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Work Motivation
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Running Head: WORK MOTIVATION
Work Motivation: Theory, Practice, and Future Directions
Ruth Kanfer
Georgia Institute of Technology
December, 2010
To be published in:
Kozlowski, S. W. J. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Co.
Send all correspondence to: Ruth Kanfer School of Psychology 654 Cherry St., MC 0170 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0170 USA E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: 404-894-5674 Fax: 404-252-3061
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Abstract
This chapter focuses on recent scientific advances and use-inspired research on motivation
related to adult work. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section reviews basic
motivation constructs and processes, and the issues that delineate the scope and content of the
field. The second section reports on research progress and the implications of new
conceptualizations for understanding and predicting work behaviors and performance. The third
section reviews findings on the major determinants of work motivation, organized into three
broad categories: Content (person variables), Context (situation variables), and Change (temporal
variables). The fourth and final section identifies current gaps in our knowledge, practical
challenges, and promising new research directions.
Keywords: Employee motivation, self-regulation, goals, implicit motives, self-efficacy, self-
determination, motivational dynamics, motivational traits, trait-performance relations, work
environment
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Work Motivation: Theory, Practice, and Future Directions
Introduction
Work motivation is arguably one of the most vibrant areas in work and organizational
psychology today. Since 1990 there has been astonishing progress on many topics that were
largely undeveloped two decades ago (see Kanfer, 1990). The most important change in the field
pertains to the way that dissimilar theories and research streams have coalesced around the goal
construct to form a complex, but viable "big picture" of motivation related to work. As the broad
outlines of this picture continue to become clearer, more researchers are developing and testing
formulations that integrate different portions of the motivation domain. Organizational scientists
have also sought out and incorporated advances in allied fields of psychology, economics,
communications, and sociology to help fill in remaining gaps in our understanding of
nonconscious processes and the impact of multi-level, multi-faceted social contexts on work
motivation and behaviors. New research methodologies and analytic methods have been adopted
that permit study of motivation over time and the analysis of motivation as it is embedded in
ongoing work relationships, teams, organizations, and the employee life-course. Theories
developed during the mid-20th century (that continued to dominate the scene in the 1980s) have
been transformed into formulations that provide a better fit to the scientific questions and
organizational concerns salient in the early 21st century. Prior questions about the applicability
of work motivation findings to real-world problems have been replaced by questions about work
motivation driven by real-world problems in specific contexts. New views of the self, affect, and
the context in which work motivation operates have also spurred the development of new
research programs, many of which have adopted a person-centered perspective. The result of this
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activity is a field that looks very little like the field in the 1980s. Although our understanding of
work motivation remains far from complete, the field is clearly on the move.
Overview
The purpose of this chapter is to review advances and emerging trends in work
motivation over the past few decades, and to identify promising topics for future work. Reviews
that provide greater detail on earlier developments in the field are available from a number of
sources. Historically-oriented reviews of the field through the latter part of the 20th century are
provided by Ambrose and Kulik (1999), Campbell and Pritchard (1976), Katzell and Thompson
(1990), Kanfer (1990, 1992), Kanfer, Chen, and Pritchard (2008), Latham (2007), Latham and
Pinder (2005), Mitchell and Daniels (2003), and Pinder (2008). In addition, a number of reviews
organized around specific theoretical perspectives are available, including qualitative reviews
and meta-analyses on goal setting (Austin & Klein, 1996; Locke, Shaw, Saari, & Latham, 1981),
self-regulation (Lord, Diefendorff, Schmidt, & Hall, 2010), goal orientation (Payne, Youngcourt,
& Beaubien, 2007), expectancy-value and decision theories (Klein, Austin, & Cooper, 2008;
Mitchell, 1974, 1982), organizational justice (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001;
Folger & Cropanzano, 1998), self-determination theory (Gagne & Deci, 2005), and work design
(Fried & Ferris, 1987; Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007; Parker & Ohly, 2008).
