 2014; Luthans & Youssef-Morgan 2017). Psychological capital refers to a psychological state that is malleable and open to development and consists of four major components:

• Self-efficacy and confidence in our ability to succeed at challenging work tasks
• Optimism and positive attributions about the future of our career or company
• Hope and redirecting paths to work goals in the face of obstacles
• Resilience in the workplace and bouncing back from adverse situations (Luthans & Youssef-Morgan, 2017)

Job crafting interventions

Job crafting interventions – where employees design and have control over the characteristics of their work to create an optimal fit between work demands and their personal strengths – can lead to improved performance and greater work engagement (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012; van Wingerden, Bakker, & Derks, 2016).

The concept of job crafting is rooted in the jobs demands–resources theory and suggests that employee motivation, engagement, and performance can be influenced by practices such as (Bakker et al., 2012):

• Attempts to alter social job resources, such as feedback and coaching
• Structural job resources, such as opportunities to develop at work
• Challenging job demands, such as reducing workload and creating new projects

Job crafting is a self-initiated, proactive process by which employees change elements of their jobs to optimize the fit between their job demands and personal needs, abilities, and strengths (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001).

Today’s motivation research shows that participation is likely to lead to several positive behaviors as long as managers encourage greater engagement, motivation, and productivity while recognizing the importance of rest and work recovery.

One key factor for increasing work engagement is psychological safety (Kahn, 1990). Psychological safety allows an employee or team member to engage in interpersonal risk taking and refers to being able to bring our authentic self to work without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career (Edmondson, 1999).

When employees perceive psychological safety, they are less likely to be distracted by negative emotions such as fear, which stems from worrying about controlling perceptions of managers and colleagues.

Dealing with fear also requires intense emotional regulation (Barsade, Brief, & Spataro, 2003), which takes away from the ability to fully immerse ourselves in our work tasks. The presence of psychological safety in the workplace decreases such distractions and allows employees to expend their energy toward being absorbed and attentive to work tasks.

Effective structural features, such as coaching leadership and context support, are some ways managers can initiate psychological safety in the workplace (Hackman, 1987). Leaders’ behavior can significantly influence how employees behave and lead to greater trust (Tyler & Lind, 1992).

Supportive, coaching-oriented, and non-defensive responses to employee concerns and questions can lead to heightened feelings of safety and ensure the presence of vital psychological capital.

Another essential factor for increasing work engagement and motivation is the balance between employees’ job demands and resources.

Job demands can stem from time pressures, physical demands, high priority, and shift work and are not necessarily detrimental. High job demands and high resources can both increase engagement, but it is important that employees perceive that they are in balance, with sufficient resources to deal with their work demands (Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010).

Challenging demands can be very motivating, energizing employees to achieve their goals and stimulating their personal growth. Still, they also require that employees be more attentive and absorbed and direct more energy toward their work (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014).

Unfortunately, when employees perceive that they do not have enough control to tackle these challenging demands, the same high demands will be experienced as very depleting (Karasek, 1979).

This sense of perceived control can be increased with sufficient resources like managerial and peer support and, like the effects of psychological safety, can ensure that employees are not hindered by distraction that can limit their attention, absorption, and energy.

The job demands–resources occupational stress model suggests that job demands that force employees to be attentive and absorbed can be depleting if not coupled with adequate resources, and shows how sufficient resources allow employees to sustain a positive level of engagement that does not eventually lead to discouragement or burnout (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001).

And last but not least, another set of factors that are critical for increasing work engagement involves core self-evaluations and self-concept (Judge & Bono, 2001). Efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, identity, and perceived social impact may be critical drivers of an individual’s psychological availability, as evident in the attention, absorption, and energy directed toward their work.

Self-esteem and efficacy are enhanced by increasing employees’ general confidence in their abilities, which in turn assists in making them feel secure about themselves and, therefore, more motivated and engaged in their work (Crawford et al., 2010).

Social impact, in particular, has become increasingly important in the growing tendency for employees to seek out meaningful work. One such example is the MBA Oath created by 25 graduating Harvard business students pledging to lead professional careers marked with integrity and ethics:

The MBA oath

“As a business leader, I recognize my role in society.

My purpose is to lead people and manage resources to create value that no single individual can create alone.

My decisions affect the well-being of individuals inside and outside my enterprise, today and tomorrow. Therefore, I promise that:

• I will manage my enterprise with loyalty and care, and will not advance my personal interests at the expense of my enterprise or society.
• I will understand and uphold, in letter and spirit, the laws and contracts governing my conduct and that of my enterprise.
• I will refrain from corruption, unfair competition, or business practices harmful to society.
• I will protect the human rights and dignity of all people affected by my enterprise, and I will oppose discrimination and exploitation.
• I will protect the right of future generations to advance their standard of living and enjoy a healthy planet.
• I will report the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.
• I will invest in developing myself and others, helping the management profession continue to advance and create sustainable and inclusive prosperity.

In exercising my professional duties according to these principles, I recognize that my behavior must set an example of integrity, eliciting trust, and esteem from those I serve. I will remain accountable to my peers and to society for my actions and for upholding these standards. This oath, I make freely, and upon my honor.”

Job crafting is the process of personalizing work to better align with one’s strengths, values, and interests (Tims & Bakker, 2010).

Any job, at any level can be ‘crafted,’ and a well-crafted job offers more autonomy, deeper engagement and improved overall wellbeing.

There are three types of job crafting:

• Task crafting involves adding or removing tasks, spending more or less time on certain tasks, or redesigning tasks so that they better align with your core strengths (Berg et al., 2013).
• Relational crafting includes building, reframing, and adapting relationships to foster meaningfulness (Berg et al., 2013).
• Cognitive crafting defines how we think about our jobs, including how we perceive tasks and the meaning behind them.

If you would like to guide others through their own unique job crafting journey, our set of Job Crafting Manuals (PDF) offer a ready-made 7-session coaching trajectory.

Prosocial motivation is an important driver behind many individual and collective accomplishments at work.

It is a strong predictor of persistence, performance, and productivity when accompanied by intrinsic motivation. Prosocial motivation was also indicative of more affiliative citizenship behaviors when it was accompanied by motivation toward impression management motivation and was a stronger predictor of job performance when managers were perceived as trustworthy (Ciulla, 2000).

On a day-to-day basis most jobs can’t fill the tall order of making the world better, but particular incidents at work have meaning because you make a valuable contribution or you are able to genuinely help someone in need.

J. B. Ciulla

Prosocial motivation was shown to enhance the creativity of intrinsically motivated employees, the performance of employees with high core self-evaluations, and the performance evaluations of proactive employees. The psychological mechanisms that enable this are the importance placed on task significance, encouraging perspective taking, and fostering social emotions of anticipated guilt and gratitude (Ciulla, 2000).

Some argue that organizations whose products and services contribute to positive human growth are examples of what constitutes good business (Csíkszentmihályi, 2004). Businesses with a soul are those enterprises where employees experience deep engagement and develop greater complexity.

In these unique environments, employees are provided opportunities to do what they do best. In return, their organizations reap the benefits of higher productivity and lower turnover, as well as greater profit, customer satisfaction, and workplace safety. Most importantly, however, the level of engagement, involvement, or degree to which employees are positively stretched contributes to the experience of wellbeing at work (Csíkszentmihályi, 2004).

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Daniel Pink (2011) argues that when it comes to motivation, management is the problem, not the solution, as it represents antiquated notions of what motivates people. He claims that even the most sophisticated forms of empowering employees and providing flexibility are no more than civilized forms of control.

He gives an example of companies that fall under the umbrella of what is known as results-only work environments (ROWEs), which allow all their employees to work whenever and wherever they want as long their work gets done.

Valuing results rather than face time can change the cultural definition of a successful worker by challenging the notion that long hours and constant availability signal commitment (Kelly, Moen, & Tranby, 2011).

Studies show that ROWEs can increase employees’ control over their work schedule; improve work–life fit; positively affect employees’ sleep duration, energy levels, self-reported health, and exercise; and decrease tobacco and alcohol use (Moen, Kelly, & Lam, 2013; Moen, Kelly, Tranby, & Huang, 2011).

Perhaps this type of solution sounds overly ambitious, and many traditional working environments are not ready for such drastic changes. Nevertheless, it is hard to ignore the quickly amassing evidence that work environments that offer autonomy, opportunities for growth, and pursuit of meaning are good for our health, our souls, and our society.

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Related reading: Motivation in Education: What It Takes to Motivate Our Kids

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Good and helpful study thank you. It will help achieving goals for my clients. Thank you for this information

A lot of data is really given. Validation is correct. The next step is the exchange of knowledge in order to create an optimal model of motivation.

A good article, thank you for sharing. The views and work by the likes of Daniel Pink, Dan Ariely, Barry Schwartz etc have really got me questioning and reflecting on my own views on workplace motivation. There are far too many organisations and leaders who continue to rely on hedonic principles for motivation (until recently, myself included!!). An excellent book which shares these modern views is ‘Primed to Perform’ by Doshi and McGregor (2015). Based on the earlier work of Deci and Ryan’s self determination theory the book explores the principle of ‘why people work, determines how well they work’. A easy to read and enjoyable book that offers a very practical way of applying in the workplace.

Thanks for mentioning that. Sounds like a good read.

All the best, Annelé

Motivation – a piece of art every manager should obtain and remember by heart and continue to embrace.

Exceptionally good write-up on the subject applicable for personal and professional betterment. Simplified theorem appeals to think and learn at least one thing that means an inspiration to the reader. I appreciate your efforts through this contributive work.

Excelente artículo sobre motivación. Me inspira. Gracias

Very helpful for everyone studying motivation right now! It’s brilliant the way it’s witten and also brought to the reader. Thank you.

Such a brilliant piece! A super coverage of existing theories clearly written. It serves as an excellent overview (or reminder for those of us who once knew the older stuff by heart!) Thank you!

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3 Goal Achievement Exercises Pack

What keeps employees motivated

Psychologists are expanding their efforts to get research on what motivates people at work to employers at a time when the workplace is changing dramatically

Vol. 52 No. 7 Print version: page 52

• Personality
• Managing Human Capital

The upheaval of the working world since March 2020 has no precedent in living memory. Some people went home for what they thought would be weeks, only to still be working from home more than a year and a half later. Others were left to struggle through enormous stresses in front-line occupations. It was, in short, a tough year for workplace motivation.

Yet psychological research suggests that there are ways businesses can support their employees moving forward even as the pandemic slips into a new phase of uncertainty. Much of this work comes from decades of research on the impacts of stress in the workplace and how job pressures influence motivation, said James Diefendorff, PhD, an industrial and organizational (I/O) psychologist at the University of Akron.

“Those demands consume regulatory resources, lead to faster emotional exhaustion and depletion, and require more opportunities for replenishment,” Diefendorff said. “It’s just amped up in the context of working under the various additional stressors and demands that the pandemic has introduced.”

Motivation in a pandemic

One of the key findings from I/O psychology over the past several decades is that not all workplace stresses are created equal. Some stressors are hindrances, which are things outside of an employee’s control that feel like barriers to performance: red tape, lack of resources, conflicting goals. Others are challenges, which feel like tasks that a person can overcome while growing and improving. An example of a challenge stressor might be learning a new skill to take on a new job responsibility. A meta-analysis led by Jeffery LePine, PhD, a researcher in organizational behavior at Arizona State University, found that while hindrance stressors crush motivation, challenge stressors actually boost it ( Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 48, No. 5, 2005 ). Research further suggests that people find challenge stressors motivating because they expect that if they put the work in, they can achieve an outcome they value. Hindrance stressors, on the other hand, feel insurmountable—no matter how hard you work, a satisfactory result is out of reach.

Many of the stressors introduced by COVID-19 were hindrance stressors, said Thomas Britt, PhD, an I/O psychologist at Clemson University. This was particularly true in health care, where limited personal protective equipment early in the pandemic put workers at risk. Hindrance stressors also abounded in other professions, such as in education, where teachers had to try to teach in far-from-ideal remote-learning circumstances.

The impact of the pandemic on workers is also clear through the lens of self-determination theory , a framework for understanding motivation developed by psychologists Richard Ryan, PhD, a professor at Australian Catholic University, and Edward Deci, PhD, a professor emeritus at the University of Rochester. Research into self-determination theory finds that three main psychological needs support optimal motivation: autonomy, competence, and relatedness ( Annual Reviews of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior , Vol. 4, 2017 ). The pandemic has been a disaster for all three, said Susan Fowler, a San Diego–based motivation consultant who uses self-determination theory as the basis for her work. Suddenly, many workers were being told they had no choice but to stay home, Fowler said. They were being asked to do things that made them feel bumbling and helpless, such as interacting solely via Zoom. And the necessity of social distancing meant they were often isolated from their colleagues.

At the same time, working from home reduced hindrance stressors—such as commutes—for some workers. Researchers, clinicians, and coaches alike are now tapping into basic research to show people how to connect with their own motivation and goals, especially when external circumstances challenge them.

“Motivation researchers are active in workplaces, classrooms, sports . . . pretty much anywhere people would be engaged,” Ryan said. “We want to find out, what are the internal factors that facilitate that engagement?”

Building optimal motivation

Research has turned up several good answers to that question. One of the most motivating experiences employees can have is making progress on a meaningful task, said Teresa Amabile, PhD, a social and organizational psychologist at Harvard Business School. Amabile and her colleagues asked more than 200 employees at seven companies in the tech, chemical, and consumer products industries to write daily diary entries describing events at work and rate their own feelings of intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, creativity, and collegiality, among other measures. They also collected periodic ratings of the workers’ creativity from colleagues ( Administrative Science Quarterly , Vol. 50, No. 3, 2005 ).

“We could look at how the events that were occurring impacted their intrinsic motivation and their creativity,” Amabile said.

When people reported more intrinsic motivation, their creativity simultaneously rose, she said. So did other desirable states such as productivity, collegiality, and commitment to work. And what spurred intrinsic motivation? Amabile and her team found that the most powerful precursor was the feeling of making progress at meaningful work.

“Here’s what’s interesting: It doesn’t have to be a huge breakthrough,” Amabile said. “It can be small, almost trivial, steps forward.”

This finding fit with previous I/O psychology research. For example, job characteristics theory, developed in 1975 by Greg Oldham, PhD, an I/O psychologist now at Tulane University, and J. Richard Hackman, PhD, a social psychologist now at Harvard University, holds that meaningfulness is one of the three factors leading to motivation, along with responsibility and knowledge of results.

Anecdotal reports during the pandemic suggest that the winnowing effect of work-from-home policies actually boosted feelings of progress for many employees, Amabile said. With time freed from long commutes, random coworker interruptions, and morning makeup and hair-care routines, workers often felt they got more meaningful work done each day.

However, there are caveats to the benefits of meaningful work, said Britt. He and his colleagues surveyed U.S. working adults in multiple industries using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website during the pandemic and found that mental health symptoms after hindrance stressors were more severe in those who felt a “calling” to their work ( Work & Stress , Vol. 35, No. 2, 2021 ). “Encountering these demands that you can’t control and that harm your performance is going to be particularly impactful for those who feel called to do the work and feel the work is highly important,” Britt said.

Furthermore, in a study of emergency department physicians, Britt and his colleagues found that a sense of meaning in work did not buffer doctors from mental health strain early in the pandemic ( Applied Psychology , online first publication, 2020 ). That was a surprise, Britt said, but it may indicate that when hindrance stressors become too overwhelming, a sense of purpose isn’t enough to rescue one’s sense of well-being at work.

Leading to motivate

One lesson from these findings is that workplaces need to make sure their employees have the basic resources they need to perform their job duties, Britt said. In times of crisis, workers also need extra time to rest and recover from stress. Listening to employee feedback and responding to their needs can help administrators and managers reduce hindrance stressors among their workers.

There are also strategies that workers themselves can use to boost their own motivation, Diefendorff said. These range from motivation-control strategies, such as setting subgoals and rewards for meeting them, to attention-control strategies to minimize disruptions and interruptions. Emotion-regulation strategies such as minimizing anxiety and worry can also be helpful for goal-setting, he said. But workers might also need to recognize when they’re too tapped out to use these strategies effectively. “You have to have self-compassion, which basically means cutting yourself some slack as a way to give yourself the time and space you need to try to recover your depleted resources,” Diefendorff said.

In general, Amabile said, managers can help by encouraging employees to see ways in which their work is meaningful and by providing clear goals and benchmarks for progress. Step back, micromanagers: The most motivationally beneficial leadership style is one that encourages employees to manage their own workflows and solve their own problems.

This style is called leader autonomy support, and it’s characterized by a manager who encourages their employees to self-initiate tasks, to share their own perspectives, and to make their own choices, while still stepping in to support them when needed.

A meta-analysis led by Ryan found that leader autonomy support fosters employees’ sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness within the workplace, which boosts autonomous work motivation. This self-derived motivation, in turn, is linked to feelings of well-being and engagement as well as declines in distress and improvements in positive behaviors at work ( Motivation and Emotion , Vol. 42, No. 5, 2018 ). The meta-analysis included studies from multiple countries, including Iran, the Philippines, Korea, Bulgaria, Holland, China, New Zealand, and South Africa. Ryan said that this beneficial effect of leader autonomy support seemed to hold in workplaces worldwide and that autonomy improved productivity, commitment, and satisfaction with work in both collectivist and individualistic societies.

“Regardless of culture, if you don’t have a sense of freedom and choice in your work activities, your well-being is undermined,” Ryan said.

Putting research in action

With the onset of the pandemic, motivational experts, like many other workers, moved online. Ryan and his colleagues at his consulting business, motivationWorks , found themselves coaching business leaders dealing with vastly different circumstances. Managers suddenly working with largely remote teams had to find ways to support their employees’ sense of competence to help them tackle the challenges that remote work created, Ryan said. Managers overseeing essential workers, on the other hand, faced a different set of issues.

“Especially in the health care industry, where we are doing extensive work, job stressors were manifold,” Ryan said. “Here, again, autonomy-supportive leaders were better able to hear and respond to the needs of their employees, which was crucial during this challenging period.”

Motivation research applies to a broad range of workplaces, far beyond the stereotypical white-collar office setting. Ryan and his colleagues found, for example, that autonomy, feelings of competence, and feelings of relatedness or connection within the workplace all positively influence job satisfaction and general mental health in a factory setting ( Journal of Applied Social Psychology , Vol. 23, No. 21, 1993 ). A case study led by Philip Cheng-Fei Tsai, PhD, of Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages in Taiwan, that analyzed a Taiwanese manufacturing company undergoing a downsizing found that while managers thought factory workers were most motivated by the company’s salary and benefit structure and the opportunity for education and training, the factory workers were actually most driven by relationships with their colleagues and the extent to which their jobs allowed them to cultivate their relationships with their families ( Journal of World Business , Vol. 42, No. 2, 2007 ).

