Happy workers value effort,sad workers value reward

Why do various workers exhibit dissimilar motivational levels and performance results within the same incentive systems? According to expectancy theory, this might result from distinct evaluations of whether those rewards deserve corresponding effort. We proposed and verified that affective states influence the valuation of effort and reward. We concluded that happy people are likely to exert efforts for future rewards and sad people tend to seek rewards without extra effort. Our finding can explain divergent employee reactions to the same incentive programme. Our results provide an explanation for the finding that happy workers are more productive than sad workers. These results have crucial implications for human resource management theory and practice.     

Keys to motivating tomorrow's workforce

Work motivation is a set of energetic forces that originate within as well as beyond an individual's being. It is a psychological process resulting from the reciprocal interaction between the individual and the environment that affects a person's choices, effort, and persistence. The purpose of this chapter is to peer inside the door to what might or should be the motivational sources of tomorrow's workforce. To discover the key for opening this door, the history of research and theory on work motivation in the 20th century is reviewed in order to identify principles that are likely to be timeless. Second, the current status of research and theory at the dawn of the present millennium is examined. Third, and on that basis, predictions are made regarding the design of organizations in the 21st century; predictions are made on ways to motivate the employees who will work in them.     

Evaluating performance-related pay for managers in the National Health Service

This paper evaluates the scheme of performance-related pay facing NHS managers, using both quantitative and qualitative date from a questionnaire survey. We find that the scheme is modestly successful. On the basis of self-reported data from managers covered by the scheme, there are clear indications that it has raised motivational levels, and induced more effort, albeit for only a minority of the managers. These results stand in some contrast to those from a number of earlier UK studies, and may show what happens in relatively mature PRP systems. In seeking to understand why the scheme was not more successful, we found that motivational and behavioural change was less likely among those who thought that certain aspects of the objective-setting process were done badly, or that assessments were conducted inappropriately, or that the subsequent rewards were unattractive. We finish by drawing out some implications for HR policy.     

High involvement management,high-performance work systems and well-being

Studies on the impact of high-performance work systems on employees' well-being are emerging but the underlying theory remains weak. This paper attempts to develop theory of the effects on well-being of four dimensions of high-performance work systems: enriched jobs, high involvement management, employee voice, and motivational supports. Hypothesized associations are tested using multilevel models and data from Britain's Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 (WERS2004). Results show that enriched jobs are positively associated with both measures of well-being: job satisfaction and anxiety–contentment. Voice is positively associated with job satisfaction, and motivational supports with neither measure. The results for high involvement management are not as predicted because it increases anxiety and is independent of job satisfaction.     

An integrative model of effort propensity

Over twenty years ago, Mitchell [Mitchell, T.R. (1982) Motivation: New directions for theory, research, and practice. Academy of Management Review, 7:80–88.] called for research which integrates and competitively tests the multitude of motivation theories competitively. Yet, with few exceptions, theories of motivation tend to be narrow in focus. However, many motivation theories incorporate similar predictor variables such as job satisfaction, perceived equity, and organizational commitment, suggesting that theory integration is warranted. In this paper, several literatures are reviewed which deal with employee effort at different levels (e.g., withholding effort, offering extra effort). “Effort propensity” is offered as an appropriate integrating variable, and an integrative model of effort propensity which pulls these various literatures together and stimulates the type of research described by Mitchell [Mitchell, T.R. (1982) Motivation: New directions for theory, research, and practice. Academy of Management Review, 7:80–88.] is proposed.     

Examining the link between flexible working arrangement bundles and employee work effort

Empirical evidence regarding the link between flexible working arrangements (FWAs) and work effort is mixed, with the literature showing that some practices are linked to more while others to less work effort. In this study, we argue that this discrepancy may be due to the existence of different types of FWA bundles with potentially distinct effects on work effort. Using Understanding Society, a British national survey, and building on theories related to social exchange, the study examines the link between employee‐centered and employer‐centered FWA bundles, and work effort. This study further tests whether these relationships differ depending on employees' family responsibilities. Based on a sample of 13,834 employees, results show that both employee‐centered and employer‐centered FWA bundles are negatively associated with work effort, and findings for the latter bundle are more pronounced. These negative associations are somewhat stronger for employees with fewer family responsibilities. We infer that employees appear to use employee‐centered FWAs for their intended purpose, that is, to balance life and job demands, while they might perceive employer‐centered FWAs as unfair, resulting in less work effort in an attempt to restore fairness.     