Reviews are also available on the role of motivation in specific situations and settings, including
for example in teams (Chen & Gogus, 2008; Chen & Kanfer, 2006; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006;
Salas, Cooke, & Rosen, 2008), leadership (Zacarro, Hildebrand, & Nelson, 2008), job search
(Kanfer, Wanberg, & Kantrowitz, 2001), workforce aging (Kanfer, 2009; Shultz & Adams,
2007), and in learning and skill training (Beier & Kanfer, 2009; Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000).
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Erez (2008) provides a review of social-cultural influences on work motivation and Gelfand,
Erez, and Aycan (2007) provide a review of work motivation across cultures.
The chapter is organized into four sections. The first section highlights foundational
issues and a work motivation definition that delineates the broad scope and content of the field.
The second section describes scientific progress on basic motivational processes, and their
relationships to outcomes of individual and organizational interest (e.g., behavior, sense of
competency, job performance). The third section describes recent findings on major determinants
of work motivation, organized into three broad categories: Content (person variables), Context
(situation variables), and Change (temporal variables). The fourth section identifies some of the
current gaps in our knowledge, and promising new research directions for the study of work
motivation over the next few decades.
Foundations for Theory and Research in Work Motivation
In the narrow sense, the study of work motivation examines the psychological processes
and mechanisms by which individuals form and commit to work-related goals, formulate plans
for goal accomplishment, allocate personal resources across a range of possible actions, and
regulate thoughts, behaviors, and affect for the purpose of goal attainment. Although there has
been a tendency to view work motivation as a cognitive phenomena, modern research makes it
clear that motivational processes are not just cognitive; they are supported by and involve
biological processes, unconscious perceptions, sensations, affect, and cognitions.
More broadly, the study of work motivation also includes theory and research on the
person and situation factors that influence motivation processes, and the pathways by which they
do so. Consistent with the Latin root of the word motivation meaning "to move," work
motivation researchers and scientists seek to understand the internal and external forces that
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facilitate or hinder behavior change. Work motivation is also a topic of great practical
importance, and includes work on the consequences of motivation for employees and the
organizations they work in. Work motivation research focuses on multiple dimensions of
behavior change, including the direction, intensity, and persistence of workplace actions and job
performance within the broader, continuing stream of experiences that characterize the person in
relation to his or her work (Kanfer, 1990).
Pinder (1998) provides an encompassing definition of work motivation as "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" (p. 11).
Consistent with definitions of motivation found in many areas of psychology, definitions of work
motivation emphasize the following points:
1. Motivation is not directly observed and must be inferred.
Because motivation cannot be directly assessed, changes in motivation are inferred by
associated changes in behavior, learning, or task/job performance. The use of performance
measures to index motivation, however, is often problematic since performance is not univocally
determined by motivation, and is also determined by employee knowledge and skills and/or the
availability (or lack) of external resources (e.g., equipment) necessary for successful
performance. The use of performance ratings or scores to index motivation importantly depends
on the extent to which changes in motivation are directly reflected in changes in performance.
In general, performance measures to index motivation are appropriate in contexts where
task performance is effort-sensitive—that is, changes in effort produce proportional changes in
performance. However, when changes in motivation affect performance through effects on
cognitions, behavior, or affect, performance indices of motivation are less appropriate. In these
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situations, the more appropriate criteria are those changes in behavior, cognitions, and/or affect
that are the direct consequence of a change in motivation. Thus, researchers often use multiple
measures of behavior (e.g., time spent on a task) as well as performance score to index a change
in motivation. In the job search literature, for example, motivation may be assessed by time spent
on job search activities (persistence), the type of job search activities performed (direction), and
self-reports of effort expended on job search (intensity). In studies of motivation during training,
motivation is often assessed in terms of self-report measures that assess the individual's goal
commitment and self-efficacy, and/or behavioral measures of attendance, task persistence, and
self-regulatory activities.