“In context where people can feel a sense of autonomy, where they can feel a sense of competence, and where they can feel connected and related to the people around them, that’s where they have the highest-quality motivation,” Ryan said.

Fowler saw a particularly emotional example of this in her work with a large construction firm during the pandemic. A supervisor she was working with noticed that one of his employees was frequently late and struggling at work. The supervisor made a stab at connection and asked the employee if he was homeschooling his kids, pointing out that remote learning was a struggle in his own home. The employee broke down. His wife was an emergency room nurse, he said. They had two kids in early elementary school and no family help. He was working around the clock to try to juggle it all.

The supervisor called together his team and explained the situation. Working together, the rest of the team shuffled their own schedules to make life easier for the struggling father. The result, the supervisor told Fowler, was that the entire staff felt like they were doing something good. Given choice and autonomy, they could support the family of a health care worker and feel a sense of connectedness rather than inconvenience.

“[The supervisor] said, ‘I learned that being empathetic and just having a casual conversation with someone may be one of the greatest gifts I can give my people as a leader,’” Fowler said.

Emotional connection can be powerful. In his work with business leaders, clinical and organizational psychologist and consultant George Kohlrieser, PhD, focuses on bonding. This can be a hard sell in some business cultures—he counts among his success stories a ­heavy-machinery dealership in South Carolina where he helped change the culture from one of aloof detachment to one where employees felt bonded to one another. Such connections foster employees’ sense of psychological safety, or the feeling that the workplace is a safe environment to take risks and be vulnerable.

With vaccination widely available in the United States, employers are increasingly calling workers back into offices. They’ll need to feel safe there—not only from new outbreaks of COVID-19 but also from the new uncertainties introduced by a year or more of remote work. Many industries are turning to hybrid solutions for employees who can work from home and who have realized that they don’t want to go back to cubicles and commutes, Ryan said.

“People have been able to experience firsthand that they can self-regulate their work efforts and also balance work demands with the things that matter most outside of work,” Ryan said. “Their horizons have been expanded, and I think we will see increasing demands for empowering work conditions.”

The key detail to making this work, Fowler said, is ensuring that every employee gets equal consideration, even if the ultimate workplace arrangement isn’t the same across the entire company. Some jobs require face time more than others, she said, but those employees should still have their needs considered and be offered as much autonomy as possible. Certain types of job training or mentoring, for example, might need to be done in person, but employees could still get opportunities to autonomously decide when or how they fulfill these responsibilities.

“Not everyone is going to get the same deal, but everyone should have the same consideration and conversation,” Fowler said.

Life span motivation

Not all workplace­relevant research starts out in studies of employees. Carol S. Dweck, PhD, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, did much of her early research on how the types of goals people have influence their levels of motivation in school. She found that when students were motivated by the desire to learn and become better at something, they bounced back from failure much more readily than when they were motivated by external carrots and sticks, such as the desire to get outside approval or avoid negative judgment ( Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Vol. 54, No. 1, 1988 ). Out of this research, Dweck and her colleagues coined the well-known notion of a “growth mindset,” which views intelligence as malleable and failure as an opportunity to learn.

Expanding out of the educational system, Dweck and her colleagues have discovered that their growth mindset framework applies in workplaces. For example, they’ve found that the more that employees view their company leadership as cultivating a growth mindset—rather than a fixed mindset in which ability and intelligence are immutable—the greater trust and commitment they have in their organization ( Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings , 2018 ).

Researchers who study motivation in schools also provide perspective on how to teach motivation habits early, as well as how to avoid squelching kids’ intrinsic motivation before they even get their first job interview. These lessons may be particularly important as children return to the classroom after a year of disruptions and remote learning.

“There is pretty strong research that shows that the motivation in academic subjects during adolescence is an extremely strong predictor of people’s career trajectories later in life,” said Eric Anderman, PhD, a professor of educational psychology at The Ohio State University. Unfortunately, the traditional incentives of education don’t do much to kindle that motivation.

“As kids move up through the grades, the focus of school—the purpose of school—becomes more about getting grades and doing well and less about learning,” Anderman said.

Paralleling Dweck’s findings, Anderman and his colleagues have found that taking a mastery-based approach to education rather than a reward-based approach can improve motivation-related outcomes like task efficacy, knowledge, and behavioral intentions ( Journal of Educational Psychology , Vol. 112, No. 5, 2020 ). The hope is that instilling these habits early can immunize people against the motivation-killing norms they might face in the work world.

“In terms of preparing people for the real world, we do have to acknowledge that workplaces are competitive and there are going to be extrinsic outcomes,” Anderman said. “But it’s how we train people to cope with it. We don’t want to send them out of school with the message that they have to be number one at everything.” 

Further reading

Mindfulness and its association with varied types of motivation: A systematic review and meta-analysis using self-determination theory Donald, J. N., et al., Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 2020

Toward a new curriculum of leadership competencies: Advances in motivation science call for rethinking leadership development Fowler, S., Advances in Developing Human Resources , 2018

Student motivation and associated outcomes: A meta-analysis from self-determination theory Howard, J. L., et al., Perspectives on Psychological Science , 2021

Motivating workers: how leaders apply self-determination theory in organizations

Organization Management Journal

ISSN : 2753-8567

Article publication date: 14 December 2020

Issue publication date: 14 December 2020

Self-determination theory (SDT), offers a theoretical framework for enhancing employee motivation and stimulating positive outcomes such as commitment, well-being and engagement, in organizations. This paper aims to investigate the application of SDT among leaders and delineate practical managerial approaches for supporting basic psychological needs in the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants were 51 leaders who had personally applied SDT with their own followers. Data were collected via free-listing method and analysed to extrapolate examples of SDT-application that are both practically salient and aligned to theoretic tenets of SDT.

The findings reveal how SDT is operationalized by leaders to support basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness in the workplace. The SDT-informed management strategies are discussed in relation to the literature and alongside case scenarios to illustrate approaches for integrating elements of SDT into day-to-day management activities.

Originality/value

Despite extensive literature support for SDT, very little empirical attention has been paid to examining how the theory is applied, interpreted and/or used by practitioners in real world settings. This research is the first to draw on the lived-experience of practitioners who have applied SDT, contributes previously unexplored strategies for supporting workers’ basic psychological needs and responds to calls for SDT research to identify a broader range of managerial behaviours that support employee motivation.

• Self-determination theory
• Basic psychological needs
• Organization
• Workplace motivation
• Employee motivation

Forner, V.W. , Jones, M. , Berry, Y. and Eidenfalk, J. (2020), "Motivating workers: how leaders apply self-determination theory in organizations", Organization Management Journal , Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 76-94. https://doi.org/10.1108/OMJ-03-2020-0891

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020, Vivien Weisz Forner, Michael Jones, Yoke Berry and Joakim Eidenfalk.

Published in Organization Management Journal . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence maybe seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Understanding how to motivate organizational members is a critical component of effective management. The quality of workers’ motivation is predictive not only of their commitment and work effort but also their overall engagement, well-being and performance in their job ( Gagné et al. , 2014 ; Kuvaas et al. , 2017 ; Sisley, 2010 ; Springer, 2011 ). Leaders and managers play a pivotal role in shaping motivation in the workplace and facilitating these beneficial outcomes ( Graves and Luciano, 2010 ; Miniotaitė and Bučiūnienė, 2013 ; Oostlander et al. , 2014 ). However, despite their critical role in initiating and sustaining motivational processes, many leaders and managers are often unsure of what to say or do to effectively engage and motivate organizational members. Traditional management approaches ( Taylor, 1911 ) have tended to rely on leveraging authority and/or organizational reward systems to influence worker behaviour. Companies in the USA and Europe continue to increase their use ( Bryson et al. , 2012 ) and spend ( WorldatWork, 2018 ) on financial-based incentives to motivate employees. For example, employee equity ownership, just on the type of performance-pay incentive program, is estimated to be worth around $1,061bn in the USA alone (Day and Fitton, 2008 ). Developments in the field of motivation have questioned the effectiveness of extrinsic rewards as motivators and research has revealed leaders can achieve superior and sustained motivational outcomes by adopting supportive interpersonal approaches and creating a positive climate for their team members ( Deci et al. , 2017 ). The important question then becomes, what theoretically informed strategies can leaders and managers use to effectively motivate people in organizations?

Self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan and Deci, 2019) is a prominent theory of motivation that offers leaders an evidence-based framework for how to effectively motivate workers. SDT delineates the social-contextual factors, including leaders’ interpersonal style, that predict high quality motivation in the workplace ( Deci et al. , 2017 ). The theory posits human beings have three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness) which are essential ingredients for motivation, well-being and optimal functioning ( Deci and Ryan, 2014 ). When workers’ basic psychological needs are met they are more likely to be autonomously motivated, that is they are personally invested in their work tasks and engage in their work activities willingly ( Deci and Ryan, 2014 ; Van den Broeck et al. , 2016 ). The satisfaction of worker’s basic psychological needs also stimulates a wide range of other beneficial work-related outcomes such as well-being, job satisfaction, commitment and performance ( Arshadia, 2010 ; Baard et al. , 2004 ; Deci and Ryan, 2014 ; Van den Broeck et al. , 2016 ). SDT provides a valuable theoretic model for understanding the social-psychological impact of management in an organization. The theory also has substantial utility for leaders seeking guidance on how to motivate their followers because the three basic psychological needs delineate dimensions of the environment and provide trigger points, that facilitate positive motivational outcomes ( Baard et al. , 2004 ).

Despite a large body of research support for SDT in the workplace, there is currently very little empirical guidance for leaders seeking to translate the theory into practice. To date, only a small number of articles have published practical strategies or managerial behaviours that satisfy basic psychological needs in organizations ( Baard and Baard, 2009 ; Stone et al. , 2009 ). Furthermore, recommendations offered by academics tend to be theoretical in nature and, while helpful, may not be fully relevant or applicable given the complexities of organizations and barriers faced by managers in the field. Addressing the future direction for SDT research, Deci and Ryan (2014) called for more exploration of how managers can carry out their specific functions in ways that are need supportive rather than thwarting. The current paper contributes to addressing this gap in the literature by examining the operationalization of SDT in organizations and investigating how leaders support workers’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness in-practice.

Self-determination theory and basic psychological needs

SDT ( Deci and Ryan, 1985 ) is an influential theory of motivation in the twenty-first century that is concerned with understanding how to facilitate and sustain high quality motivation. According to SDT, all human beings have three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Workers are optimally motivated and experience well-being to the extent that these three needs are satisfied in their work climate ( Ryan and Deci, 2002 ). Autonomy refers to workers’ need to experience choice in their role, have the freedom to make decisions, express their ideas and have input in deciding how their tasks get done. The primary focus of autonomy is on people’s need to be volitional and self-initiate their own actions, rather than be controlled and directed by others ( Deci and Ryan, 1987 ). Competence represents workers’ need to feel effective, successful and that they are good at their job ( Van den Broeck et al. , 2010 ). The need for competence is satisfied when workers have opportunities to use their skills and develop mastery of their tasks. Finally, humans are social creatures and relatedness reflects the need to experience a sense of belonging and feeling accepted and cared for by others ( Ryan and Deci, 2017 ). A worker’s need for relatedness is satisfied when they feel part of the group and have supportive relationships and friends at work. SDT considers autonomy, competence and relatedness to be essential ingredients for sustained motivation and nutrients for individual growth, well-being and thriving ( Ryan and Deci, 2002 ). Leaders who enable satisfaction of these three needs promote high quality motivation where workers personally endorse and willingly participate in their work activities.

Basic psychological needs: ingredients for autonomous motivation.

The satisfaction of a worker’s basic psychological needs affects the type of motivation the individual has towards their job activities. When managers support autonomy, competence and relatedness, employees are more likely to be autonomously motivated ( Van den Broeck et al. , 2016 ). Autonomously motivated employees engage in their work with a full sense of willingness, understand the worth and purpose of their job and are self-determined in carrying out work tasks ( Ryan and Deci, 2017 ). Autonomously motivated workers reliably perform better, learn better and are happier at work ( Deci et al. , 2017 ). In contrast, when a person’s basic psychological needs are not met their motivation deteriorates and becomes controlled. Controlled motivation is characterized by an employee doing an activity because they feel they “have to” and/or to obtain a separable outcome ( Ryan and Deci, 2017 ). Controlled behaviours are contingent on reward, power dynamics or driven by internal pressure such as guilt or to maintain self-esteem. Compared to controlled motivation, autonomous motivation yields better behavioural outcomes (e.g. sustained willing participation) positive subjective experiences, less job stress and higher satisfaction in the workplace ( Fernet and Austin, 2014; Gagné et al. , 2010 ).

Basic psychological needs and positive outcomes in the workplace.

SDT research in organizations has shown basic psychological need satisfaction to be associated with a wide range of positive employee outcomes, beyond autonomous motivation. The satisfaction of basic psychological needs has been associated with lower turnover, improved well-being, higher job satisfaction and positive job attitudes ( Gillet et al. , 2012 ; Vansteenkiste et al. , 2007 ). A recent meta-analysis of 99 studies reported that each of the three needs predicted lower turnover intention and were associated with higher job satisfaction, engagement and affective commitment ( Van den Broeck et al. , 2016 ). Beneficial outcomes of need satisfaction have also been found in studies conducted within the volunteer context ( Haivas et al. , 2012 ). For example, Boezeman and Ellemers (2009) examined the way in which volunteers derive their job satisfaction and intent to remain. The results showed that when volunteers experience the satisfaction of autonomy and relatedness needs during their volunteer work, they are more satisfied with their volunteer job and that this, in turn, enhances their intent to remain a volunteer with the volunteer organization.

Overall, SDT’s basic psychological needs have substantial application value because they offer leaders a simple framework outlining the conditions that promote high quality motivation and beneficial outcomes among their workers. The interpersonal approach of leaders, the way they communicate and relate to their followers, is considered paramount in creating a need-supportive climate and shaping motivation in an organization ( Deci et al. , 1989 ). The critical issue for leaders, therefore, becomes understanding how they can apply SDT and support basic psychological needs in their own organizations.

A gap between self-determination theory and practice in organizations.

A disconnect between theory and practice ( Van De Ven and Johnson, 2006 ; Zaccaro and Horn, 2003 ) within SDT research is currently limiting leaders from diffusing this valuable knowledge into managerial practice. SDT literature in the work domain has focused primarily on theoretical testing, measurement of SDT-related constructs and investigating the model’s nomological network ( Deci et al. , 2017 ; Gagné and Deci, 2005 ; Ryan and Deci, 2019 ; Van den Broeck et al. , 2016 ). In contrast, very little empirical attention has been paid to examining how the theory is applied, interpreted and/or used by practitioners in real world settings. Only a few SDT-based field experiments or quasi-experiments have been undertaken in the work domain ( Deci et al. , 1989 ; Forner, 2019 ; Hardré and Reeve, 2009 ; Jungert et al. , 2018 ), revealing that researchers have, thus far, done very little to integrate the theory into practically useful organizational interventions or actions. Tangible managerial behaviours or practical strategies that support workers basic psychological needs in the workplace are rarely published ( Baard and Baard, 2009; Stone et al. , 2009 ) and SDT researchers have called for studies to “examine concrete workplace tasks, characteristics and managerial behaviours” ( Deci et al. , 2017 , p. 37). The immense popularity of practitioner-oriented books on motivation ( Pink, 2009 ) highlights both the significance of this topic for business professionals and the opportunity for SDT scholars to have a greater impact on informing and shaping employee motivation practices in organizations. The current disconnect presents a problem for managers, HR professionals and fellow academics seeking to use SDT to solve real business problems because there is limited empirical guidance to help them operationalize the theory clearly, within the complexities of strategic organizations and to take appropriate and effective action. The present research contributes towards addressing this issue.

Present research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of SDT among leaders and delineate practical managerial approaches for supporting basic psychological needs in the workplace. To investigate the phenomenon of SDT-based leadership the research asks: how do leaders apply SDT, when carrying out their day-to-day managerial functions, to support workers’ needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness? This study is the first draw upon the lived experience of practitioners, specifically organizational leaders, who have operationalized the theory into actions and have personally applied SDT in their organization. Consistent with engaged scholarship ( Van de Ven, 2007 ), the study aims to leverage theoretic knowledge of SDT scholars alongside the insights and applied experience of practitioners to delineate examples of basic psychological need support that are practically salient and aligned to the theoretic tenets of SDT. In doing so, this paper contributes to bridging the theory-practice gap and further expands our understanding of what leaders do to motivate organizational members.

Participants

Examples of SDT application were proposed by 51 leaders, who had learned and personally applied SDT with their own followers in the workplace. The participants were paid ( n = 22) and volunteer ( n = 29) leaders of emergency service organizations. They occupied leadership roles across various levels of the organization including, for example, group leaders, deputy local controllers, regional managers and managers of departments. The leaders had an average of six years (SD = 8) managerial experience in the volunteer/non-profit sector. A total of 76% had also gained managerial experience in corporate and public sector organizations, with an average of 8.4 years (SD = 10.2) managerial experience. They were aged between 25 and 62 years (M = 44, SD = 10) and had been members of the organization for an average of nine years (SD = 8). In total, 58% of the leaders were male and 42% were female.

Learning and application of Self-determination theory by leaders.

Prior to contributing to this study, the leaders spent nine weeks learning about and personally applying SDT in their organization. This process was facilitated through a structured SDT-based leadership intervention, comprising of three phases. The aim of the first phase was for leaders to learn the theory and consider how they would apply the model in their own organizational context. Leaders were introduced to SDT via a face-to-face training day where they received information, took part in workshop discussions, role plays and reflection exercises and created individual action plans for how they would support their followers’ basic psychological needs. The learning content and the conceptual definitions of key constructs were drawn from published research ( Deci et al. , 1989 ; Deci and Ryan, 2008 ; Stone et al. , 2009 ). Next, the leaders completed a nine-week on-the-job learning program. The purpose of this second phase was to prompt leaders to practice their new skills and knowledge in the workplace and for them to identify and try various strategies and approaches for supporting followers’ basic psychological needs during their day to day management activities and reflect on their outcomes. Leaders were facilitated through three cycles of experiential learning ( Kolb, 2014 ) where they implemented their action plan for supporting basic psychological needs, completed post-implementation reflection activities, received mentoring, revised their action plan and completed further theoretical readings. Practice-based learning and multiple delivery methods have been found to be critical for effective leadership learning ( Lacerenza et al. , 2017 ). The final phase comprising a community of practice ( Li et al. , 2009 ) where the leaders came together to share their experiences with each other, identify successful SDT application actions and discuss barriers and challenges they encountered. Further details and information on how the intervention was designed and delivered, including research evaluating its impact on leaders and followers, can be found in Forner (2019) . The quasi-experimental research, which included the sample of leaders in the present study, showed the nine-week intervention significantly changed leaders’ interpersonal orientation towards supporting basic psychological needs and improvement in the leaders was still evident one year after the training.