Financial forecasting and risky decisions: an experimental study grounded in Prospect theory

This study employed prospect theory to examine relationships between effort invested in developing financial forecasts and risk taking. Results of an experimental study indicated that the more effort subjects invested in developing forecasts, the more likely they were to use those forecasts as their reference points when evaluating venture performance. Results also indicated that subjects who used forecasts as their reference points and exerted greater effort developing those forecasts were more likely to take risky actions when performance fell below their reference points. This study is the first to link effort to the type of reference point used and the first to link effort and the use of financial forecasts to risky decisions. In addition, it is one of only a few studies to employ prospect theory to examine risk taking decisions subsequent to start-up. Its results enhance our understanding of risk taking, prospect theory and reference points.

     

Understanding Public and Nonprofit Managers' Motivation Through the Lens of Self-Determination Theory

Abstract

Contemporary public and nonprofit management research has disproportionally emphasized the importance of intrinsic motivation (especially service motivation) but has given comparatively little attention to non-intrinsic motivation. According to self-determination theory (SDT), non-intrinsic motivation moves from identified motivation, introjected motivation, external motivation, to amotivation, depending on their disparate levels of self-determination. The authors examine empirically whether public managers differ from nonprofit managers on these intrinsic and non-intrinsic motivational styles. The findings show that public managers exhibit stronger service motivation, identified motivation, external motivation, and amotivation when compared to their nonprofit peers. In addition, public managers' strong external motivation and amotivation compromise their overall level of self-determination, suggesting that they may be less motivated by their work requirements than are nonprofit counterparts.     

Entrepreneurial intention among University students in Malaysia: integrating self-determination theory and the theory of planned behavior

The present study endeavors to develop a deeper understanding of the motivational processes involved in intentional entrepreneurial behavior. For this purpose, it integrates the social cognitive approach of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the organismic theory of motivation of self-determination theory (SDT). More specifically, it tests the role of basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness as defined in SDT in shaping university students’ attitudes and intentions toward entrepreneurship. The sample of this study consisted of 438 (Males?=?166, Females =272) 3rd and 4th year university students from four Malaysian Public Universities. The results of the study show that the model strongly explains about 71% of the variance in entrepreneurial intention. Basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness have a strong indirect impact on entrepreneurial intention via their attitudinal antecedents: attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. This indicates a full-mediational model, where the attitudinal factors operated as transmitters of effects from the distal constructs of SDT on entrepreneurial intention. These findings confirm that both SDT and the TPB provide complementary explanations of the motivational processes of entrepreneurial behavior. The study contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a theory-based understanding of the role of motivations in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions. It opens the way for future research to analyze how alternative motivations may affect new venture creation, survival and success.

     

Unconscious Processes of Organizing: Intergroup Conflict in Mental Health Care

A critical but overlooked issue in Weick’s seminal work, The Social Psychology of Organizing (1969/1979), concerns ‘the heat’ of organizing processes, namely, the underground emotional processes underpinning the organizing of conflictual work relationships. We present a qualitative case study of psychiatric agencies mandated by public policy to collaborate but instead engaged in persistent conflict despite its deleterious effects on their working relationship and on the wellbeing of the clients they intended to serve. To explain these conflictual features of organizing, we integrate Weick’s organizing theory with systems psychodynamics to deepen the understanding of emotions in organizing, specifically the motivational forces underpinning sensemaking and actions between interacting psychiatric agencies. This integration of theories reveals a critical feature of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious organizing processes: When a threat is involved, sensemaking and action are overtaken by social defences, resulting in dysfunctional organizing of the primary task. Drawing on these findings, we enrich Weick’s seminal work by developing a model that portrays organizing as the ritualized interaction of emotions, sensemaking and behavioural responses.     