2. Outcomes of motivation include changes in the initiation, direction, intensity,
modulation, or persistence of action.
The type of measure used to assess motivation depends upon the question of interest.
When the question is about how motives or contexts "turn on" or instigate work-related
behaviors, researchers may use initiation measures. The impact of achievement motives on
innovative performance, for example, may be evaluated by assessing the frequency an employee
asks questions or seeks information. Choice and intention measures are often used to assess the
direction of action. Intensity indices capture the proportion of an individual's personal resources
allocated to a goal or task. Intensity measures often assess subjective or subjective task effort,
energy, time spent on the task, or other personal resources directed to task performance.
Persistence measures represent assessments of the duration that an individual allocates personal
resources to a particular task or action. As such, persistence integrates direction and the temporal
dimension of intensity.
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3. Motivation emerges as a consequence of the person-in-context; motivation is not
As Pinder's (1998) definition indicates, the forces that influence motivation occur both
within as well as externally to the individual. That is, although the psychological processes
involved in work motivation occur internally, motivation is not a stable characteristic of the
person across all situations. Individuals who show high levels of motivation for action in one
situation (e.g., read a novel), may show low levels of motivation for action another situation
(e.g., read a textbook). The purpose of action and the context in which it occurs must always be
taken into account.
univocally or consistently determined by a single person attribute or feature of the environment.
Motivation is also not simply a function of the environment. Even in extremely "strong"
situations (e.g., the battlefield), individual differences in person attributes, such as tolerance for
ambiguity, contribute to motivation and performance. In the moderate or weak situations that
characterize most workplaces, motivation depends on individual propensities and preferences as
well as situational affordances and constraints. As Lewin (1938) suggested over a half century
ago, "motivation can only be properly analyzed by taking into account characteristics of the
person in the context of dynamic social, physical, and psychological environments that facilitate
and constrain person tendencies for action."
4. Motivation is always in flux.
Motivation is a state that changes constantly. Changes in motivation, with associated
changes in beliefs, behaviors, and affect occur over different time cycles (Lord et al., 2010) and
are often measured on different timescales, depending on the question of interest (Kanfer et al.,
2008). Lord et al. (2010) propose four major cycle levels for motivational phenomena that
correspond to the measurement of motivation processes and outcomes on different timescales.
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Examples of the different cycles, their associated measurement timescales and the dominant
methods used at different levels are shown in Figure 1.
-------------------------------
Insert Figure 1 about here
-------------------------------
As shown in Figure 1, intra-individual cognitive and affective processes involved in
motivation are typically fast and assessed in terms of milliseconds or minutes. Studies at this
level of analysis are typically conducted in controlled, laboratory conditions. In contrast, studies
of work motivation conducted over very long time frames, such as months, years, or decades,
capture information about the influence of the broader social and work culture and relatively
stable person traits and tendencies on motivation and the trajectories of work behaviors and
performance over the life course.
Most work motivation researchers and professionals focus on motivation changes that
occur during relatively short timescales (e.g., hours, days, weeks). Analyses at this level capture
the impact of proximal person influences (e.g., work goals) and environmental conditions (e.g.,
job autonomy) on motivation, behavior and job performance. Studies at this level are both
logistically feasible and practically useful for examining the effects of specific organizational
interventions, such as goal setting, on motivation and performance.
Because motivational processes take place on different cycles or timescales, multi-level
models are also needed to examine how factors and processes that operate at one level may
influence another level. Changes in the organizational culture over the course of a year, for
example, are likely to affect the value that is placed on different aspects of employee
performance, which in turn affect the individual's work and task goal choices. Cross-level effects
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between motivational processes that operate on different timescales may be indirect, such as
when changes in organizational culture promote the adoption of worker goals that facilitate
learning and higher levels of competence. Cross-level effects may also be moderated by short
cycle motivation processes, such as when employees who are highly anxious develop a response
of adopting performance goals (rather than learning goals) that prompt the use of less effective
learning strategies. Multi-level studies of work motivation offer an exciting opportunity for
systematizing knowledge about the dynamics of multi-scale motivation processes and their
effects on work behavior and job attitudes.