Data collection.

Data for this present study were collected from leaders at the end of the nine-week intervention using the free-listing methodology ( Quinlan, 2019 ). Free-listing is a well-established ethnographic method that, when coupled with an appropriate analytical technique, enables researchers to elicit and synthesize a coherent view of collective understanding of a domain and indicate which of those things are most important or salient within the group ( Quinlan, 2019 ; Thomson et al. , 2012 ; Weller and Romney, 1988 ). A free list is a mental inventory of items individuals think of within a given domain. In the generalized free-listing protocol ( Bousfield and Barclay, 1950; Thomson et al. , 2012 ) participants are directed to list as many items that “come to mind” within a constrained time-period. The elicited list items are then analysed together and “salience” of each item is calculated. The free-listing activity for the present study followed the generalized protocol and was facilitated as a face-to-face group session. The participating leaders were provided with information about the purpose of the activity and instructed to list strategies and actions detailing “what leaders […] can do to apply SDT and create an optimally motivating climate for their follower”. The exercise was constrained to 20 min and leaders were asked to draw upon their own experience of applying SDT to list as many SDT-informed actions that come to mind. The leaders developed their free lists in small groups of up to five people per group. Next, leaders were given 40 min to write short (one paragraph) case scenarios describing the implementation of two of the actions on their list. The free lists and case scenarios were written by the leaders on a paper-based template. Each group submitted a list of SDT-informed leader actions and two case scenarios. They were advised that the examples would be shared with other practising leaders to help illuminate how SDT is applied in organizations.

A total of 42 SDT-informed leadership examples were submitted across the free lists. The submissions were analysed to identify those SDT-informed leadership examples that were both practically salient to the leaders themselves and aligned to the theoretic tenets of SDT. Firstly, a practical salience score was derived for each submission. Free-listing practical salience score analysis exposes commonalities in the collective understanding of a domain and items that are most important or salient within the culture/group ( Quinlan, 2019 ; Thomson et al. , 2012 ). It is based on the premise that earlier listed items tend to be most familiar to the lister and also more likely to occur across multiple lists ( Bousfield and Barclay, 1950 ), signalling their cultural salience. Following Smith (1993) and Quinlan (2019) , the salience statistic was calculated by rating each submission according to its frequency , the number of times similar items occur across multiple lists and its rank , the order in which participants list their items. The frequency and rank values were combined to produce a practical salience score – an indicator of the submitted example’s practical significance to the leaders. The practical salience scores ranged between 2 and 70 with higher numbers indicating greater practical salience.

A theoretical fit score was also derived for each submission. Three experts, who had academic expertise in both SDT and leadership theory, independently evaluated the 42 free-list item submissions. Firstly, the expert categorized each submission by indicating which basic psychological needs they judged to best fit the example (i.e. autonomy, competence or relatedness). Next, they rated, on a scale from 1 (very weak fit) to 5 (strongly aligned to theory), the strength of that fit to the theory. For example, the expert rater may categorize an item to be most representative of support for autonomy, relative to competence or relatedness and might indicate that the item’s alignment to SDT’s conceptualization of autonomy is somewhat weak by, rating it a 2. Various methods have been proposed to combine experts’ ratings ( Uebersax, 1993 ). In the present study, there was 100% consensus amongst raters on the basic psychologist need category attached to each example. The theoretical fit rating across the three experts were therefore aggregated to produce a mean theoretical fit score.

Finally, the “practical salience” and “theoretical fit values” were standardized and combined to indicate a joint theoretical and practical appraisal of each submission. This was done by first converting raw scores into z -scores ( z = ( x – μ )/ σ ) and then summing the practical salience with theoretical fit z -score derived for each example. Sample means and standard deviations for standardizing practical salience were μ = 18.84, σ = 17.76 and theoretical fit were μ = 2.66, σ = 1.65, respectively. The z -score enables the comparison and in this instance combination, of two scores that are from different distributions and/or scales. By using standard scores, practical salience and theoretical fit had equal weighting when summed to produce the combined score. For example, a submission with low theoretical alignment ( x = 2, z = –0.4) but high practical salience ( x = 70, z = 2.9) had a combined score of 2.5. Higher combined scores indicate that the submission has strong practical significance and theoretical fit.

Results and discussion of findings

In this section, we present and discuss practical examples for how leaders support autonomy, relatedness and competence in the workplace. The examples and illustrative scenarios were provided by practising leaders and draws upon their lived experience of applying SDT and supporting the basic psychological needs of their team members. This section comprises two parts. The first part, Part A – How managers support basic psychological needs , presents the highest scoring examples for each of the basic psychological needs, autonomy, competence and relatedness. High scoring examples are those with both strong practical significance for leaders and good alignment to the theory. To provide easily digestible information for practitioners we focus on five examples for each of the basic psychological needs. Next, in Part B – exemplar case scenarios we present and discuss short scenarios illustrating how need-supportive actions are implemented by leaders in day-to-day managerial practice. Three cases, composed by leader participants, describe how they applied SDT in their organizational context and implemented actions to support the basic psychological needs of their followers. Each case scenario is accompanied by a theoretical interpretation, highlighting the basic psychological needs being supported. While, Part A focuses on examples of “what” leaders do to support basic psychological needs, Part B scenarios offer a description of “how” they do it. The examples are discussed in relation to SDT, the literature and practice.

Part A. How leaders apply the principals of basic psychological needs in the workplace

Autonomy represents workers’ basic need to experience a sense of freedom and choice when carrying out an activity and to have some level of control in how they go about their own work ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ; Van den Broeck et al. , 2010 ). The hallmark of autonomy is an internal locus of causality ( De Charms, 1968 ) whereby people experience ownership of their behaviours and perceive them as being self-initiated. Five practical examples, proposed by organizational leaders and managers, for how to support workers’ basic psychological need for autonomy are presented in Table 1 .

The findings reveal leaders support workers’ need for autonomy by providing a platform for team members to express their ideas and suggestions. Two examples submitted by leaders included encourage innovation and provide workers with opportunities to express their ideas . Innovation is where team members generate and implement novel ideas, new processes or better ways of doing things which are useful to the team. Leadership styles that are constructive, empowering and transformational are positively associated with both creativity and innovation ( Hughes et al. , 2018 ). When leaders are open to their workers’ ideas and suggestions and provide a safe environment for people to express their opinions, they send a clear signal that innovation and creativity are encouraged ( Ye et al. , 2019 ). Leaders sustain and enhance motivation, creativity and innovation by listening to workers’ suggestions and empowering then to action their ideas or at least explore them further ( Liu et al. , 2011 ; Sun et al. , 2012 ).

Providing full freedom for workers to pursue their own ideas and interests is not always realistic or desirable in the workplace. Strategies were also provided for how leaders support followers’ need for autonomy when workplace tasks and decisions are handed down by the organization or manager. These examples were: consult with those who are affected by your decisions , be less prescriptive in assigning tasks and provide a rationale for decisions where possible . Leaders in the present study support autonomy by inviting others into the decision-making process and consulting with those who will implement or be affected by others’ decisions. Greater worker participation in decision-making has been linked to beneficial outcomes such as job satisfaction and improved performance in the workplace ( Grissom, 2012 ; Scott-Ladd et al. , 2006 ). Participative or consultative decision-making satisfies people’s need for autonomy by providing a platform for them to express their ideas and feelings, as well as having input and some control in their work activities. The language leaders use in communicating their decisions and assigning tasks is also critical for supporting autonomy ( Deci and Ryan, 1987 ). Providing a rationale or explanation for why a decision was made is one way that leaders support their followers to recognize the importance and value of a certain course of action. Previous laboratory research suggests that providing people with a meaningful rational helps them internalize the decision, come to accept it and even autonomously endorse it ( Deci et al. , 1994 ). When assigning tasks to members of the team, leaders can support autonomy and intrinsic motivation by avoiding controlling or enforcing language, such as “must” or “should” ( Ryan, 1982 ) and instead invite workers to decide how they go about achieving the task assigned to them.

Autonomy examples represented the smallest portion (19%) of the 42 SDT-informed actions submitted by leaders. This may reflect the contextual challenges of supporting autonomy in an organizational setting. Rather than being free to do as they wish, organizational members must operate within existing structures/processes and their tasks and responsibilities are set for them by the organization. The participants in this study, for example, led organizations where workers must adhere to strict safety procedures specifying how they must carry out their tasks. The small portion of submissions focusing on autonomy may suggest it is more challenging for leaders to implement this element of the theory as they must find a way to balance autonomy with organizational requirements. While providing full autonomy is not always possible, the examples above offer ways in which leaders can provide opportunities for autonomy as often as possible in the day-to-day running of the unit. Finally, it may be that the conception of autonomy need support, as it is described within the academic literature, is less clear and practitioners find this aspect of the theory more challenging to understand and operationalize. Indeed, it can be observed that the term autonomy is included within many theoretically distinct SDT constructs including, for example, autonomy: a basic psychological need ( Van den Broeck et al. , 2016 ), autonomy orientation: an individual difference in causality orientation ( Hagger and Chatzisarantis, 2011 ) and, autonomy-support: an interpersonal style ( Slemp et al. , 2018 ). To support the application of SDT, it may be necessary for scholars to recognize the potential for conceptual confusion or uncertainty and seek to emphasize the points of divergence across these constructs and accentuate these in their conceptualizations and definitions.

Competence.

The basic psychological need for competence represents workers’ desire to feel effective and successful in their role. According to SDT, leaders support competence by creating a positive learning environment and providing opportunities for others to use their skills and further develop them through optimally challenging tasks ( Deci and Ryan, 2014 ). Competence represented the largest portion of examples (48%) submitted by leaders in this study. This may indicate that leaders are more experienced in this area or that this element of SDT was more readily understood. Table 2 presents the five practical examples, proposed by organizational leaders and managers, for how to support workers’ basic psychological need for competence.

Leaders who participated in this study support competence by creating opportunities for followers to build their skills, capabilities and self confidence in a safe and supportive environment. Two examples provided by leaders included provide development and learning opportunities and let team members learn at their own pace . There are many ways leaders can offer workers opportunities for education and personal development and these have positive motivational effects ( Stone et al. , 2009 ). For example, leaders can facilitate on-the-job learning opportunities by providing optimally challenging workplace assignments, offering team members opportunities to take on new tasks, letting someone lead a project or providing an opportunity to take on increased responsibilities ( Berings et al. , 2005 ). Being considerate to also maintain autonomy, leaders should avoid imposing development activities without consultation or involvement from the follower. Rather, leaders might take time to understand the individual development interests and needs of their team members and involve them in devising ideas and suggestions for their own learning and development activities. By understanding each followers’ development aspirations, skill level and capabilities, leaders can support their followers to learn autonomously and at their own pace, further building motivational resources.

Leaders further support competence by helping build self-esteem and confidence , which represents another example provided by leaders in this study. Self-esteem refers to workers’ overall self-evaluation of their own competencies and capabilities. Self-esteem and confidence at work are known to be affected, in part, by an individual’s organizational experiences of success and communication and messages of their manager and peers ( Pierce and Gardner, 2004 ). Successful task/work experiences, such as completing a project or achieving a milestone, will bolster self-esteem, whereas failure has the opposite effect. Messages of value and respect for the worker from the manager also contributes towards workers coming to hold a positive image of themselves. To this end, it can help build people’s self-confidence in their own skills by providing optimally challenging yet achievable work goals, acknowledging progress, using people’s strengths and offering authentic non-judgemental support.

Another key strategy to support competence and promote motivation is through offering regular positive and constructive feedback . Positive feedback signals to the follower that they have performed well, are skilled and can succeed. Positive feedback or praise, relative to no feedback or negative feedback, is especially motivating and has been linked to higher levels of well-being, task interest and ongoing participation in the activity ( Deci et al. , 1999 ; Mouratidis, 2008 ). The language leaders use to communicate with their follower is critical and determines whether the feedback is received positively and builds self-confidence or perceived to be controlling and diminishes motivation ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). Communicating feedback in a supportive way involves being empathetic, acknowledging the follower’s feelings and difficulties and inviting them to provide their own views ( Carpentier and Mageau, 2013 ; Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). In contrast, feedback that conveys external pressure focuses on enforcing rules and uses language such as “should” or “must” is controlling and undermines motivation ( Ryan, 1981 ). Overall, both the type of feedback (positive vs negative) and the way in which it is delivered impacts upon people’s competence and motivation ( Mabbe et al. , 2018 ).

Leaders further recommend supporting competence by introducing mentoring opportunities . Mentoring involves a supportive relationship between two members of an organization where, traditionally, a senior worker provides a more junior worker with personal and professional development ( Kram, 1985 ). Mentoring may be formal, such as a structured program that pairs organizational members together or informally occurring across team members and networks of workers spontaneously ( Higgins and Kram, 2001 ). The fact that both members of the relationship benefit from this form of professional development is especially valuable ( Kram and Isabella, 1985 ). For example, the more senior worker is provided with an opportunity to demonstrate and be valued for their skills and experience while the junior member benefits by developing new skills and building their knowledge and capabilities. As such, it is expected that both parties are experiencing the satisfaction of their need for competence during mentoring activities.

Relatedness.

Humans are social beings and relatedness represents the need to experience a sense of belonging and to feel accepted and cared for by others. The need for relatedness is satisfied when workers develop close relationships in the workplace and see themselves as part of the group ( Van den Broeck et al. , 2016 ). Table 3 presents the five practical examples, proposed by organizational leaders and managers, for how leaders support workers basic psychological need for relatedness.

Positive social interactions and interpersonal relationships between leaders and their followers are responsible for shaping motivation and well-being at work ( Deci et al. , 2017 ; Weinstein and De Haan, 2014 ). The importance of high-quality and authentic relationships between leaders and their followers has been emphasized in various theories of leadership ( Gerstner and Day, 1997 ; Uhl-Bien, 2006 ). The examples provided by leaders in this study offer some simple interpersonal techniques for building relationships where the aim is to better understand and get to know the followers. Learning about the interests and circumstances of others provides opportunities to find common ground. These commonalities create opportunities for authentic conversations and create the basis for building a genuine relationship. Further to supporting basic psychological needs for relatedness, relationship building practices by leaders have other positive outcomes such as improved team effectiveness, job performance and engagement ( Dunst et al. , 2018 )

Leaders help facilitate high quality relationships among colleagues and team members by implementing team bonding activities, inducting new members into the team. A worker’s need for relatedness is satisfied when they feel such as they belong to the group, have people who care about them and are able to care for others ( Ryan and Deci, 2017 ). Having close friends at work has a positive impact on people’s experience and satisfaction in their job and colleagues provide an important source of basic psychological needs satisfaction and motivation in the workplace ( Jungert et al. , 2018 ; Moreau and Mageau, 2012 ). Leaders create opportunities for team socialization to facilitate the development of genuine and supportive relationships between team members. For example, social activities, such as team lunches or events, provide opportunities for new team members to interact in a relaxed and informal environment. The importance of inducting or onboarding new members into the team is also emphasized. Onboarding helps introduce and socialize newcomers and includes practices such as communication, making resources available, welcome activities, training and a guide or “buddy” assigned to help the new coming navigate their new workplace ( Klein et al. , 2015 ).

Leaders also take action to promote diversity and inclusion within their team, focusing on respecting others’ background and experience. Leaders are important role models of group expectations and may support diversity by respecting and valuing the unique strengths that members bring to the group and discussing the value and opportunities that can be realized through increased diversity. Researchers examining the interplay between leadership and team diversity stress the critical importance of matching leadership behaviours to the specific needs arising from diversity-related team processes and have proposed specific competencies, such as social perceptiveness, that allow leaders to shape the influence of diversity within the team ( Homan et al. , 2020 ). Leaders also play an active role in supporting HR diversity practices, such as ensuring that opportunities for promotion and training are equitably distributed, which is conducive for employees’ felt inclusion ( Buengeler et al. , 2018 ).

Part B. Exemplar case scenarios

Building on the examples presented in Part A, the following presents and discusses illustrative case scenarios detailing how the SDT-informed actions are implemented in organizations. Each scenario, submitted by the leaders, describes how a leader supports their followers’ basic psychological needs while carrying out day to day managerial activities. A theoretic interpretation is presented alongside each scenario to highlight where support for autonomy, competence and relatedness feature within the case. The case scenarios extend on the Part A results by offering richer more detailed depictions of need-supportive managerial behaviours and provide insights into how SDT is practised by leaders in organizations.

Scenario 1: Get to know your workers outside the work context

[Leader] Bill, embeds regular social events into the unit’s calendar. At the next team meeting, he invites suggestions for social event ideas and suitable dates from the members. The calendar is distributed to all team members and displayed at the unit. Bill personally attends all the events and supports his management team to also attend.

Scenario 1 focuses on building support for relatedness by intentionally creating opportunities for social interactions among team members. The need for relatedness is satisfied when people experience a sense of belonging and develop intimate relationships with others ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). Informal social interactions at work can provide a platform for developing such relationships, for people to feel connected to each other and for leaders to connect with and learn more about their followers. This scenario also demonstrates a strategy for supporting autonomy. Rather than the leader prescribing social activities and dates, he involves the members in the process, seeking their input and supporting them to participate in the process.

Scenario 2: Ownership of projects

[Leader] Susan invites an experienced team member to take on the lead role in developing a training course on a topic of their interest. She provides information on the context and desired outcome and seeks suggestions for suitable milestones from the volunteer. The outcome will be a training package developed by volunteers themselves which could be shared with neighbouring units.

The focus of Scenario 2 is autonomy. The need for autonomy is satisfied when people experience volition and freedom to pursue their interests and exercise choice (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Offering ownership of a task empowers the follower and enables them to unleash their ideas, provide input and drive the direction of the organization. The scenario also demonstrates how a leader may balance followers’ autonomy with organizational requirements. In this case, the leader provides information about organizational boundaries within which the follower will operate by outlining the context and desired outcome. The follower is then invited to contribute to developing the milestones for the project. In this manner, the leader outlines the organizational objective, together they agree on smaller goals and then the follower is empowered to lead the initiative. Support for competence is also evident in this scenario. Drawing on the volunteers’ expertise in an area of their interest enables them to exercise their existing skills and develop further in a domain of work they enjoy.