Evaluating Moral Issues in Motivation Theories: Lessons from Marketing and Advertising Practices

Motivation theories in the management and organizational behavior literature represent researchers’ attempts to understand the processes that cause people to act productively in the context of the employment relationship, for the benefit of their employers (Miner Organizational behavior, performance and productivity New-York: Random-House 1988). These theories attempt to develop tools that will enable managers to make their employees’ behavior cost-effective and directed toward the achievement of the organization’s goals. From this perspective, motivational and marketing practices are quite similar, especially if we compare motivational and advertising practices. The goal of both is to propel people into behaving in a way that will benefit the organization. This paper examines what the well-developed criticism of advertising and marketing practices can teach us about the use of motivational practices in work organizations. Following Bishop’s (Business Ethics Quarterly 10: 371–398, 2000) framework of the moral issues raised by ads, this paper critically investigates the moral meaning of classic motivational theories and practices and their implications for both theoreticians and practitioners.     

Similarities and differences in employee motivation viewed by Korean and Japanese executives: empirical study on employee motivation management of Japanese-affiliated companies in Korea

This study examines similarities and differences in employee motivation management between Korean and Japanese executives of Japanese-affiliated companies in Korea, based on questionnaire surveys. The respondents' views of employee motivation factors were analysed, by contrast with motivational factors and hygiene factors (maintenance factors) developed by Herzberg. The survey results reveal that both Korean and Japanese executives realize the importance of employee motivation management, and that Japanese executives have a stronger awareness of it than Korean executives. Both recognize it for the sake of high corporate performance, employee job satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Seeing motivation factors: the majority of Korean and Japanese executives regard ‘wage and bonus increases’ as a strong motivational factor; ‘employment stability’ is recognized as a motivational factor by Korean executives; and ‘clarifying company policy and job objectives’ is the most important motivational factor to Japanese executives. Their views of these three factors are not consistent with Herzberg's theory. We also found a recognition gap between Korean and Japanese executives: ‘esteem and praise for job performance’ is a hygiene factor to Korean executives but a motivational factor to Japanese executives.     

Trust in Agency

Existing models of the principal–agent relationship assume the agent works only under extrinsic incentives. However, many observed agency contracts take the form of a fixed payment. For such contracts to work, the principal must trust the agent to work in the absence of incentives. I show that agency fosters the advent of intrinsic motivation and trustworthy behavior. Three distinct motivational schemes are analyzed: norms, ethical standards, and altruism. I identify conditions under which these mechanisms arise and show how they promote trust. The analysis alters several important predictions of conventional models: (1) Better outcomes may ensue in highly uncertain environments; (2) the principal is better off the more the agent is risk averse; and (3) larger equilibrium extrinsic incentives need not be associated with larger effort or larger total surplus .     

When is Effort Contagious in New Venture Management Teams? Understanding the Contingencies of Social Motivation Theory

Consistent with social motivation theory, prior research on managerial motivation suggests that effort is contagious across management team members. In this study, we draw on belongingness theory to develop a model on important boundary conditions to social motivation theory in the management team context. The model predicts that new venture managers react to their teammates’ higher effort levels by investing higher effort levels themselves primarily when they are confronted with a threat – namely, low venture performance and high environmental hostility – but that effort is less contagious when managers face little threat. We test our model with a sample of 103 new venture managers nested in 51 management teams in a longitudinal setting capturing managerial effort over 26 weeks. While we do not find a direct relationship between teammates’ effort and a new venture manager’s subsequent effort, we find support for the crucial role of threat in triggering the contagion of managerial effort. We discuss the contributions of our study for research on management teams, performance feedback, and entrepreneurial effort in new ventures.     