Work motivation is a unique branch of motivational science. Work motivation is not just
a subordinate section of the larger field of motivational science. In other branches of human
motivation, such as achievement motivation, research is often organized and accumulated around
a single theoretical perspective, and the context for research is often driven by the target
theoretical issue. In work motivation, however, research is also driven by the underlying
practical concern for how motivation influences organizationally-relevant work behaviors, such
as job performance. Over the past few decades, changes in the conceptualization of the criterion
space have spurred new theories of work motivation. In contrast to previous formulations that
focused on motivational influences on technical performance, such as speed and quality of
production, the changing nature of work has focused more attention on the relationship between
motivation and nontechnical or contextual dimensions of job performance, including for
example, the quality of an employee's relationships with coworkers and clients, organizational
citizenship behaviors, and adaptability to changes in job demands, organizational structure, and
the external marketplace. The shift in the dimensions of performance to be predicted has, in turn,
encouraged the development of new perspectives that address motivational effects on these
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outcomes. On the negative side, there has been a sharp increase in the number of criterion-
specific work motivation "mini-theories.” On the positive side, the enlarged criterion space has
stimulated connections with other fields, such as affective science, personality psychology, and
even mental health.
Is there more to work motivation than we can tell? A final foundational issue pertains to
the growing interest in implicit motives and nonconscious processes as they influence work
motivation and behavior. The notion of nonconscious influences on motivation is certainly not
new to psychology, but has received little research attention in work motivation until recently.
Over the past few decades, however, research on implicit motives and nonconscious processes in
other areas of psychology has begun to influence mainstream work motivation theory and
research (see, e.g., James, 1998; Johnson & Steinman, 2009; Kehr, 2004; Latham, Stajkovic, &
Locke, 2010; Lord et al., 2010). The impetus for renewed attention to nonconscious motives and
processes stems from advances that show: (a) self-report measures of individual differences in
nonability traits and action preferences do not capture important person influences on
motivation, and (b) not all motivation processes are cognitively-mediated. In accord with these
advances, recent progress in I/O psychology appears in two areas: (a) the assessment of
individual differences in implicit motives, and (b) theory building on the relationship between
implicit motives and nonconscious processes and goal selection and pursuit.
Implicit motives. In contrast to explicit motives, implicit motives are not accessible for
conscious self-report. Individual differences in explicit motives, such as extraversion, are
typically assessed using self-report measures in which persons report their behavioral tendencies
and outcome preferences. Such self-reports are cognitively-mediated in that the individual
reports what they think best describes them. In contrast, implicit motives are not accessible
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through direct self-report since these motives do not reflect cognitively-mediated action
tendencies, but rather affectively-charged motivators that are activated by intrinsic outcomes
associated with action. In contrast to explicit motives, whose impact is typically on cognitively-
mediated behaviors, implicit motives are further posited to influence spontaneous, rather than
cognitively-mediated, behaviors (Michalak, Puschel, Joormann, & Schulte, 2006). Individuals
who are high in implicit power motive, for example, would be expected to demonstrate more
spontaneous power-oriented behaviors during the performance of tasks that afford the
opportunity for acquiring influence over others than individuals low in implicit motive for
power.
Modern conceptions of implicit motives build upon arguments made by McClelland
(1987) that the low correlation often obtained between direct (self-report) and indirect
(projective; e.g. TAT) measures of individual differences in the achievement motive reflected the
difference between implicit and explicit motives for achievement, rather than measurement error.
McClelland (1987) further proposed three implicit motives: achievement, affiliation, and power,
and argued that each of these motives were distinct from explicit motives of the same or similar
names. After years of controversy, evidence to support McClelland's (1987) notions regarding
differences between implicit and explicit motives related to achievement was provided in a meta-
analytic review by Spangler (1992).