Scenario 3: Mentoring new and less experienced members

Josh has never been near a flood boat and now wants to be a flood boat operator. The leader pairs him with a mentor who is also a member of their team and an experienced flood boat operator. The mentor engages by sharing knowledge and assisting to develop the theoretical foundations prior to Josh attending a boat training course. After the course the mentor does some practical exercises with him and supports him on the job

Mentoring exercises provide an ideal opportunity to support a more experienced member’s competence through the sharing of knowledge and an acknowledgement of their skills and capabilities. It also serves to strengthen a sense of relatedness between members of the group over time, by providing opportunities for two members (who may not know each other well) to build a supportive and collaborative relationship.

Conclusions

SDT provides an evidence-based framework for how to effectively motivate workers in organizations ( Deci et al. , 2017 ). Organizational leaders establish an optimally motivating workplace climate through satisfying their workers’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness ( Slemp et al. , 2018 ). The findings of this research delineate examples of SDT application from practising leaders to illustrate how SDT is applied and integrated into organizational leadership.

Extending on previous predominantly theoretic SDT research, this study is the first to draw upon the lived experience of leaders and managers who have implemented SDT in their workplace. In doing so, these findings provide new insights into how leaders interpret SDT and how the theory and its concepts are translated by practitioners in organizations. The present research departs from prior academic attempts to translate theoretically derived knowledge into recommendations and practical implication – which are increasingly criticized for being impractical, difficult to understand and underestimating the tensions and complexities that are basic conditions for managers in organizational settings ( Bartunek and Rynes, 2010 ; Schultz and Hatch, 2005 ). Responding to calls ( Bansal et al. , 2012 ; Gregory and Anderson, 2006 ; Van de Ven, 2007 ) for research studies to “shift from a logic of building practice from theory to one of building theory from practice” ( Schultz and Hatch, 2005 , p. 337), this study taps into the valuable knowledge and experiences of practitioners to extend and develop SDT to have enhanced validity and relevance in an applied setting. The findings of this study contribute previously unexplored strategies for supporting workers’ basic psychological needs and responds to calls for SDT research to identify a broader range of managerial behaviours that support employee motivation ( Deci and Ryan, 2014 ).

The widening disconnect between theory and practice is recognized as a persistent and difficult problem in management and applied psychology research ( Bansal et al. , 2012 ; Van De Ven and Johnson, 2006 ; Zaccaro and Horn, 2003 ). The present study contributes to bridging the gap from science to practice by expanding knowledge of how SDT is applied to management and leadership in the work domain. Using a collaborative form of research enquiry where researchers and practitioners co-produced knowledge (engaged scholarship; Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006 ), this study contributes to achieving the dual objective of both advancing a scientific discipline and enlightening professional practice ( Pettigrew, 2001 ). The findings leverage differences in the kinds of knowledge that SDT scholars and SDT practitioners from diverse background bring to identify examples of basic psychological need support that are practical salient, usable and aligned with the theoretic tenet of SDT. The study responds to ongoing calls for research to improve the exchange of knowledge between academics and practitioners and for scholars to shift research attention towards empirical studies of knowledge from practice ( Bansal et al. , 2012 ; Schultz and Hatch, 2005 ; Van De Ven and Johnson, 2006 ; Zaccaro and Horn, 2003 ). We propose that building knowledge and conceptual clarification about SDT application by leaders is a desirable outcome for both academics and practitioners and, therefore, much can be gained by coupling both parties in a task of mutual knowledge building. Research should continue to leverage practitioner perspectives due to their wide impact and insights they provide into the application and validity of academic constructs in highly complex and ever-changing organizations that we have today.

There are limitations of this study that must be acknowledged. Firstly, the data reflects the personal experiences of a distinct case of organizational leaders. Investigation of the phenomenon of SDT application in the present research is, therefore, constrained within the boundaries of the participants and their context. The sample of leaders who contributed the applied examples were from a very narrow sector/organizational context that may not be representative of leaders or managers in other organizations. Greater diversity of leader participants from different contexts and organizations may have provided different perspectives. The validity of the SDT application examples provided in this study is also noted as a limitation. The effect that these managerial strategies have on workers’ basic psychological need satisfaction require further empirical examination and future research should measure the motivational effects of the suggested strategies on followers.

Providing a practitioner perspective on SDT application to management, this paper bridges the gap from science to practise and from practise to science. Drawing on the lived experience of leaders who have applied SDT in the workplace, the findings illustrate how SDT is operationalized by organizational leaders and delineates practical managerial approaches for supporting employees’ basic psychological needs in the workplace. The strategies discussed in this paper offer guidance for those seeking to implement the theory in their organization. Leaders can adopt and further develop these approaches to motivate workers and improve the quality of people’s experience at work.

How leaders support followers’ basic psychological need for autonomy in the workplace

How leaders support followers’ basic psychological need for competence in the workplace

How leaders support followers’ basic psychological need for relatedness in the workplace

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC via a Project Grant titled “Improving the retention and engagement of volunteers in Emergency Service agencies” (2014–2017).

Corresponding author

About the authors.

Vivien W. Forner (PhD, BPsych) is an Organizational Psychologist and Researcher in the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong. Her research focuses on leadership, motivation and workplace contexts that promote human well-being and thriving. Vivien has over 10 years’ experience designing, implementing and evaluating leadership and applied psychology interventions within mental health, emergency management, insurance, aged care, education and not-for-profit organizations. She has held a state committee role within Australian Psychological Society’s (APS) College of Organizational Psychology and is a member of the International Positive Psychology Association and International Leadership Association.

Michael Jones [BComm (hons), PhD] is an Associated Professor and has been teaching and researching in areas of organization, business and management for 18 years. Michael has developed research interests in organizational behaviour, group dynamics, doctoral studies, organizational culture and motivation and commitment. Michael also has research strengths in areas of qualitative analysis and has written several papers on various qualitative methodologies and methods. He is a member of the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management, the Australian Human Resources Institute and the Industrial Relations Society of Australia.

Yoke Berry (PhD) was Project Manager for a Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre grant in the Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong. In this function, she contributed to research into retention and engagement of volunteers in emergency service agencies. She has a PhD in Chemistry and has extensive experience in natural products, organic and protein chemistry. She is a qualified secondary school educator in science.

Joakim Eidenfalk (PhD) teaches and researches in the Faculty of Law Humanities and the Arts at the University of Wollongong. Joakim has been teaching and researching international relations, politics, history and security studies for 10 years. Joakim has an interest in foreign policy, security policy, political leadership, decision-making and international relations theory. He has a PhD in Politics, a master’s degree in International Relations and a master’s degree in Politics. Joakim is also interested in teaching improvement and innovation.

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Work Motivation: The Roles of Individual Needs and Social Conditions

Thuy thi diem vo.

1 Department of Business Administration, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No. 43, Section 4, Keelung Road, Da’an District, Taipei City 106335, Taiwan; wt.ude.tsutn.liam@31880701d (T.T.D.V.); wt.ude.tsutn.liam@nehcwc (C.-W.C.)

Kristine Velasquez Tuliao

2 Graduate Institute of Human Resource Management, National Central University, No. 300, Zhongda Road, Zhongli District, Taoyuan City 320317, Taiwan

Chung-Wen Chen

Associated data.

The data that support this study are publicly available.

Work motivation plays a vital role in the development of organizations, as it increases employee productivity and effectiveness. To expand insights into individuals’ work motivation, the authors investigated the influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on their work motivation. Additionally, the country-level moderating factors of those individual-level associations were examined. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze data from 32,614 individuals from 25 countries, obtained from the World Values Survey (WVS). Findings showed that autonomy and social relatedness positively impacted work motivation, while competence negatively influenced work motivation. Moreover, the individual-level associations were moderated by the country-level religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism. Contributions, practical implications, and directions for further research were then discussed.

1. Introduction

Work motivation is considered an essential catalyst for the success of organizations, as it promotes employees’ effective performance. To achieve an organization’s objectives, the employer depends on the performance of their employees [ 1 ]. However, insufficiently motivated employees perform poorly despite being skillful [ 1 , 2 ]. Employers, therefore, need their employees to work with complete motivation rather than just showing up at their workplaces [ 3 ]. Work motivation remains a vital factor in organizational psychology, as it helps explain the causes of individual conduct in organizations [ 4 ]. Consequently, studies on the factors that encourage work motivation can contribute to the theoretical underpinnings on the roots of individual and practical social conditions that optimize individuals’ performance and wellness [ 5 ].

Several decades of research have endeavored to explain the dynamics that initiate work-related behavior. The primary factor examining this aspect is motivation, as it explains why individuals do what they do [ 6 ]. The basic psychological needs have represented a vital rationalization of individual differences in work motivation. Psychological needs are considered natural psychological nutrients and humans’ inner resources. They have a close relationship with individual conduct and have a strong explicit meaning for work performance [ 7 , 8 ]. Different needs are essential drivers of individual functioning due to the satisfaction derived from dealing with them [ 9 ]. In addition to individual-level antecedents, the social context has also been regarded to have implications for work motivation. Social exchange and interaction among individuals accentuate the importance of work motivation as something to be studied with consideration of contextual factors [ 10 ].

Significant contributions have been made to the socio-psychological perspective of work motivation ( Table 1 ). However, current literature shows three deficiencies. First, over 150 papers utilize the key approaches of psychological needs to justify motivational processes in the workplace [ 11 ], which justifies the vital role of psychological needs in interpreting individual work motivation. The association between psychological needs and work motivation has often been implicitly assumed; however, the influence of psychological needs on work motivation has been inadequately tested [ 8 ]. The verification of the extent and the direction of influence will provide a better understanding of, and offer distinct implications for, the facilitation of work motivation. In examining the influence of psychological needs on work motivation, this paper mainly focuses on the intrinsic aspect of motivation. The study of Alzahrani et al. (2018) [ 12 ] argued that although intrinsic motivation is more efficient than extrinsic motivation, researchers have mostly neglected it.

Several investigated predictors of work motivation in general and intrinsic motivation in particular.

Second, there is no study examining the country-level moderating effects of social conditions and national cultures on individual relationships between psychological needs and work motivation. Pinder (2014) [ 20 ] argued that contextual practices could influence variables at the individual level. Culture is a crucial factor influencing motivation [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Researchers (e.g., [ 19 ]) have further suggested that both the proximal social situations (e.g., workgroup) and the distal social situations (e.g., cultural values) in which humans operate influence their need for satisfaction and their motivation type. Intrinsic motivation interacts with prosocial motivation in judging work performance [ 21 ]. By including the social conditions in the framework, prosocial motivation is considered. Prosocial motivation refers to the desire to help and promote the welfare of others [ 22 , 23 ]. The study of Shao et al. (2019) [ 24 ] proposed that prosocial motivation promotes employee engagement in particular organizational tasks. Researchers often consider prosocial motivation as a pattern of intrinsic motivation [ 23 ]. This implies that when intrinsic motivation is investigated, prosocial motivation should be examined together to obtain a comprehensive understanding.

Third, there are few studies using a considerable number of cross-national samples to investigate factors influencing work motivation. A cross-cultural analysis makes the findings more objective by minimizing individual bias towards any particular culture. Therefore, the examination of the study is crucial to expanding insights on the influence of social situations on the individual associations between psychological needs and work motivation.

2. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

2.1. work motivation: a conceptual background.

Work motivation is considered “a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual’s being, to initiate work-related behavior, and to determine its form direction intensity and duration” [ 20 ]. Nicolescu and Verboncu (2008) [ 25 ] argued that work motivation contributes directly and indirectly to employees’ performance. Additionally, research (e.g., [ 26 ]) has postulated that work motivation could be seen as a source of positive energy that leads to employees’ self-recognition and self-fulfillment. Therefore, work motivation is an antecedent of the self-actualization of individuals and the achievement of organizations.

Literature has identified several models of work motivation. One of the primary models is Maslow’s (1954) [ 27 ] need hierarchy theory, which proposes that humans fulfill a set of needs, including physiological, safety and security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Additionally, Herzberg’s (1966) [ 28 ] motivation-hygiene theory proposed that work motivation is mainly influenced by the job’s intrinsic challenge and provision of opportunities for recognition and reinforcement. More contemporary models also emerged. For instance, the study of Nicolescu and Verboncu (2008) [ 25 ] has categorized the types of motivation into four pairs, including positive-negative, intrinsic-extrinsic, cognitive-affective, and economic-moral spiritual. Additionally, Ryan and Deci [ 29 ] focused on intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

With the existence of numerous factors that relate to work motivation, this paper mainly focuses on intrinsic motivation. Previous research found that emotional intelligence and interpersonal relationship quality predict individuals’ intrinsic motivation [ 14 ]. Additionally, the study of Lin (2020) [ 13 ] argued that personal factors, including age, gender, educational level, living setting, health status, and family support, impact people’s intrinsic motivation. To understand more about intrinsic motivation, the authors examined individuals’ psychological needs. Fulfillment of the basic needs is related to wellness and effective performance [ 7 ]. Since intrinsic motivation results in high-quality creativity, recognizing the factors influencing intrinsic motivation is important [ 5 ].

Although a significant number of important contributions have been made regarding intrinsic motivation, self-determination theory is of particular significance for this study. Self-determination theory (SDT) postulates that all humans possess a variety of basic psychological needs. One of the primary crucial needs is the need for competence [ 30 , 31 ], which makes individuals feel confident and effective in their actions. Additionally, the need for autonomy [ 32 ] is one of the important psychological needs, which makes people satisfied with optimal wellness and good performance obtained as a result of their own decisions. Moreover, SDT proposed the crucial importance of interpersonal relationships and how social forces can influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors [ 33 ]. This means that the psychological need for social relatedness [ 34 ] also plays a significant role in human’s psychological traits. Individuals need to be cared for by others and care for others to perceive belongingness. The need for relatedness can motivate people to behave more socially [ 35 ].

Prior research (e.g., [ 36 ]) has explored self-determination theory and related theories as approaches to work motivation and organizational behavior. The study of Van den Broeck et al. (2010) [ 37 ] emphasized grasping autonomy, competence, and relatedness at workplaces. This paper contributes to the exhaustive understanding of intrinsic work motivation influenced by further examining the impact of these three factors on work motivation as well as the moderating effects of social contexts.

2.2. Main Effect

2.2.1. individuals’ competence and work motivation.

Competence is “the collective learning in the organization, especially how to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate multiple streams of technologies” [ 38 ]. The study of Hernández-March et al. (2009) [ 39 ] argued that a stronger competence was commonly found in university graduates rather than those without higher education. Competence has been considered a significant factor of work motivation that enhances productivity and profits. Harter’s (1983) [ 40 ] model of motivation proposed that competence enhances motivation because competence promotes flexibility for individuals [ 41 ]. Likewise, Patall et al. (2014) [ 42 ] indirectly argued that competence positively affects work motivation. Individuals become more engaged in activities that demonstrate their competence [ 6 ]. When people perceive that they are competent enough to attain goals, they generally feel confident and concentrate their efforts on achieving their objectives as soon as possible for their self-fulfillment.

Individuals’ competence positively relates to their work motivation.

2.2.2. Individuals’ Autonomy and Work Motivation

Autonomy is viewed as “self-determination, self-rule, liberty of rights, freedom of will and being one’s own person” [ 43 ]. Reeve (2006) [ 44 ] argued that autonomy is a primary theoretical approach in the study of human motivation and emotion. Autonomy denotes that certain conduct is performed with a sense of willingness [ 30 ]. Several researchers (e.g., [ 45 ]) investigated the positive relationship between individuals’ autonomy and work motivation. When humans are involved in actions because of their interest, they fully perform those activities volitionally [ 36 ]. Dickinson (1995) [ 46 ] also proposed that autonomous individuals are more highly motivated, and autonomy breeds more effective outcomes. Moreover, when individuals have a right to make their own decisions, they tend to be more considerate and responsible for those decisions, as they need to take accountability for their actions. Bandura (1991) [ 47 ] has argued that humans’ ability to reflect, react, and direct their actions motivates them for future purposes. Therefore, autonomy motivates individuals to work harder and overcome difficulties to achieve their objectives.

Individuals’ autonomy positively relates to their work motivation.

2.2.3. Individuals’ Social Relatedness and Work Motivation

The psychological need for social relatedness occurs when an individual has a sense of being secure, related to, or understood by others in the social environment [ 48 ]. The relatedness need is fulfilled when humans experience the feeling of close relationships with others [ 49 ]. Researchers (e.g., [ 34 ]) have postulated that the need for relatedness reflects humans’ natural tendency to feel associated with others, such as being a member of any social groups, or to love and care as well as be loved and cared for. Prior studies have shown that social relatedness strongly impacts motivation [ 50 , 51 , 52 ]. Social relatedness offers people many opportunities to communicate with others, making them more motivated at the workplace, aligning them with the group’s shared objectives. Marks (1974) [ 53 ] suggested that social relatedness encourages individuals to focus on community welfare as a reference for their behavior, resulting in enhanced work motivation. Moreover, when individuals feel that they relate to and are cared for by others, their motivation can be maximized since their relatedness need is fulfilled [ 54 ]. Therefore, establishing close relationships with others plays a vital role in promoting human motivation [ 55 ]. When people perceive that they are cared for and loved by others, they tend to create positive outcomes for common benefits to deserve the kindness received, thereby motivating them to work harder.

Individuals’ social relatedness positively relates to their work motivation.

Aside from exploring the influence of psychological needs on work motivation, this paper also considers country-level factors. Previous research (e.g., [ 56 ]) has examined the influence of social institutions and national cultures on work motivation. However, the moderating effects of country-level factors have to be investigated, given the contextual impacts on individual needs, attitudes, and behavior. Although social conditions provide the most common interpretation for nation-level variance in individual work behaviors [ 57 ], few cross-national studies examine social conditions and individual work behaviors [ 56 ]. Hence, this paper investigates the moderating effects, including religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism, on the psychological needs-work motivation association.

A notable theory to explain the importance of contextual factors in work motivation that is customarily linked with SDT is the concept of prosocial motivation. Prosocial motivation suggests that individuals have the desire to expend efforts in safeguarding and promoting others’ well-being [ 58 , 59 ]. It is proposed that prosocial motivation strengthens endurance, performance, and productivity, as well as generates creativity that encourages individuals to develop valuable and novel ideas [ 21 , 60 ]. Prosocial motivation is found to interact with intrinsic motivation in influencing positive work outcomes [ 21 , 61 ]. However, there are few studies examining the effects of prosocial motivation on work motivation [ 62 ].

Utilizing the concept of prosocial motivation and examining it on a country-level, this paper suggests that prosocial factors promote basic psychological needs satisfaction that reinforces motivational processes at work. Therefore, prosocial behaviors and values may enhance the positive impact of individuals’ basic psychological needs, including competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, on work motivation.

