book review: gary p. latham. 2007. work motivation: history, theory, research

8/16/2019 Book review: Gary P. Latham. 2007. Work motivation: History, theory, research

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Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

DOI: 10.1177/103841110704500308052007; 45; 381Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources

Laura Petittapractice ISBN 0 7619 2017 X; 337 pages; £29.00; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Book review: Gary P. Latham. 2007. Work motivation: History, theory, research, and

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Book reviews 381

individual occasion of their engagement. In such ways the courts have sought to

come to terms with changing modes of work through the staid and creaking legalmechanism of contract. Hardy and Upex recount the cases, but do not go furtherin exploring the implications and shortcomings of such legal decisions. No doubtit was thought that anyone studying employment law as part of their businessstudies is interested primarily in getting a grasp of the legal principles in a brief and easily applied manner. Most business students (and many law students as well)would no doubt agree with that aim.

The challenges of teaching law to non-law students lie in disabusing them of the view that law is merely a collection of rules to be applied to any situation (whileavoiding the opposite trap that law is merely a jumble of arbitrary decisions), andof drawing the connections between business and legal studies. When it comes toemployment relations, it is not difficult to see how strong are the connections

between legal ideas and the social relations from which they emerge and whichthey help to govern. The connections with the organisational and structuralfeatures of working life are nowadays frequently recognised in the primary legaltexts themselves, by judges and legislators. The difficulty lies in doing so from aperspective which is informed by the disciplines of the social sciences and manage-ment studies.

Andrew Frazer, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Gary P. Latham. 2007.

Work motivation: History, theory, research, and practice

ISBN 0 7619 2017 X; 337 pages; £29.00; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

In his book, Work motivation: History, theory, research, and practice, Gary Lathamsynthesizes existing approaches to work motivation, drawing from a rich varietyof topics. The book is organized to enhance the development of work motivationtheory and suggests both new research avenues for motivation research andtheory-grounded solutions for organizations.

Latham provides clarity and insight to work motivation theories for the

benefit of both academics and practitioners. The book reflects his approach tousing theory to inform practice, and for practice to inform theory. Specifically, thebook a) highlights the importance of taking an interdisciplinary approach tointegrate work motivation theories, and thereby enriching extant theories; b)emphasizes the role of volition in human behavior; c) integrates the cognitiveapproach to work motivation with more recent advances in motivation; d) incor-porates findings on conscious motivation with research on subconscious activationof goals; e) considers the role of emotions in motivation; and f) draws on findingsfrom clinical psychology.

The primary goal of this book is to provide graduate students and early careerscholars with a suite of research in the area of motivation at work. Latham’s

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professional experience shows through in the book as he raises crucial questions for

researchers and practitioners in developing theory-grounded interventions.The book will be useful for both academics and practitioners as it deals witha wealth of empirical findings and practical insights. For graduate students, itventures into unexplored territories from which researchers can craft futurestudies. After reading this book, graduate students will emerge with a soundunderstanding of work motivation theories, and ideas for future research. Forpractitioners, it can be used as a guide for creating modern management practicesfor the dual purpose of increasing employee motivation, and enhancing an orga-nization’s effectiveness.

Latham uses personal and compelling stories to demonstrate how theoreticalprinciples inform practice, and strategies organizations employ to drive researchagendas. For example, early in the book, Latham shares thirteen critical chance

encounters with key people who contributed to his professional and personalgrowth. He documents how they shaped his thinking and understanding of workmotivation. This narrative style will be familiar to those who have read Latham’searlier work. His writing is articulate and provides rich description.

The book is organised temporally, and is divided into four main sections. Part1, ‘The 20th century: Understanding the past,’ lays the groundwork for theoriesof motivation. Part 2, ‘The 21st century: Understanding the present’, and part 3,‘Future directions and potential mis-directions’, presents an overview of currentdirections and challenges of research on work motivation. The last section,‘Epilogue’, concludes the book by highlighting the art of practice in addition toscience in predicting and influencing behavior in work settings.

Part 1 includes five chapters, which chronicles work motivation studies until

the early part of the twentieth century. Chapter 2 provides a critical review of howempiricism led to the growth of motivation research to include other variablesbesides money, especially attitudes. In chapter 3, Latham notes that due to littleempirical support for needs-based theories of motivation, researchers began tofocus on the role of cognition in motivation. Chapter 4 details major contributionsfrom the cognitive approach to motivation, including goal-setting theory, socialcognitive theory, and principles of organization justice. Chapter 5 describes severalcontroversies, such as the extent to which money is an important driver of moti-vation, the meaningfulness of the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic moti-vation, and the causal relationship between job performance and job satisfaction.

Part 2 synthesizes the contributions of ongoing research in the present millen-

nium to our understanding of work motivation. Although needs are described asthe starting point of motivation, chapter 6 explains that needs do not explain whydifferent people choose a specific action. The following chapter outlines theinfluence of individual differences on motivation, and explains that the relation-ship between personality traits and job performance is highly complex in fieldsettings. Chapter 8 focuses on values. Specifically, it discusses how context interactswith personality variables. Further, it demonstrates how societal culture, job char-acteristics, and the structure of a work team reciprocally influence one another.

New developments pertinent to goal-setting theory are described in chapter9. Specifically, Latham reviews: a) the fascinating and challenging differences andinterrelationships between subconscious and conscious goals, emphasizing

382 Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 2007 45(3)





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Gollwitzer’s (1999) findings on the relationship between goal intentions/imple-

mentation intentions and goal attainment; b) the fundamental distinction betweenlearning and performance goals; c) the influence of context, especially taskcomplexity, environmental change and uncertainty, and group dynamics; and d)the importance of errors and feedback that foster learning and contribute toeffective self-regulation. Bandura’s social cognitive theory, outcome expectancies,moral disengagement, the Pygmalion effect, and action theory complement thisreview in the following chapter. In chapter 11, he argues the relevance of investi-gating self-regulation as applied to emotions, and the relationship between affect,job satisfaction, and job performance.

Part 3 focuses on the importance of overcoming the tendency to think of motivation compartmentally. Rather, scholars and practitioners should be aware of the plethora of research streams that contribute to theories of work motivation.

Well-established research findings in clinical psychology should be integrated withthose in work psychology, particularly research on verbal self-guidance, Ellis’rational emotive therapy, and Seligman’s work on learned optimism. The benefitsof taking a multi-level approach to understanding employee performance isexplained.

Finally, in part 4, Latham focuses on the ‘art of practice’. He shares the lessonshe has drawn from his experiences working as a staff psychologist in industry andas a hired consultant.

It may be in the interplay of theory and practice, as well as in Latham’sprofessional experiences that management researchers and practitioners will findvalue when reading this book. As a scholar and practitioner myself, I felt that moredetailed and structured case studies from the author’s professional life would have

been highly effective. I was left ‘asking for more’.If science is supposed to progress through the synthesis of prior empirical

work, this book provides a first step for graduate students in formulating newresearch avenues and for established scholars and practitioners interested in moti-vation. Understanding the role of work motivation in influencing an employee’sperformance will enable leaders to seize opportunities and achieve individual andorganizational success.

Laura Petitta, University of Rome, Italy



book review: gary p. latham. 2007. work motivation: history, theory, research

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