Self‐managed work teams: An efficiency‐rationale for pay compression

This paper uncovers a novel mechanism through which pay dispersion can have a negative effect on firm performance, even in the absence of equity or fairness considerations. We use a stylized model of a self‐managed work team to show that, when team‐work involves heterogeneous tasks, the provision of incentives to exert effort conflicts with the provision of incentives to share information relevant for decision‐making. Pay dispersion deteriorates information sharing as it induces workers to conceal “bad news” to maintain their coworkers motivation. The practical implications of our theory are that team empowerment should go hand in hand with pay compression and that empowerment should be avoided when team production involves strongly heterogeneous tasks.     

The effect of noise in a performance measure on work motivation: A real effort laboratory experiment

This paper reports the results of an individual real effort laboratory experiment where subjects are paid for measured performance. Measured performance equals actual performance plus noise. We compare a stable environment where the noise is small with a volatile environment where the noise is large. Subjects exert significantly more effort in the volatile environment than in the stable environment. This finding is in line with standard agency theory and contrasts the intuitive idea captured by a distinct element of expectancy theory that noisier performance measures would lower work motivation.     

Understanding supplier motivation to engage in multiparty performance-based contracts: The lens of Expectancy theory

Research on performance-based contracts (PBCs) has emphasized outcome uncertainty (lack of outcome attributability) as an obstacle to applying such contracts effectively and has investigated possible ways to mitigate this uncertainty. Most studies primarily address dyadic buyer-supplier contracts and the uncertainty that originates in the environment or in buyer behaviour. However, suppliers often also depend on other suppliers and sub-suppliers in the process of outcome creation. Such reciprocal interdependencies between more than two parties cannot easily be addressed through dyadic contracts. This paper examines how effective multiparty PBCs can be designed to align the interests of multiple suppliers. To develop our a priori conceptualisation, we first review the literature and identify the factors that affect suppliers' willingness to engage in PBCs, drawing on Expectancy theory to unravel the motivational effects of rewards. We then use case studies from the construction sector to investigate how these factors apply to multiparty PBCs and identify specific variables that influence supplier motivation in such settings. Based on our findings, we propose that expectancy (the relationship between effort and performance) is enhanced by parties’ joint participation in the planning and control of project activities, their reputation, and specific contractual elements such as the codification of collaboration or reward design in hybrid PBCs. Instrumentality (the link between performance and reward) is primarily affected by the perceived fairness of the reward sharing and codified collaboration, and valence (the relationship between reward and supplier objectives) is mainly influenced by the monetary amounts at stake.     

The pragmatic roots of scientific insight: a culturalist approach to management theory in the view of grand challenges

Grand challenges, as they are currently discussed in management research, refer to societal problems that affect human affairs comprehensively. Tackling grand challenges must therefore be considered first and foremost as an overarching cultural effort. To understand how management theory fits into this effort, the article drafts a new epistemic approach to theory development. The approach is based on the school of Methodical Culturalism in the philosophy of science. It turns the attention to the pragmatic roots of scientific insight in daily life. From the review of extant literature associated with Methodical Culturalism, the article extracts a list of questions to investigate how these pragmatic roots take effect in theory development. Using selected examples, the article gives a brief illustration of the change in perspective that results from the culturalist approach. It argues that management theory can be more closely related to grand challenges when the personal affectedness of scholars as human beings is better taken into account.     

Cognitive‐Experiential Leadership Model: How Leaders’ Information‐Processing Systems Can Influence Leadership Styles,Influencing Tactics,Conflict Management,and Organizational Outcomes

The current article provides empirical evidence in support of a new Cognitive‐Experiential Leadership Model. The foundation of the model is based on the integration of the Cognitive‐Experiential Theory (CET; Epstein, 2014), a personality‐based theory, and the Full‐Range Leadership Theory (FRLT; Bass, 1985). Results show a strong connection between the rational system and constructive elements of the CET’s experiential system, and transformational leadership and conflict‐handling styles. There is also preliminary evidence that developing leaders’ CET information‐processing systems could increase transformational leadership. Leaders who are high in rational thinking and constructive thinking may also elicit extra effort from their followers, effectively manage conflict, choose effective influencing tactics, and achieve positive organizational outcomes. Implications and future research directions examining the Cognitive‐Experiential Leadership Model are discussed.