2.3. Moderating Effects

2.3.1. religious affiliation.

Religions manifest values that are usually employed as grounds to investigate what is right and wrong [ 63 ]. Religious affiliation is considered prosocial because it satisfies the need for belongingness and upholds collective well-being through gatherings to worship, seek assistance, and offer comfort within religious communities. Hence, religious affiliation promotes the satisfaction of individuals’ psychological needs, which directs motivation at work and life in general. Research (e.g., [ 64 ]) has argued that religious affiliation is an essential motivational component given its impact on psychological processes. The study of Simon and Primavera (1972) [ 65 ] investigated the relationship between religious affiliation and work motivation. To humans characterized by competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, attachment to religious principles increases their motivation to accomplish organizational goals. Religious membership will increase the influence of psychological needs on work motivation. The tendency of individuals affiliated with any religion to be demotivated is lower compared to those who are not. Individuals with religious affiliations also tend to work harder as the virtue of hard work is aligned with religious principles. Accordingly, religious affiliation may enhance the positive association between individuals’ psychological needs and work motivation.

2.3.2. Political Participation

Political participation, indicated by people’s voting habits, plays a crucial role in ensuring citizens’ well-being and security [ 66 ]. Political participation encourages shared beliefs and collective goals among individuals [ 67 ]. The communication and interaction among people help them grasp the government’s developmental strategies, motivating them to work harder. Political participation is a collective pursuit that makes societal members feel more confident, socially related, and motivated at work to achieve communal targets. Increased political participation reinforces effective public policy to enhance its members’ welfare, congruent with the perspectives of prosocial motivation. The prosocial values and behaviors derived from political participation satisfy human needs and interact positively with intrinsic motivation. Therefore, political participation may strengthen the positive influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on work motivation. Conversely, poor political participation is perceived as a separation from the society that may lead to demotivation. In a society with poor political participation, an individualistic mentality is encouraged, thereby decreasing the desire to pursue cooperative endeavors.

2.3.3. Humane Orientation

GLOBE characterizes humane orientation as “the degree to which an organization or society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others” [ 68 ]. Research (e.g., [ 69 , 70 ]) has argued that a high humane orientation encourages members to develop a strong sense of belonging, commit to fair treatment, and manifest benevolence. The desire to help others or enhance others’ well-being indicates prosocial values and behaviors [ 71 , 72 ]. Since humane orientation is correlated with philanthropy and promotes good relations, this cultural value may enhance work motivation. Fairness, which is derived from a humane-oriented society, is one of the most vital influences on work motivation [ 1 ]. Moreover, altruism, promoted by humane-oriented societies, encourages individuals to sacrifice individual interests for shared benefits. Altruism then encourages attachment to others’ welfare and increases resources needed for prosocial behaviors such as work [ 73 , 74 ]. Members of humane-oriented countries view work in a positive light—it is an opportunity for them to perform altruistic behaviors and engage in collective actions. Therefore, people are more likely to work harder for common interests in humane-oriented societies. In such conditions, individuals with competence, autonomy, and social relatedness will be more motivated to work. By contrast, a less humane-oriented society gives prominence to material wealth and personal enjoyment [ 75 ]. Although this may be perceived as a positive influence on the association between psychological needs and work motivation, such an individualistic mindset works against the prosocial factors that further motivate individuals.

2.3.4. In-Group Collectivism

House et al. (2004) [ 68 ] defined in-group collectivism as “the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families”. Collectivistic cultures indicate the need for individuals to rely on group membership for identification [ 76 ]. High collectivism enhances equity, solidarity, loyalty, and encouragement [ 77 , 78 ]. Humans living in a collectivist culture are interdependent and recognize their responsibilities towards each other [ 79 ]. In-group collectivism transfers the concepts of social engagement, interdependence with others, and care for the group over the self (e.g., [ 79 , 80 , 81 ], thereby motivating individuals to work harder for the common interests. Oyserman et al. (2002) [ 82 ] have further argued that individualistic values encourage an independent personality, whereas collectivistic values form an interdependent one. Therefore, in-group collectivism is a prosocial value that emphasizes the importance of reciprocal relationships and encourages people to work harder to benefit the group. By contrast, low collectivism promotes individual interests and personal well-being while neglecting the value of having strong relations with others [ 70 ]. Considering that in-group collectivism promotes individuals’ prosocial behaviors of individuals, people who are competent, autonomous, and socially related to collective societies are less likely to be demotivated at the workplace. Consequently, in-group collectivism may intensify the positive influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on their work motivation.

(a–d): The positive relationship between individuals’ competence and their work motivation is enhanced as religious affiliation (a), political participation (b), humane orientation (c), and in-group collectivism (d) increase.

(a–d): The positive relationship between individuals’ autonomy and their work motivation is enhanced as religious affiliation (a), political participation (b), humane orientation (c), and in-group collectivism (d) increase.

(a–d): The positive relationship between individuals’ social relatedness and their work motivation is enhanced as religious affiliation (a), political participation (b), humane orientation (c), and in-group collectivism (d) increase.

3.1. Sample

The data came from the seventh wave (2017–2021) of the World Values Survey (WVS) [ 83 ], which examines humans’ beliefs and values. This survey is performed every five years to explore changes in people’s values and perceptions. Face-to-face interviews, or phone interviews for remote areas, were conducted by local organizations. Almost 90 percent of the world’s population is represented in the WVS. At least 1000 individuals were selected as respondents to exhibit each nation’s population. Further information regarding the WVS can be reached at the WVS website ( http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org , accessed on 14 October 2021).

The samples of this study were based on the availability of national-level data for the moderators and individual-level data for the measures of independent and dependent variables. Respondents without answers on the individual measures and corresponding country-level data were excluded from the analysis. The final data included 32,614 respondents in 25 countries aged 18 and above. The 25 countries included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the USA.

3.2. Dependent Variable

Consistent with previous researchers (e.g., [ 84 ]), the authors used four items to gauge individual work motivation, namely “Indicate how important work is in your life”, “People who do not work turn lazy”, “Work is a duty towards society”, and “Work should always come first, even if it means less spare”. The first item was measured on a scale from 1 to 4, in which lower scores indicate a higher level of work importance. The other three items were gauged on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 indicating strongly agree and 5 indicating strongly disagree). The scores for each item were reverse coded, and the mean scores were computed so that higher scores indicate greater work motivation.

3.3. Independent Variables

The independent variables of this study include individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness. First, people’s competence was measured by the item “What is the highest educational level that you attained” on a scale from 0 to 8, in which higher scores indicate a higher level of educational attainment. The authors used the item to gauge individual competence, as a capacity for learning is highlighted in the examination of competence [ 39 ]. Second, a scale from 1 to 10 was utilized to measure the item “How much freedom of choice and control”, which represented individual autonomy (1 indicating no choice at all and 10 indicating a great deal of choice). The authors used the item to gauge people’s autonomy as this item indicates the degree to which individual can make their own decisions. Finally, the individual’s social relatedness was gauged by twelve items, representing twelve types of organizations where individuals are active/inactive members or do not belong. The twelve items were measured on a scale from 0 to 2 (0 indicating do not belong, 1 indicating inactive member, and 2 indicating active member). The mean score of the twelve items represents the individual’s social relatedness. The membership in organizations represents social relatedness, as this indicates the reciprocal relationship between the individual and the organization through their mutual rights, responsibilities, and obligations towards each other [ 85 ].

3.4. Moderators

The four country-level moderators in this study were religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism. Similar to prior research (e.g., [ 86 ]), the authors used the percentage of the country’s population with religious affiliation obtained from Pew Research Center 2015 [ 87 ]. Secondly, the index of voter turnout collected from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance [ 88 ] was utilized to gauge political participation. Voting habits are an indicator of an individual’s presence in their country’s life, and a nation with a high index of voter turnout illustrates its substantial degree of political participation [ 89 ]. Finally, two cultural values, including humane orientation and in-group collectivism, were obtained from the GLOBE study [ 68 ]. The authors used scores on cultural practices as the moderators for this study because they indicate the actual behaviors as “the way things are done in this culture” [ 68 ].

3.5. Control Variables

Several individual-level and country-level elements related to the dependent variable were considered control variables. The effects of gender, marital status, age, and income level were accounted for, as these four variables are basic personal factors that may impact individual’s motivation [ 90 ]. Gender (1 indicating male and 0 indicating female) and marital status (1 indicating married and 0 indicating other status) were dummy coded. Moreover, age was measured in years, while income level was gauged using a scale from 1 representing the lowest group to 10 representing the highest group. Along with the above individual-level controls, education and family strength were treated as country-level control variables. Education and family are primary institutions that shape individuals’ motivation [ 91 , 92 ]. Similar to prior researchers (e.g., [ 93 ]), education was computed as two-thirds of the adult literacy rate attained from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2020 [ 94 ] and one-third of the mean years of schooling obtained from the Human Development Report 2020 [ 95 ]. This score is commonly approved as representing access to education in a country [ 42 ]. Regarding family strength, the score was quantified by the ratio of divorces to marriages per 1000 members of the population consistent with previous researchers (e.g., [ 93 ]). The data was obtained from the United Nations Demographic Yearbook [ 96 ].

3.6. Measurement and Analysis

To perform the descriptive statistics, cross-level correlations, scale reliability, confirmatory factor analysis, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, the authors utilized SPSS software.

The framework of this study considers independent variables, dependent variables, and moderators at different levels. Thus, the authors used a hierarchical linear model (HLM) [ 97 ] to test the hypotheses. HLM was defined as a “complex form of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression that is used to analyze variance in the outcome variables when the predictor variables are at varying hierarchical levels” [ 98 ]. This technique evaluates the impacts of higher-level outcomes on lower-level ones while preserving an appropriate degree of analysis [ 99 ]. HLM has been employed in several cross-level studies (e.g., [ 100 , 101 ]).

Table 2 presents a matrix of correlations and sample statistics from the individual-level to country-level variables. Table 3 and Table 4 report convergent and discriminant validity test results, respectively. Finally, Table 5 illustrates results for hypotheses testing using HLM. Three models are presented in the table: those of individual-level main effects and control variables (Model 1), those of country-level main effects (Model 2), and country-level moderating effects (Model 3).

Descriptive statistics, cross-level correlations and scale reliability a,b,c .

a   n = 32,614 level 1; n = 25, level 2. b * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. c The reliability found in the parentheses is expressed as Cronbach’s alpha for scales with ≥four items.

Convergent validity.

Discriminant validity—Fornell and Larcker’s criterion.

* p < 0.05.

HLM results: (The DV is work motivation) a,b .

a , n = 32,614 level 1; n = 25, level 2. b , †, p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

For the confirmatory factor analysis, previous research (e.g., [ 102 , 103 , 104 ]) suggested that analysis of each variable requires at least three items. Factor analysis using statistical software will provide imprecise results if there are fewer than three items per variable [ 105 ]. Therefore, the authors only performed Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for social relatedness and work motivation.

To assess the measurement, convergent and discriminant validity were tested. Composite Reliability (CR) and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) were performed to illustrate convergent validity. The study of Hair et al. (2019) [ 106 ] suggested that CR is required to be above a threshold of 0.7. On the other hand, the AVE value should be higher than a threshold of 0.5 [ 107 ]. As shown in Table 3 , CR is acceptable while AVE is slightly lower than a threshold of 0.5. Despite the limitation of AVE, the acceptable result of the discriminant validity is achieved. The discriminant validity was tested using Fornell and Larcker (1981)’s criterion [ 107 ]. This proposes that the square root of the AVE of any latent variable should be higher than its correlation with any other construct. The result of the discriminant validity test indicates that all the two latent constructs have a square root of AVE higher than its correlation with the other construct, as presented in Table 4 .

The authors argued that individuals’ competence (H1), autonomy (H2), and social relatedness (H3) positively relate to their work motivation. However, the findings only supported H2 (β2 = 0.036, p < 0.001) and H3 (β3 = 0.042, p < 0.001). In contrast, the findings presented that H1 was also significant, but in the opposite direction compared with our original prediction. The result suggests that individuals’ competence negatively relates to their work motivation.

In Hypotheses 4a–d, we proposed that higher levels of religious affiliation (4a), political participation (4b), humane orientation (4c), and in-group collectivism (4d) strengthen the relationship described in H1. However, the results only demonstrated support for the two hypotheses, H4c (γ13 = 0.032, p < 0.001) and H4d (γ14 = 0.042, p < 0.001). In contrast, the findings presented that H4a was also significant, but opposite our initial prediction. This different result proposes that a higher level of religious affiliation weakens the association between individuals’ competence and work motivation.

In Hypotheses 5a–d, the authors argued that the higher levels of religious affiliation (5a), political participation (5b), humane orientation (5c), and in-group collectivism (5d) enhance the positive relationship between individuals’ autonomy and their work motivation. However, the results only supported the two hypotheses H5b (γ22 = 0.012, p < 0.05) and H5c (γ23 = 0.012, p < 0.1), while H5a and H5d were not significant.

In Hypotheses 6a–d, the authors argued that the higher levels of religious affiliation (6a), political participation (6b), humane orientation (6c), and in-group collectivism (6d) enhance the positive relationship between individuals’ social relatedness and their work motivation. However, the results only supported H6c (γ33 = 0.019, p < 0.01). In contrast, the findings indicated that H6d was also significant, but in the opposite direction compared to our initial hypothesis. The different result suggests that higher in-group collectivism weakens the positive association between individuals’ social relatedness and work motivation. Figure 1 , Figure 2 , Figure 3 , Figure 4 and Figure 5 represent the significant moderators of the associations examined.

The association between competence and work motivation at different levels of humane orientation.

The association between competence and work motivation at different levels of in-group collectivism.

The association between autonomy and work motivation at different levels of political participation.

The association between autonomy and work motivation at different levels of humane orientation.

The association between social relatedness and work motivation at different levels of humane orientation.

Regarding the statistical results of the control variables, gender, marital status, and age consistently indicated significant positive relationships with work motivation across three models. On the other hand, family strength indicated a significant negative association to work motivation only in Model 1.

5. Discussion

The study’s objective was to examine the influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on their work motivation, as well as the impact of country-level moderators, including religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism on their relationships. Seven primary findings are crucial in this research. First, people’s autonomy and social relatedness positively relate to their work motivation. This result is in line with the findings of prior researchers (e.g., [ 45 , 52 ]), postulating that humans’ autonomy and social relatedness breeds work motivation. The study of Theurer et al. (2018) [ 108 ] argued that, among motivational elements, autonomy had been found to greatly predict positive work motivation. When people feel they have enough control over their activities, they are more confident and motivated to work. Along with autonomy, humans’ social relatedness promotes communal benefits, thereby motivating people to work harder for their organization. Second, the association between individual competence and work motivation is moderated by cultural values, including humane orientation and in-group collectivism. The findings are consistent with the viewpoints of prior researchers (e.g., [ 69 , 70 , 77 , 78 ]), namely that a society with higher levels of humane orientation and in-group collectivism strengthens altruism, solidarity, loyalty, and the encouragement of individuals, which results in work motivation. Consequently, there will be an increase in the differences in individuals’ competence and work motivation if they live in a society with greater humane orientation and in-group collectivism. Third, political participation and humane orientation moderate the relationship between individual autonomy and work motivation. These results are in line with the investigations of prior researchers (e.g., [18,45), which found that social circumstances and cultural practices promote people’s motivation. Accordingly, the differences in individuals’ autonomy based on their work motivation will be enhanced if they belong to nations with higher political participation and humane orientation. Fourth, the association between social relatedness and work motivation is moderated by humane orientation. Accordingly, in a humane-oriented society, the differences in individuals’ social relatedness based on their work motivation will be strengthened.

The remaining findings were contrary to the original propositions. Pinder (2014) [ 20 ] argued that it is possible to find that contextual practices can influence variables at the individual level in the opposite prediction in motivation research. Fifth, individuals’ competence negatively influences their work motivation. This finding proposes that more competent individuals are less motivated at work. One possible interpretation of this opposite result is that, when the majority of the organization members recognize individuals’ competence, these individuals may perceive that it is not necessary to devote most of their time and energy to work anymore. These individuals may believe that no matter how unwillingly they perform, they are still competent enough because of their prior achievements. Additionally, competent individuals recognize that they have already sacrificed their enjoyment of life for their previous successes; therefore, they tend to offset this by investing their valuable time in other aspects. This is consistent with other researchers’ investigations (e.g., [ 109 ]), which found that low-skilled individuals are more often compelled to engage in regular work activities and are more easily motivated than others. By contrast, highly competent individuals tend to be motivated by challenging tasks and improving themselves through further education. Sixth, the relationship between competence and work motivation is negatively moderated by religious affiliation. This finding suggests that religious affiliation weakens the association between individuals’ competence and work motivation. One possible explanation for this finding is that strong religious beliefs are the foundation for virtuous living [ 110 ]. Individuals with religious affiliation usually employ religious principles to guide their behavior, regardless of their competence. In other words, both competent and incompetent individuals tend to be more motivated at the workplace if they are affiliated with any religion, thereby diminishing the influence of competence in work motivation. Seventh, the relationship between social relatedness and work motivation is negatively moderated by in-group collectivism. This result proposes that a higher degree of in-group collectivism weakens the association between individuals’ social relatedness and work motivation. One possible explanation for this is that, under an in-group collective society, people put more weight on mutual relationships and encourage acts that may build up the solidarity of groups. Since in-group collectivism is viewed as a social attachment in which people emphasize the group over the self (e.g., [ 79 , 80 , 81 ]), individuals are fairly conscious of their responsibility to the group regardless of their social relatedness. Both socially related and unrelated individuals belonging to in-group collective cultures tend to work harder for common goals. Accordingly, the influence of individuals’ social relatedness on their work motivation is reduced.

6. Limitations and Future Research

Despite its significant contributions, this study has its limitations. The use of secondary data represents the fact that the data collection process was beyond the authors’ control. However, the collection of cross-national data is time-consuming and costly. The authors used the available data but strove for the efficient use of multilevel data. The secondary data also limited the measurement of individual-level factors based on the available data. Moreover, it is quite complex to gauge an individual’s work motivation appropriately, since personal work motivation may not be one-dimensional. Nevertheless, the authors made efforts to employ the measurements utilized by prior research. Moreover, it is complicated to measure social factors such as political participation. There are challenges in investigating social contexts due to the absence of direct measurements [ 111 ]. This compels the authors to identify substitute measurements for this study. Finally, this study covered 25 samples from 25 countries with different characteristics. Despite the attempt of this study to include the most relevant social conditions in the framework, the influence of other national differences and cultural sensitivities were not considered.

This paper directs further research considering that several frameworks and approaches should be employed to better examine motivation [ 112 ]. First, as some of the results were opposite to the original propositions based on the theoretical foundations employed, combining different concepts and approaches is necessary to enhance perspectives of psychological needs and social issues. For instance, the relationship between competence and work motivation can be further investigated by employing other theories to understand their association better. Similarly, the moderating effects of social contexts such as religious affiliation and in-group collectivism should be further examined to obtain a more in-depth comprehension of the roles of contextual circumstances and cultural values in individual-level relationships. Additionally, self-determination theory and the concept of prosocial motivation may be used to explore motivation towards specific behavior in organizations, such as organizational citizenship and proactive behaviors. Organizational context, such as rewards, training, and culture, can be considered as part of the framework to enhance the conception of work motivation.

7. Conclusions

This study has utilized a multilevel framework to examine the influence of psychological needs and social context on work motivation. Through this research, a deeper understanding of the roles of competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, as well as social situations and cultural values on work motivation, is achieved. The contrary findings call for integrating other concepts and approaches towards a more comprehensive knowledge of work motivation.

Along with the theoretical contribution, the study’s findings offer practical implications. The satisfaction of psychological needs promotes self-motivation, which creates positive outcomes. Hence, organizations can provide programs and activities to promote employees’ autonomy and social relatedness as this will enhance their work motivation. Employee empowerment can be advocated by encouraging them to make their own decisions at the workplace, providing constructive criticisms rather than instilling the fear of failure. Additionally, managers should encourage solidarity, support, and mutual care among employees. Putting more weight on employees’ fulfillment of needs will further increase employees’ motivation, thereby diminishing costs related to stress or turnover [ 50 ]. To establish a novel mechanism towards promoting work motivation in the entire nation, the government should pay attention to the political structure and conditions that encourage citizens’ participation. Additionally, a culture of humane orientation should be promoted in the workplace and society so that solidarity, kind assistance, and altruism among communities as well as among individuals can be strengthened. For instance, teamwork should be encouraged for employees to help each other overcome difficulties at the workplace or share responsibilities with their colleagues. This will motivate people to work harder for collective goals, contributing to the development of organizations.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; data collection, T.T.D.V.; methodology, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; formal analysis, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; resources, K.V.T. and C.-W.C.; writing-original draft, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; writing-review, editing & proofreading, T.T.D.V., K.V.T. and C.-W.C.; visualization, K.V.T.; supervision, K.V.T. and C.-W.C.; project administration, K.V.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This paper does not receive funding from any individuals or organizations.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The Case for Motivation: What's sapping it, what will bring it back

The Case for Motivation: What’s sapping it, what will bring it back

Head of CEO and Executive Assessment, NA

Senior Director of Research, Korn Ferry Institute

Vice President, Chief Content Officer

Senior Director, Korn Ferry Institute

This is an exciting moment in human history. For the first time, people have turned the uncontrollable forces of nature—famine, sickness, and extreme poverty—into manageable challenges. This hasn’t come through any magic pill, of course. These once-insurmountable issues have been slowly brought down to size by motivated people, both individuals and groups, armed with the flexibility and desire to generate innovative ideas. Indeed, motivation is a seed that produces innovation.

But in recent times, motivation has become one of the greater concerns—and mysteries—of today’s business world. Even though these should be idyllic times for workers, with the economy and the labor market at such favorable levels, study after study suggests something has gone terribly wrong with workforce motivation. People still have the drive to work hard, but much of this drive has become sapped inside corporate hallways and factory walls. One of the most comprehensive surveys of the American workplace finds that 70% of workers say they are not highly engaged in their jobs—a disappointing figure given the funds companies dedicate to engagement.

The Korn Ferry Institute believes this mystery in motivation can be unlocked. According to our research, the heart of the problem centers on several very topical factors, from rapid tech disruptions to antiquated corporate structures to a disturbing rise in employee stress. Indeed, our analysis of a major global employee survey covering nearly 50 countries reveals that employee stress has risen nearly 20% in three decades. But we also believe that companies and employees together can turn the power of motivation to their favor, by creating a greater sense of purpose in the workplace, improving individual and corporate agility, and evolving leadership practices and operating structures.

This paper provides a roadmap to these steps, reaffirming the value of human capital in general and human motivation in particular. With the pace of change only increasing, stress is not likely to recede, so individuals must learn to cope, or better yet thrive, under a new management paradigm, while prevailing leadership and organizational practices must be reimagined to unleash the true adaptive potential of today’s workforce. Some measures can come with relative ease; others may require a more demanding process. But the stakes behind today’s battle for motivation could not be greater, with the very momentum for the pervasive innovations we enjoy today—and expect for tomorrow—now hanging in the balance.

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What Are the Best Strategies for Employee Motivation?

Last Updated:  

August 6, 2024

Keeping employees motivated is essential to maintaining productivity. Your team will feel happier at work and have higher job satisfaction if you can boost motivation and morale. However, you have to know where to start. Not every motivational strategy works for every employee, so you’ll want to have options.

Luckily for you, we’ve gathered all of the best strategies for employee motivation in this article. You can use the works you believe your staff will respond to the most. Let’s begin!

Key Takeaways on Motivating Your Employees

• Develop a Strong Reward Plan: Implementing a well-structured reward system, including monetary bonuses or paid time off, can effectively motivate employees by providing tangible incentives for achieving goals.
• Recognise and Celebrate Accomplishments: Acknowledging and celebrating even small achievements boosts employee morale, encouraging repeated positive behaviour and increasing job satisfaction.
• Develop a Positive Work Environment: Fostering a supportive and inclusive work environment enhances motivation, encouraging open communication, diversity, and collaboration across departments.
• Offer Opportunities for Development: Providing professional growth opportunities, such as training and career development programs, shows employees that their career progression is valued, which boosts motivation and retention.
• Set Clearer Work Goals: Clear and achievable goals help employees stay focused and motivated, enabling better performance tracking and constructive feedback.
• Lead By Example: Leadership that demonstrates the desired behaviours, such as responsibility and positivity, inspires employees to mirror these traits, creating a motivated and cohesive team.
• Motivate Your Employees for Success: Consistently motivating employees through recognition, a positive environment, and leading by example ensures sustained productivity and overall business success.

1. Develop a Strong Reward Plan

One of the best ways to show your employees that you care about them is to offer them a rewards system. They’ll know what they need to do to receive the rewards, so they’ll try harder to achieve their goals.

You can use bonus plan software to create the system. It’s an efficient process that allows you to completely tailor the plan to your needs. You can offer several different kinds of rewards as well. For instance, you can offer monetary bonuses or paid vacation time to your employees.

Having a rewards plan in place is one of the best things you can do to increase motivation. Your team can see the rewards they want, keeping them inspired to receive them. 

In short, develop a reward plan for your team. These systems work for all employees, so you can boost motivation throughout your entire business when you use them correctly because they are tangible rewards. Reliable software can help you get started.

2. Recognise and Celebrate Every WorkAccomplishment

Next, you need to reward and recognise every accomplishment, no matter how small. When your employee succeeds at something, you must praise them. This process is a form of positive feedback, which encourages them to repeat the behaviour.

It doesn’t take much to recognise an accomplishment. For example, you can praise them out loud at a meeting. You can also give them a card or hand-written note expressing how much you appreciate them. 

Acknowledgement is one of the best ways to boost motivation. Your employees will know that you see their efforts and will feel inspired to continue working hard. They’ll keep up the good work because they want more recognition. It’s especially impactful when it comes from higher-ups, so encourage your managers to let their teams know when they’re doing well.

Lastly, your employees will feel more confident at work, allowing them to make better decisions and remain motivated. They won’t feel the need to guess whether or not they’re doing a good job, so they’ll feel more valuable to your business.

3. Develop a Positive Work Environment

Having a positive workspace will keep your team motivated. Everyone should feel valued and respected at work. You can do this by encouraging diversity, inclusion, team-building activities, and open communication. Everyone should feel able to speak with you and the rest of management about anything they think is important.

You can also offer cultural competence training courses. These programs help employees understand the importance of diversity at work. It can help remove biases and make it easier for everyone to work together smoothly.

You can also encourage cross-department projects. Doing so allows your team to work with others from different parts of your company. Teaming up with other departments can make them feel a stronger sense of unity in your business. It also gives them more insight into how other aspects of the company run, helping them to better understand the entire business as a whole.

Lastly, employee resource groups, or ERGs, allow individual employees to meet up and support each other. It’s a great way to increase inclusion and foster a healthy work environment.

4. Offer More Opportunities for Development

Next, you should offer your employees more chances for development within your company. They’ll feel more valued when they know you’re investing in their careers. Plus, they can see a clearer career path with you, which is sure to help keep everyone motivated at work.

You can do this by offering professional training programs and workshops. You can even send interested employees to workshops and networking meet-ups. They can build new skills there and meet new employees who can help them build their careers.

Finally, regularly meet with your team and discuss their career goals. You can help them achieve their goals, showing that you care about their progress with your business. All of these factors can even help keep up retention and morale at work.

5. Set Clearer Work Goals

Having clear, easy-to-understand goals in place for all of your employees is essential. When they aren’t sure what they’re striving for, motivation is sure to drop. So, instead, focus on letting them know exactly what you’re expecting of them.

Your team will feel much more motivated and you can provide them with better constructive feedback this way. All of these aspects make it easier for your team to stay on track and they’ll know how they’re contributing to the business overall.

6. Lead By Example

Finally, one of the best strategies for motivating your employees is to lead by example. You want to show them that you’re motivated and interested in your work, so they’ll feel more encouraged to do the same.

Leadership should model the behaviours they expect from their team. When you’re inspired, they’ll be more inspired too.

Supportive leadership will make the employees feel like they’re doing more meaningful work, keeping them motivated and satisfied as well.

You and your management team can lead by example by:

• Taking responsibility for your actions at work.
• Listening to your team.
• Keeping up a positive attitude.
• Sticking to your company’s principles.
• Demonstrating the behaviours you want to see from your team daily.

When you lead by example well, you’ll start noticing a ripple effect at the workplace.

Motivate Your Employees for Success!

When you keep your team motivated, you and your business are sure to succeed. Try recognising their achievements, develop a positive environment, and lead by example. Your team is sure to respond well and stay motivated.

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© 2016 - 2024 Robin Waite. All rights reserved.

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Manager visits heighten workers’ motivation, productivity

By tom fleischman, cornell chronicle.

When a company’s “big boss” pays a visit to observe and connect with workers on the front lines, heightened motivation – and not necessarily the idea that they’re being watched – can lead to increased productivity, a Cornell-led research team found.

In an experiment involving a Latin American bank, the researchers found that sales of credit cards, term deposits, insurance and other products increased significantly in the days immediately before and in the weeks after the division manager’s visit.

“I’ve been a consultant and have always done field visits, and people feeling important and feeling that they are heard – it‘s a very strong motivator,” said  Asís Martínez-Jerez , professor in the Nolan School of Hotel Management, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Martínez-Jerez is corresponding author of “ Motivating From the Heights: A Field Experiment on Top Managers Visiting the Front-line ,” which published Aug. 3 in the Review of Accounting Studies.

Co-authors are Pablo Casas-Arce, associate professor at the Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, and Joseph Moran, a doctoral student at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Their paper was dedicated to Leo Cesario, data analytics manager at the bank, who died of cancer during the study.

Martínez-Jerez’s research includes management and organizations, and how philosophies and strategies find their way from the board room to the factory floor.

“The big question we are asking is, I am a CEO, but I’m not the one in contact with the client,” he said. “How do I design my organization so the people on the front line react to the customer in the way that I would as a CEO?”

One of the ways to accomplish this, Martínez-Jerez said, is “managing by walking around” – visiting those in the trenches to observe, offer support and show that management cares about its employees.

To test their theory, Martínez-Jerez and his team conducted a field experiment in the retail division of a medium-size bank in Latin America. The bank was in the middle of a “tournament” in which nearly half of its 170 branches were vying for prizes based on hitting sales goals, but Martínez-Jerez didn’t think the tournament aspect skewed his results.

“Our feeling was, ‘Let’s do it at a moment when incentives are high already,’” he said. “And if we find any additional effect on productivity during this time, then we know the effect really exists.”

For their experiment, the researchers coordinated with a newly hired division manager, who scheduled a series of visits to 79 of the bank’s branches over a three-month period. He had been on the job less than six months and was using these visits to introduce himself and express his pride at being part of the team.

The researchers conducted mathematical modeling as a way to gauge the motivational effects of the branch visits. Based on their modeling, they developed two hypotheses: When a top manager visits the rank and file, the team members of the front-line location increase their effort; and the incentive effect of the top manager’s visits is higher for branches with good past performance than for branches with poor past performance.

The researchers obtained sales information for each branch from the data analytics department of the bank, and found that sales productivity – as measured by the percentage above sales goals for credit cards, insurance and other products – increased significantly in the days immediately before a visit, and for approximately a month afterward.

The team conducted field interviews and determined that increased motivation, including the anticipatory effects of the visit beforehand, was the reason for the improved performance. It also explained why branches that performed better prior to the visits saw a bigger increase in productivity than poorer-performing ones, which would have benefitted more from visits that included a teaching or monitoring component.

Martínez-Jerez thinks companies would generally benefit from “managing by walking around,” and doesn’t think the effect would dampen with repeated visits.

“We think that there is going to be an optimal cadence of visits,” he said. “You have to keep the flame alive; your workers cannot feel forgotten.”

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Home > ETD > Doctoral > 5822

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A phenomenological study of the teaching motivation for teachers of color in predominantly white schools.

Jennifer Lynn McConnell , Liberty University Follow

School of Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)

Denise Nixon

diversity in education, racial representation in teaching, culturally responsive pedagogy, minority teachers, teacher retention

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Recommended citation.

McConnell, Jennifer Lynn, "A Phenomenological Study of the Teaching Motivation for Teachers of Color in Predominantly White Schools" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects . 5822. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5822

The phenomenological study explores how teachers of color describe their lived experiences and motivations to teach at predominantly White K–12 public schools in Pennsylvania. The theory guiding the study is Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation, which postulates that certain factors in the workplace, known as motivators, lead to job satisfaction. In contrast, others lead to dissatisfaction, known as hygiene factors. Herzberg's theory provides a valuable lens through which to examine the motivations of teachers of color to teach at predominantly White K–12 public schools in Pennsylvania. The qualitative research study explores the underlying factors influencing these teachers' commitments via interviews, document analysis, and journal prompt responses. The research methodology ensures thorough member-checking, systematic auditing, and transparent reporting to maintain credibility, dependability, and confirmability. The study also prioritizes ethical considerations, including obtaining informed consent from participants and ensuring the confidentiality of participant data. Ten research participants volunteered to participate, and the study's findings reveal intrinsic motivators such as the need for cultural representation and the desire to make a meaningful impact are crucial to their commitment to teaching in predominately White environments. The study's results also support Herzberg et al. (1993/2017) two-factor motivation-hygiene theory, showing that job satisfaction in this context stems from aspects related to the nature of the work itself and teachers' capacity to foster an inclusive and culturally diverse educational environment. The findings suggest that school and community leaders should go beyond recognizing diversity and inclusion and focus on creating supportive, adaptable, and equitable educational environments.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Individual work-motive values: determinants and consequences for the appraisal of specific health-related work characteristics.

• National Institute of Occupational Health, Oslo, Norway

The objectives of the present study were to determine whether (I) work-motive values influence the appraisal of specific work characteristics of significance for health and function and (II) subject variables impact work-motive values. Two aspects of work-motive values were studied: values that assign importance to pursuing one’s personal goals and interests, internally based work-motive values (IntWMVs), and values that assign importance to external factors, externally based work-motive values (ExtWMVs). These aspects of motive values, age, gender, skill level, managerial role, and specific psychosocial work characteristics were analyzed in a cross-sectional sample of 12,994 employees in 101 private and public organizations. Two-year follow-up prospective data from 6,252 employees in 69 organizations elucidated whether associations were stable over time. The results showed that IntWMV influenced reports of levels of control of decisions, empowering leadership, innovative climate, quantitative demands, feedback from work, and self-leadership. ExtWMVs were most consistently associated with role clarity. Skill level and managerial role were associated with reporting higher levels of IntWMVs and lower ExtWMVs. In conclusion, the present data support the assumption that work-motive values influence the appraisal, reporting, and consequently measurements of work characteristics. Managers differ from subordinates in work-motive values and may face challenges in ascertaining and supporting subordinates’ needs.

1 Introduction

Individuals differ in their styles of perception and appraisal; hence, individual-level factors influence the perception, appraisal, and reporting of work characteristics. Work-motive values is an individual-level factor that has received little attention, and there is a paucity of studies on its influence on the reporting of work characteristics. With reference to appraisal theory ( Moors et al., 2013 ) and person-environment fit (P-E fit; Edwards and Cable, 2009 ; Kristof-Brown and Guay, 2011 ), the present study aimed to determine whether (1) work-motive values differentially influence the reporting of specific work characteristics that are known to impact health and function and whether (2) the subject variables management position, skill level, gender, and age affect work-motive values. The present study adds to the knowledge base of organizational and occupational psychology by elucidating the role of individual motive values in employees’ appraisal of their jobs. This knowledge is of methodological significance for the assessment of work characteristics and of potentially practical impact for understanding sources of variance and differences between managers and followers.

1.1 Values and motives

Value is an “enduring belief that… specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable…” ( Rokeach, 1973 , p. 5). Beliefs pertaining to conduct were labeled instrumental values, while those pertaining to the end state of existence were labeled terminal values . Theories of personal values that aim to account for values in general organize values differently. Schwartz (1992) described two dimensions: (i) openness to change–conservation and (ii) self-enhancement–self-transcendence. Based on Schwartz’s theory, Arieli et al. (2020) provided a review of the impacts of personal values on behaviors, satisfaction, engagement, and wellbeing in organizations. Discussing the personal-value construct, they state that values differ from motives in that some motives are undesirable and that values represent conscious representations while people may be unaware of their motives ( McClelland, 1985 ; Arieli et al., 2020 ). Work motives may be defined as individual preferences for outcomes from work (e.g., Sagie et al., 1996 ; Kooji et al., 2011 ). Clearly, these constructs overlap and we use the term ‘motive values’ to inform that the present study pertains to work motives that are reported by survey questions, that is, available to consciousness.

1.2 Motivation

Terminal values and motives relate to motivation and the constructs are sometimes confused. The American Psychological Association’s “APA Dictionary of Psychology” defines ‘motivation’ as “the impetus that gives purpose or direction to human or animal behavior and operates at a conscious or unconscious level” ( VandenBos, 2007 ). Motivation is an abstract concept used to explain directional and activational aspects of behavior. The directional aspect of motivation contributes to processes of choice and initiation of behaviors, while the activational aspect determines the invested effort and intensity of behaviors toward attaining a goal. “Work motivation” is a general concept that encompasses both needs, motives, values, general attitudes toward one’s job, and specific motivation for specific work tasks or aspects of work (i.e., motivational state).

Theories of motivation are based on assumptions of fundamental drives, needs, desires, motives, values, or central nervous system functions (e.g., optimal arousal, Hebb, 1955 ; reduction of prediction error, Kaplan and Oudeyer, 2007 ). Hence, theories differ in assumptions of which fundamental factors drive motives, values, and motivational states. Maslow’s (1943) “Theory of human motivation” posits that humans are motivated by basic needs in a five-stage structure of priorities: (i) physiological needs, (ii) need for safety and predictability, (iii) need for love, (iv) need for self-esteem, and (v) need for self-actualization. McClelland’s “Need theory,” which is commonly applied by I/O-psychology consultants, proposes that people are primarily motivated by (i) the need for achievement, (ii) the need for power, or (iii) the need for affiliation to varying degrees ( McClelland, 1961 ).

1.3 Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation

Several lines of experiments and observations confirm that both directional and activational aspects of motivation may be modified by external reinforcers. Motivation caused by extrinsic incentives and consequences of doing the task, that is, by a reinforcer, is commonly termed extrinsic motivation. External incentives are associated with work performance, particularly for quantitative-type tasks ( Jenkins et al., 1998 ; Cerasoli et al., 2014 ). Transactional leadership theories are based on the motivational effects of social exchange, equity, and rewards (i.e., reinforcements).

Humans often immerse themselves in activities that are not reinforced by an external reward: The subject is motivated by the task per se and working on the task constitutes the motivation. Intrinsic motivation is inferred from engagement in a task for the inherent pleasure and satisfaction derived from the task itself. Pointing out shortcomings of drive-reduction theories, White (1959) proposed the concept of “competence,” defined as “… an organism’s capacity to interact effectively with its environment” (p 297) and “competence motivation” as an “intrinsic need to deal with the environment” (p 318). These concepts seem related to Maslow’s need for self-esteem and need for self-actualization and intrinsic motivation.

Self-determination theory (SDT, e.g., Deci et al., 2017 ) maintains that motivation is related to three innate psychological needs: (i) need for autonomy, (ii) need for competence, and (iii) need for relatedness. According to SDT, intrinsic motivation is the prototype impetus for self-determined behavior.

The role of reward and reinforcement is a pivotal issue for differentiating intrinsic from extrinsic motivation. The nature of reinforcement mechanisms may be elusive, however. Any sensory input signaling agency, novelty, or pleasure may act as reinforcers. For a baby watching his or her fingers move, both the visual and proprioceptive sensory input signals novelty and agency, which may be rewarding and hence reinforce play with fingers and hands. Play, hobbies, and work that are intrinsically motivating usually imply that the subject experiences tangible results of the effort and these outcomes can be intensely rewarding for her or him although other persons or the external surroundings do not ascribe any value to them. Furthermore, some seemingly intrinsically motivated activities may be escape from challenges or distressing environments (e.g., meditation activities and hobbies). A review by Morris et al. (2022) of “intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation” presents an overview of models and discusses the operationalization of ‘intrinsic motivation’.

Several studies have concluded that intrinsic task motivation is associated with performance, particularly for qualitative-type tasks ( Cerasoli et al., 2014 ; Deci et al., 2017 ). Transformational theories of leadership ( Bass, 1985 ) assume that leaders can inspire and strengthen intrinsic motivation, possibly by internalization of goals and objectives.

1.4 Work motivation and motive values

Motivation plays a major role in translating human capital into productivity, and there is a plethora of theories and studies of factors that determine workplace motivational state and behaviors. Few of these theories discuss motives or values. One exception is the job characteristic model of motivation (JCM, Hackman and Oldham, 1976 ) that proposes that specific job characteristics such as task variation, task identity, task importance (representing meaning of work), control of one’s work situation (representing autonomy), and feedback (representing knowledge of results of one’s work) determine motivation and job satisfaction. This model recognizes that a “high need for personal growth and development” (labeled “growth need strength,” p 258) moderates relationships between job characteristics (task variation, identity, importance; autonomy; feedback) and outcomes like satisfaction in high-skilled workers ( Hackman and Oldham, 1976 ; Loher et al., 1985 ). However, studies based on the JCM have not determined the direct effects of “growth need strength” on the reporting of work factors since the model treats job characteristics as independent variables ( Hackman and Oldham, 1976 ; Loher et al., 1985 ).

Even if definitions vary between theories, it seems reasonable to assume that intrinsic task motivation depends on some degree of alignment between individual values or interests and the nature of the task at hand (cf. P-E fit principles). The goals or interests of an individual are values or motives primarily determined by cultural norms, values, education, previous experience, and personality ( Salmela-Aro et al., 2012 ; Atherton et al., 2021 ). The general value of assigning importance to pursuing one’s personal goals and interests at work—where one’s motivation and satisfaction are generated by pursuing one’s personal goals and interests—seems related to the notion of motives for personal development (competence, White, 1959 ), personal ethical standards, need for self-actualization ( Maslow, 1943 ), and “growth need strength” ( Hackman and Oldham, 1976 ; Loher et al., 1985 ). For the purpose of the present study, we label this value internally based work-motive values (IntWMVs). Presumably, individuals with high levels of IntWMVs seek work that provides possibilities for intrinsic task motivation. The values that assign importance to safety, security, and income, that is, that motivation and satisfaction are generated by external factors, are labeled externally based work-motive values (ExtWMVs).

1.5 Perception and appraisal as method factors

Perception and appraisal are fundamental factors in interpreting and responding to one’s environment (e.g., Lazarus, 1991 ). The individual cognitive style of perception and appraisal may possibly be influenced by values. The appraisal of tasks and events is a pivotal determinant of people’s sentiments, opinions, and attitudes toward their work. Processes of perception and appraisal play roles in causal pathways from exposures to outcomes since psychological and biological responses depend on what is perceived and how this information is processed. This perspective maintains the significance of subjective appraisal for behavior and health.

On the other hand, one may argue that objective knowledge of exposures and work characteristics is important for risk assessment and measures to improve organizations. Perception and appraisal processes may result in inaccurate information about the objective reality. A substantial portion of the knowledge base of psychology is based on reports by individuals of their perception and appraisal of the phenomena under study, that is, subjective reports ( Bodner, 2006 ) and surveys are the most prevalent data collection methods used by organizations ( Rivers et al., 2009 ). For both science and practical applications of assessment of work (or other life exposures), the role of appraisal processes for potential information bias is a major methodological issue. Method factors that influence the subject’s response introduce method variance and/or bias of estimates of the construct that is measured (method bias; see Podsakoff et al., 2012 ). One established method factor is the personality characteristics of the individual. Neuroticism predisposes individuals to report mental and somatic symptoms (e.g., Cuijpers et al., 2010 ; Vassend et al., 2018 ) and influences the appraisal of social support ( Swickert and Owens, 2010 ). Social desirability (self-deception; e.g., Nederhof, 1985 ) may influence perception and appraisal processes. Response styles ( Knowles and Condon, 1999 ; Baumgartner and Steenkamp, 2001 ), instrument-design effects ( Krosnick and Presser, 2010 ), and context factors at the time of responding that influence affective state ( Askim and Knardahl, 2021 ) may influence responding to survey instruments.

Some appraisal theories take “motivational relevance” ( Lazarus, 1991 ) or “consistency with motives” ( Roseman et al., 1996 ) into account as one of the factors in appraisal processes. Perceiving discrepancies between what one experiences at the workplace and one’s values can be a source of discontent or distress ( Arieli et al., 2020 ). George and Jones (1996) reported that a sum score of value attainment, job satisfaction, and positive mood interacts to determine turnover intentions. It seems plausible that motive values may play a fundamental role in the appraisal of work characteristics. Studies, primarily from one research group, have reported generally favorable effects of “predominant intrinsic work value orientations” on work-related outcomes such as job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion ( Vansteenkiste et al., 2007 ). Surprisingly, we have not found studies of the effects of motive values on the appraisal and reporting of specific work characteristics.

1.6 Work characteristics

Occupational health studies of work factors that contribute to employees’ health, wellbeing, work ability, and absenteeism have consistently reported effects of the broad dimensions of job demands and control ( Karasek, 1979 ; Kivimäki et al., 2012 ; Knardahl et al., 2017 ), “effort and reward” ( Siegrist, 1996 ), and more specific factors such as social support from superior, role conflict, and fair leadership (e.g., Christensen and Knardahl, 2010 ; Elovainio et al., 2013 ; Finne et al., 2016 ). Studies generally take age, gender, and education into account in their analyses. Based on appraisal theories’ concepts of “motivational relevance” ( Lazarus, 1991 ) or “consistency with motives” ( Roseman et al., 1996 ), hypothetically, individual work-motive values may profoundly influence one’s perception, appraisal, and reporting of work characteristics, constituting both a theoretical and methodological challenge to studies.

1.7 Aims and objectives

The overarching aim of the present study was to determine whether work-motive values influence the perception and appraisal of some of the work characteristics that contribute to the wellbeing, function, and health of employees. We investigated an array of characteristics encompassing both psychological task-related factors (work content), social-interaction factors (with leader and co-workers), and self-leadership for the following reasons: (a) hypothetically, motive values may show distinct relations to specific work factors, (b) practitioners need information pertaining to specific and malleable factors to detect challenges and design measures for improvement, and (c) including the broader spectrum of factors in the same study enables determining which associations are robust and of practical significance. Finally, by selecting one or a very small number of variables from a larger set, one runs the risk of reporting statistically significant effects of limited practical impact (“cherry picking”). We assessed the effects of internally and externally based motive values and total motive intensity.

Work values may change with seniority and age, and work-motive values may contribute to aging employees’ motivation to stay or exit from work ( Kooji et al., 2011 ). Therefore, one aim of the present study was to determine the effects of age, managerial position, skill level, and gender on work-motive values.

Internally based work-motive values (IntWMVs) pertain to seeking personal development, attaining personal goals and interests, and adhering to personal ethical standards. It seems reasonable to expect that perceived barriers or facilitators of personal development may be particularly relevant for individuals who prioritize this value. Specifically, one objective of the present study was to determine whether IntWMVs influence the perception and appraisal of levels of control of decisions at work, empowering leadership, and innovative climate. Having decision latitude or autonomy (control of one’s work situation) should be relevant for pursuing one’s personal goals and interests. Leaders (managers) differ in behaviors related to promoting employees’ development, participation in decisions, and autonomy, that is, empowering leadership. An innovative climate is the shared perception of conditions for innovativeness. Individuals motivated by personal development and attaining personal goals and interests may want to work in an innovative climate. The perception of rigid rules and conventions with little possibility of change may be seen as barriers to personal development. Therefore, IntWMVs may possibly influence the perception and appraisal of innovative climate.

Self-leadership refers to the employee’s autonomous behaviors (see Stewart et al., 2011 , for review). Stronger IntWMVs may possibly motivate and promote autonomous behaviors resulting in more self-leadership. On the other hand, experiencing self-leadership may hypothetically influence work-motive values. Hence, we tested associations between the level of IntWMVs and self-leadership.

Since externally based motive values (ExtWMVs) may be related to instrumentally based motivation, one may assume that this value is related to input–outcome relationships ( Adams, 1963 ). Self-reported job demands represent the employee’s appraisal of quantitative or qualitative requirements that he or she must fulfill in the job. Hence, job demands constitute a major aspect of the input dimension of input–outcome (equity) models ( Adams, 1963 ).

To some degree, the evaluation of input–outcome relationships depends on receiving feedback or rewards for effort or performance, that is, the feedback that the employee receives at work. Hypothetically, having predominantly ExtWMVs may influence the subjective importance placed on receiving positive feedback and hence the perception and appraisal of feedback.

Externally based work-motive values are associated with needs and interests that are, in principle, unrelated to the work-task contents per se , such as status, security, and safety in addition to input–outcome relationships ( Adams, 1963 ). Being treated fairly is important to most people, but one may hypothesize that having predominantly ExtWMVs may influence the perception of fair leadership. Furthermore, employees with ExtWMVs may emphasize the importance of safe and supportive social interactions at work. Specifically, we predicted that the level of ExtWMVs is associated with reported levels of job demands, feedback from work, levels of fair leadership, and social support.

Conflicts by nature imply sustained challenge (until resolved) and constitute health risks even if the subject seems to exhibit optimal behavioral coping responses (e.g., Lawler et al., 1980 ). Role conflict (i.e., conflicting expectations, standards, and demands) is a common type of conflict in working life that is associated with negative consequences for health (e.g., Christensen and Knardahl, 2010 ) and exit from working life ( Emberland et al., 2017 ). Since role conflicts and ambiguity are significant predictors of health and wellbeing, we tested the hypothesis that levels of work-motive values are associated with reported levels of role expectations.

Individual response styles may influence responding. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that the general level of activational motive values (i.e., total motive-value score = IntWMV + ExtWMV) represents a general motivational pattern that influences the perception and appraisal of work. We investigated both the strength of the two work-motive values (levels; IntWMVs and ExtWMVs) and the relative contribution of the IntWMV (fraction of total, f-IntWMV = IntWMV/total motive value score).

Since one primary objective was to determine the effects of (conscious) motive values on the perception and appraisal of work characteristics, we primarily based conclusions on responses given in the same survey, that is, on cross-sectional data. However, we also analyzed 2-year follow-up prospective data to elucidate whether associations were robust and stable over time.

2.1 Study design and population

The study was part of the project “The new workplace: work factors, sickness absence, and exit from working life” with a full-panel prospective design (all factors measured at all survey waves; Christensen and Knardahl, 2010 ; Nielsen et al., 2016 ). Organizations were recruited from 2004 to 2019; hence, the first measurement survey took place within this extended period. Private and public organizations participated (municipalities, government ministries, federal agencies, healthcare, finance, insurance, education, and non-profit organizations). All current employees of each organization were invited to participate (organizational-level convenience sampling). For those organizations that took part in two survey waves, the interval between waves ranged from 17 to 36 months (an average of 24 months, the second survey took place between 2006 and 2019). The surveys were primarily web-based (approximately 15% responded on a paper version). The information to participants contained no information on hypotheses or research questions.

The study was approved by the Norwegian Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics and the Norwegian Data Inspectorate and conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Two samples were defined for the current analyses: a cross-sectional sample for which all employees in companies that participated at least once were eligible and a prospective sample comprising employees from companies that participated at least twice ( Table 1 ). The cross-sectional sampling frame consisted of 26,841 invited employees of 1,482 work units in 101 companies. Of these, 14,679 individuals (54.7%) completed all items about motivational attitudes, and 10,971 (40.9% of all invited) also completed all items pertaining to at least one work factor as well as sex, age, skill level, and management position.

Table 1 . Descriptive statistics: subject characteristics of cross-sectional analyses ( N  = 10,971).

The prospective sampling frame comprised 15,580 invited employees of 986 work units in 69 companies. Of these, 6,997 (44.9%) individuals provided information about motivational attitudes at both time points, and 5,437 (34.9%) also provided information about at least one work factor as well as skill level, age, sex, and management position.

2.2 Assessment of work-motive values

Work-motive values were measured with seven questions from The General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work ( QPSNordic ; Dallner et al., 2000 ): “How important are the following considerations in relation to your ideal job?”

Three items measured internally based work-motive values (IntWMVs): (1) to develop my own personality, (2) to get a sense of accomplishing something worthwhile, and (3) to be able to put my imagination and creativity to good use at work. To eliminate the possibility that high levels of IntWMVs were caused by the general strength of work-motive values or a general tendency for reporting higher levels (response styles), we also tested the effects of internal motive values as the fraction of total motive values.

Four items measured externally based work-motive values (ExtWMVs): (1) to have good pay and material benefits, (2) to have a peaceful and orderly job, (3) that the work is secure and provides regular income, and (4) to have a safe and healthy physical work environment. Response categories were (1) unimportant, (2) not so important, (3) rather important, (4) very important, and (5) absolutely necessary. Cronbach’s alpha for IntWMV was 0.66. Cronbach’s alpha for ExtWMV was 0.65. The original QPS Nordic excluded the question “good pay and material benefits” from its external motive scale since it exhibited a moderate correlation with the scale ( r  = 0.34; Dallner et al., 2000 ). The values of Cronbach’s alpha were below a conventional cutoff of 0.7. However, the present measures consisted of relatively few items (alpha increases with a higher number of items). Moreover, the extent to which a high alpha is important, and how it should be interpreted, has been debated ( Taber, 2018 ). Alpha may be seen as the extent to which the factor reflects a common, general construct, as opposed to the unique content of each item. Hence, when using few items to cover a relatively broad domain that comprises aspects that differ in meaning (e.g., good pay may differ from secure and safe), a lower alpha may be seen as acceptable and even expected.

To elucidate the potential effects of the general strength of motive values or a general tendency for reporting higher levels (response styles, Baumgartner and Steenkamp, 2001 ), we tested the effects of the sum of all seven motive-value items (total work-motive value score).

2.3 Reports of work characteristics

The QPSNordic has been extensively validated, has shown good psychometric properties ( Dallner et al., 2000 ; Wännström et al., 2009 ), and provides a comprehensive assessment of key work factors. The following factors were assessed in the present study: control of decisions (5 items), empowering leadership (3 items), innovative climate (3 Items), quantitative demands (time pressure, amount of work; 4 items), learning demands (3 items), feedback from work (2 items), fair leadership (3 items), social support from immediate superior (3 items), support from co-workers (2 items), role clarity (3 items), role conflict (3 items). Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.71 for role conflict to 0.87 for empowering leadership. The two support-from-co-workers items exhibited Pearson’s r  = 0.66.

Since most work factors may vary over time, response categories of the QPSNordic are frequency of occurrence (five levels, “very seldom or never”–“very often or always”) for all scales except feedback from work and innovative climate (five categories, “very little or not at all”–“very much”).

Self-leadership was measured with five items from studies by Houghton and Neck (2002) with five response categories: “very little or not at all”–“very much.”

2.4 Individual respondent characteristics

Gender and age were determined from Norwegian official social identity codes . Skill levels were determined based on occupations, according to a Norwegian adaptation of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88), by Statistics Norway. This classification expresses educational levels or equivalent levels of work experience typically required for different occupations ( Christensen and Knardahl, 2010 ). Skill level also serves as a proxy for socioeconomic status. Managerial role was determined from one survey question. These factors were included as covariates in all analyses of associations between motivational attitudes and reported work factor levels.

2.5 Statistical analyses

Subject variables : In the random intercept linear regression models, subject characteristics were independent factors, and IntWMVs, ExtWMVs, and total motive-value scores were dependent factors, respectively. Prospective regressions were adjusted for baseline level of motive values.

Work characteristics : In the random intercept linear regression models, IntWMVs, internally based motive values as fraction of total motive-value score (f-IntWMV), and ExtWMV motive values, were independent factors, while work characteristics were dependent factors. All regressions were adjusted for skill levels, age, and gender. Prospective regressions are adjusted for baseline level of the respective outcome.

Due to the large number of analyses, we chose a p -value of <0.01 as the criterion for statistical significance (tables also present 95% confidence intervals). Recent years have seen criticism of basing conclusions solely on statistical analyses showing p -values lower than a standard criterion ( Wasserstein et al., 2019 ). Therefore, we based conclusions on combined evaluations of p -values and estimates.

3.1 Influence of demographic factors on work-motive values

Age was modestly associated with motive values. Female employees reported higher levels of both IntWMVs and particularly ExtWMVs, that is, they reported higher total motive value scores ( Table 2 ). Skill levels >13 years were positively associated with IntWMVs and negatively associated with ExtMWV but only weakly associated with total motive scores ( Table 2 ). Being a manager was associated with work-motive values: top managers exhibited a strong positive association with IntWMVs and a strong negative association with ExtWMVs ( Table 2 ).

Table 2 . Associations between age, gender, skill level, and manager roles with internally based work-motive values (IntWMVs), externally based work-motive values (ExtWMVs), and total work-motive value score (cross-sectional analyses).

3.2 Effects of the strength of internally based work-motive values (IntWMVs) on the reporting of work characteristics

IntWMVs score strongly influenced reported levels of control of decisions, empowering leadership, and innovative climate, both cross-sectionally and prospectively ( Tables 3 , 4 ). Hence, our hypotheses regarding positive associations between IntWMVs and these specific work factors were supported. However, IntWMVs were also positively associated with quantitative demands, learning demands, feedback from work, role conflicts, fair leadership, social support from both superiors and co-workers, and role conflicts.

Table 3 . Associations between work-motive values and reports of work characteristics (cross-sectional analyses).

Table 4 . Prospective analyses: associations between work-motive values and reports of work characteristics.

IntWMV score was strongly associated with self-leadership both cross-sectionally and prospectively ( Tables 3 , 4 ).

Effects of the relative contribution of internally based work-motive values : We found that f-IntWMV (fraction of total motive value score) was strongly associated with reporting all work factors except fair leadership and social support (cross-sectional analyses) and role conflict (prospective analysis; Tables 3 , 4 ). All associations were in a positive direction with the exception of that of role clarity.

3.3 Effects of the strength of externally based work-motive values (ExtWMVs) on the reporting of work characteristics

ExtWMV score did not influence reported levels of job demands or feedback from work. ExtWMV score was weakly associated with reported levels of fair leadership, but there was no prospective association ( Tables 3 , 4 ). Hence, our hypotheses pertaining to ExtWMVs were not supported by the results.

ExtWMV score was positively associated with reported levels of role clarity (both cross-sectionally and prospectively; Tables 3 , 4 ) and weakly associated with both aspects of social support (cross-sectionally). ExtWMV score was negatively associated with decision control, role conflict, and self-leadership (only cross-sectional analyses).

3.4 Effects of the general strength of motive values (or a general tendency for reporting stronger responses): effects of total motive value score on the reporting of work characteristics

The total work-motive value score was positively associated with all work factors measured, except role conflict ( Table 5 ). However, only role clarity, innovative climate, and self-leadership were prospectively influenced by the total motive-value score ( Table 5 ).

Table 5 . Associations between total work-motive value score and reported work characteristics.

4 Discussion

The present study found that managerial role, skill level, gender, and age are associated with internally based work-motive values (IntWMV, Table 2 ). These motive values in turn influenced the perception and appraisal of several specific work characteristics ( Tables 3 , 4 ). The total work-motive value score was cross-sectionally associated with all work factors except role conflicts, but only role clarity, innovative climate, and self-leadership showed significant prospective effects ( Table 5 ).

Skill level and holding a managerial role were strongly associated with reporting a higher level of IntWMVs. Skill level corresponding to education/experience >13 years and being a top manager were also negatively associated with ExtWMV ( Table 2 ). Effects on the total motive-value score were negligible. Motives and values pertaining to work may be bidirectionally associated with the level of education and acquiring managerial responsibilities. The very values and attitudes to develop one’s personality, use one’s imagination and creativity, and accomplish something worthwhile may motivate completing higher education and taking up managerial roles. On the other hand, higher levels of education and taking on leadership roles may possibly promote values related to personal development.

The present data showed that managers may differ from their subordinates in work-motive values and, consequently, differ in terms of goals and interests pertaining to work. This raises the question of whether leaders and managers face challenges in ascertaining and supporting the needs and interests of subordinates. Communicating and working with people with different work-motive values may require high levels of empathy and humility.

Female employees reported stronger total motive-value scores primarily due to relatively stronger ExtWMVs ( Table 2 ). This finding may result from gender differences in values prioritizing family or gender differences in general attitudes toward safety and security. A third explanation is that females prioritize economic security and safety due to their perceptions of gender discrimination in the job market. It should be noted that we did not take seniority or weekly work hours into account, based on the assumption that these factors may be related to skill level.

Age was related to ExtWMVs and total motive-value scores ( Table 2 ). However, the associations were weak, and there were no prospective associations.

The present study found that employees with internally based work-motive values (IntWMV, f-IntWMV) reported higher levels of several psychological work factors: control of decisions, empowering leadership, innovative climate, quantitative demands, feedback from work, and role conflicts, while there were negative associations with role clarity ( Tables 3 , 4 ). Prospective effects on learning demands, feedback, and role expectations were inconsistent. Therefore, motive values can influence survey measurements of several work characteristics of consequence for both research and practical assessments of risk. Motive values were weakly related to the perception of fair leadership and social interactions.

The hypothesis that internally based motive values (IntWMVs) are related to the perception of facilitators or barriers to personal development or accomplishing something worthwhile was confirmed by the finding that both IntWMV score and f-IntWMV (fraction of total motive value score) were associated with control of decisions, empowering leadership, and innovative climate. These consistent positive associations suggest that the employees with higher levels of IntWMVs are concerned with these particular work factors and/or that their values shape the appraisal of these factors. Alternatively, the finding that associations were positive may suggest that individuals in jobs with higher levels of these job characteristics also exhibit higher levels of IntWMVs, that is, that internally based motive values are a mediator between socioeconomic status and the appraisal and reporting of one’s work situation. However, we adjusted all analyses for skill level. Finally, reporting higher levels of IntWMVs and control, empowering leadership, and innovative climate may be a result of a third factor, for example, personality traits.

IntWMVs were also positively associated with quantitative demands and feedback from work suggesting that either IntWMVs are related to placing emphasis on input–outcome relationships, or that employees with higher IntWMVs tend to have jobs characterized by higher demands and more frequent feedback. These analyses were adjusted for skill level, but it is possible that internally based motive values mediate associations between socioeconomic status and appraisal of work characteristics as mentioned above.

Studies of the job characteristics model (JCM) reported that “growth need strength” moderated relationships between job characteristics and satisfaction in high-skilled workers ( Hackman and Oldham, 1976 ; Loher et al., 1985 ). IntWMVs seem related to “growth need strength” of these studies, and the present study found that IntWMVs were positively associated with control and feedback, both of which are related to JCM factors.

IntWMVs and f-IntWMVs were strong predictors of self-leadership, that is, of employees’ autonomous behaviors ( Stewart et al., 2011 ). ExtWMVs exhibited a weak statistically significant negative association. These associations were significant in both cross-sectional and prospective analyses taking baseline level of self-leadership into account, suggesting that IntWMVs is reflected in the employee’s behaviors or in his or her perceptions of own behaviors. It seems possible that IntWMVs and self-leadership are overlapping concepts or that IntWMV is a precondition for self-leadership to develop. A potential reverse effect was not ruled out.

ExtWMVs were positively associated with role clarity and showed weak–moderate positive associations with innovative climate, fair leadership, and social support, while the association with control of decisions was negative ( Tables 3 , 4 ). We hypothesized that ExtWMV, that is, instrumentally based motive values, is related to the appraisal of factors related to input–outcome relationships according to equity theory ( Adams, 1963 ). We did not find significant associations with factors related to input (quantitative demands) or outcome (feedback, fair leadership, Table 4 ) and the proposed hypothesis did not receive support. An alternative hypothesis suggesting that employees reporting externally based motive values place less emphasis on work content in general, seems to receive support from these findings.

There are alternative general explanations for the present findings. Work-motive values may influence the perception and appraisal of work tasks, social interactions, and leader behaviors by four hypothetical general mechanisms. (I) Work-motive values, that is, terminal values, influence the interest, involvement, and commitment to a job and the significance the person assigns to certain value-relevant factors at work. Consequently, motive values may direct an employee’s attention to those aspects of the job that are relevant for satisfying motives (according to appraisal theory) and those work characteristics that are considered relevant to values are monitored closely. Having IntWMV may be associated with paying more attention to the contents of work tasks and work characteristics in order to appraise alignment with personal goals and interests ( Tables 3 , 4 ). On the other hand, ExtWMV may pertain to needs or priorities that are unrelated to the contents of work tasks, such as salary, security, and safety. Hence, job-task content may be of lower importance for employees with primarily externally based work-motive values. (II) IntWMV may be associated with a response style of lower tendency for midpoint responding, in turn increasing variance. Response styles may be defined as “tendencies to respond systematically to questionnaire items on some basis other than what the items were specifically designed to measure” ( Baumgartner and Steenkamp, 2001 ) and may serve as a heuristic to minimize cognitive effort. Consequently, values may influence the effort put into evaluating one’s work situation and responding to surveys. Skill level and managerial role were associated with IntWMV, but there are conflicting findings on the relationships between the level of education and an extreme response style ( Van Vaerenbergh and Thomas, 2013 ). Nevertheless, this explanation does not account for the direction of associations. (III) Work-motive values may influence self-selection into jobs that are congruent with one’s values and priorities. Finding positive associations between motive values and appraisals of work characteristics indicates that self-selection into the present job had successfully met motive values. (IV) Exhibiting IntWMVs may be associated with a positive attitude toward work in general. Consequently, these persons tend to report more positive appraisals of work characteristics.

4.1 Methodological considerations

The present study was based on validated measures of work characteristics ( Dallner et al., 2000 ; Wännström et al., 2009 ). The work-characteristic questions and response alternatives were worded to avoid negative or positive connotations and influence of affect on responding ( Askim and Knardahl, 2021 ). The study encompassed a rather large number of employees (cross-sectional analyses: N  = 12,994; prospective analyses: N  = 6,252). Response rates (defined as employees who provided response to all relevant factors as a percentage of all employees invited) were 48.1% in cross-sectional and 40.1% in prospective analyses. Respondents worked in a rather large number of organizations/businesses (cross-sectional analyses: 101; prospective analyses: 69) from both private and public sectors, with several types of jobs. Therefore, we are not aware of sources of selection bias. However, for evaluating external validity, one should consider the fact that the study was conducted in Norway, a country known for its strong emphasis on welfare, during a period of solid economy, and within a Scandinavian culture context.

The ExtWMV scale consisted of four items (“peaceful and orderly job,” “secure and provide regular income,” “safe and healthy physical work environment,” and “good salary and material goods”). One of these items, “good salary and material goods,” was not included in the “extrinsic motivation to work” factor of the QPS Nordic ( Dallner et al., 2000 ). There is a theoretical possibility that ExtWMV consists of two (or more) components: (i) safety/security and (ii) salary/remuneration/material goods. We did not pursue investigating these aspects.

Both motive values (independent variables) and work characteristics (dependent variables) were measured with surveys, that is, subjective reports. Since one objective of this study was to evaluate whether motive values influence the perception and appraisal and reporting of one’s work, subjective reports were essential for addressing the research questions. The present study did not attempt to assess an objective reality; hence, method bias due to subjective reporting ( Podsakoff et al., 2012 ) should be of minor relevance. However, response styles such as acquiescence responding, extreme response style, or midpoint responding may produce response bias and common-method bias, thereby inflating associations. As discussed previously, we have not found evidence that gender or skill level should influence response styles ( Van Vaerenbergh and Thomas, 2013 ). The affective state at the time of responding does not seem to influence subjective reports of these work factors to a significant degree ( Askim and Knardahl, 2021 ). Separating the survey items that measure independent and dependent in space (different sections in the questionnaire) and time are recommendations for attenuating common-method bias ( Podsakoff et al., 2012 ). Most of the associations for IntWMVs were also found with prospective analyses; hence, response biases if existing seem related to the individual’s values rather than to contextual or questionnaire issues.

4.2 Conclusion and implications

The present results show that individual motive values influence the appraisal and reporting of several aspects of psychosocial work characteristics. In particular, internally based work-motive values (IntWMVs) influence reports of control, empowering leadership, innovative climate, quantitative demands, and feedback from work, in addition to self-leadership. Therefore, measurements of work characteristics for research or for practical risk assessment should consider taking motive values into account.

Since gender, skill level, and managerial role influence motive values, it seems possible that motive values partially mediate associations between job roles and the experience of work characteristics. Managers may thus differ from their respective subordinates in work-motive values, and there may be differences in goals and interests. Leaders and managers may face the challenge of empathy in ascertaining and supporting the needs and interests of subordinates.

Data availability statement

The data analyzed in this study is subject to the following licenses/restrictions: data are not publicly available due to the terms of participation. Analysis code and research materials may be made available upon request. Data were analyzed using R version 4.2.2 ( R Core Team, 2022 ) and the package “lme4” ( Bates et al., 2015 ). Requests to access these datasets should be directed to SK, [email protected] .

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by Norwegian Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics, Norwegian Data Inspectorate. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

Author contributions

SK: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Project administration, Methodology, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization. JC: Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The present study was part of a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council (grant 23778) and by the National institute of occupational health, Norway. The funding body had no influence on the study hypotheses, results, or conclusions.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Anne Lene Andersen, Shahrooz Elka, Margrethe Schøning, and Elisabeth Petersen, for their assistance in the survey administration.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Table A1 . Descriptive statistics: means and standard deviations (range for all variables: 1 – 5).

Keywords: work-motive values, skill level, managerial role, work characteristics, self-leadership

Citation: Knardahl S and Christensen JO (2024) Individual work-motive values: determinants and consequences for the appraisal of specific health-related work characteristics. Front. Psychol . 15:1332687. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1332687

Received: 03 November 2023; Accepted: 09 July 2024; Published: 07 August 2024.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2024 Knardahl and Christensen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Stein Knardahl, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Manager visits heighten workers' motivation, productivity

by Cornell University

When a company's "big boss" pays a visit to observe and connect with workers on the front lines, heightened motivation—and not necessarily the idea that they're being watched—can lead to increased productivity, a Cornell-led research team found.

In an experiment involving a Latin American bank, the researchers found that sales of credit cards, term deposits, insurance and other products increased significantly in the days immediately before and in the weeks after the division manager's visit.

"I've been a consultant and have always done field visits, and people feeling important and feeling that they are heard—it's a very strong motivator," said Asís Martínez-Jerez, professor in the Nolan School of Hotel Management, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Martínez-Jerez is corresponding author of " Motivating From the Heights: A Field Experiment on Top Managers Visiting the Front-line ," which published Aug 3 in the Review of Accounting Studies .

Co-authors are Pablo Casas-Arce, associate professor at the Carey School of Business at Arizona State University, and Joseph Moran, a doctoral student at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Their paper was dedicated to Leo Cesario, data analytics manager at the bank, who died of cancer during the study.

Martínez-Jerez's research includes management and organizations, and how philosophies and strategies find their way from the board room to the factory floor.

"The big question we are asking is, I am a CEO, but I'm not the one in contact with the client," he said. "How do I design my organization so the people on the front line react to the customer in the way that I would as a CEO?"

One of the ways to accomplish this, Martínez-Jerez said, is "managing by walking around"—visiting those in the trenches to observe, offer support and show that management cares about its employees.

To test their theory, Martínez-Jerez and his team conducted a field experiment in the retail division of a medium-size bank in Latin America. The bank was in the middle of a "tournament" in which nearly half of its 170 branches were vying for prizes based on hitting sales goals, but Martínez-Jerez didn't think the tournament aspect skewed his results.

"Our feeling was, 'Let's do it at a moment when incentives are high already,'" he said. "And if we find any additional effect on productivity during this time, then we know the effect really exists."

For their experiment, the researchers coordinated with a newly hired division manager, who scheduled a series of visits to 79 of the bank's branches over a three-month period. He had been on the job less than six months and was using these visits to introduce himself and express his pride at being part of the team.

The researchers conducted mathematical modeling as a way to gauge the motivational effects of the branch visits. Based on their modeling, they developed two hypotheses: When a top manager visits the rank and file, the team members of the front-line location increase their effort; and the incentive effect of the top manager's visits is higher for branches with good past performance than for branches with poor past performance.

The researchers obtained sales information for each branch from the data analytics department of the bank, and found that sales productivity—as measured by the percentage above sales goals for credit cards, insurance and other products—increased significantly in the days immediately before a visit, and for approximately a month afterward.

The team conducted field interviews and determined that increased motivation, including the anticipatory effects of the visit beforehand, was the reason for the improved performance. It also explained why branches that performed better prior to the visits saw a bigger increase in productivity than poorer-performing ones, which would have benefitted more from visits that included a teaching or monitoring component.

Martínez-Jerez thinks companies would generally benefit from "managing by walking around," and doesn't think the effect would dampen with repeated visits.

"We think that there is going to be an optimal cadence of visits," he said. "You have to keep the flame alive; your workers cannot feel forgotten."

Provided by Cornell University

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How to Ask for Help Without Making Yourself Look Bad

• Melody Wilding

When you request support with confidence, your colleagues are more likely to see you as self-assured, pragmatic, and capable.

In a work world that values ownership and personal initiative, many assume that asking for direction or seeking clarification will make them look incapable, or worse, will prove to others — and themselves — that they have no idea what they’re doing. Asking for help without appearing weak requires a delicate balance of convening vulnerability and strength. In this article, the author offers advice for how to ask for help from a position of strength — and how to get what you need without making yourself look bad. 

Imagine you’ve just been handed a new project at work. It’s mostly within your subject matter expertise, but it involves new skills you’ve never used before. You start by doing some research, hoping to piece together a plan, but soon you feel stuck and overwhelmed. Your mind races with concerns about how you’ll hit your deadline.

• Melody Wilding , LMSW is an  executive coach  and author of  Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work . Get a free copy of Chapter One here .

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