Nonetheless, measurement problems continue to thwart progress in the study of implicit
motives. Well-founded criticisms of projective and quasi-projective measures, such as the
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), hampered research for decades. In the past 15 years or so,
however, new theoretical approaches have been employed to develop measures of nonconscious
motives through perceptual and cognitive processing (see Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz,
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1998; James & Rentsch, 2004; Schultheiss & Pang, 2007). One of the most promising new
methods for assessing implicit motive strength builds upon Conditional Reasoning Theory (CRT;
James, 1998). In CRT measures, individuals read a series of constructed scenarios and select a
response based on conditional reasoning, rather than based on affective reactions to a stimuli.
Initial evidence for the validity of these measures and the basic tenets of CRT are provided by a
series of studies by James and his colleagues (Frost, Ko, & James, 2007; James et al., 2005) that
show negligible correlations between CRT and explicit measures, and significant predictive
validity of CRT measures for achievement, aggressive, and dominant behaviors in organized
settings. Further evidence on the validity of these implicit motive measures will significantly
speed progress in implicit motivation.
Nonconscious processes. A second, complimentary stream of research focuses on the
delineation of a nonconscious motivation system and its relationship to explicit goal choice and
goal striving. Most evidence for the existence of nonconscious motivational system comes from
research findings in cognitive neuroscience and social psychology (see Ferguson, Hassin, &
Bargh, 2008). Findings in these areas show the influence of goals on preconscious attentional
processes in sensory systems, the influence of subliminal priming on nonconscious motivational
processing and action, and the impact of nonconscious neurological processes in explicit goal
choice and self-regulation (see Bargh, Gollwitzer, & Oettingen, 2010; Ruud & Aarts, 2010).
Recent work by Lord and his colleagues (Johnson, Lord, Rosen, & Chang, 2007; Johnson,
Tolentino, Rodopman, & Cho, 2010; Lord & Moon, 2006) and others (e.g., Stajkovic, Locke, &
Blair, 2006) have extended this work into the organizational domain, and have shown that fast,
nonconscious, automatic cognitive processes also affect explicit motivational processes relevant
in the work setting (see Diefendorff & Lord, 2008).
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Another line of inquiry focuses on the relationship between implicit and explicit
motivational processes (e.g., Brunstein & Maier, 2005; Schultheiss & Brunstein, 2001). Lord et
al. (2010) have proposed a dynamic model in which nonconscious motives and processes may
exert influence at multiple levels in motivational processing, including goal choice as well as
self-regulation. Kehr (2004) has proposed that implicit motives interfere with explicit motivation
when the implicit motive fails to support explicit goals. According to Kehr (2004), a basic
purpose for the instigation of goal striving, or self-regulatory processes is to prevent contrary
implicit motive tendencies from diverting critical resources away from goal accomplishment.
Rapid progress is being made in elucidating the influence of implicit motives and
nonconscious processes on explicit motivation and behavior (see Ruud & Aarts, 2010; Johnson
et al., 2010). The development of valid and reliable measures of implicit motives remains
problematic, but it is clear that new approaches based on cognitive and neuroscience advances
are overcoming problems that were for many decades insurmountable. At the same time, work
motivation researchers have begun to study how implicit motives and nonconscious processes
impact goal choice, self-regulation, and behavior. Continued progress in this area can be
expected to cause a sea-change in how work motivation is conceptualized and studied over the
next few decades.
Goal Choice and Goal Pursuit
The term motivation is often used in work and organizational psychology to encompass
all the processes by which individuals formulate and execute established goals. In motivational
science however, a distinction is often made between the processes involved in goal choice and
goal commitment, and the processes involved in goal pursuit. Among some researchers,
motivation refers to the choice portion of the system, while cognitive, affective and self-
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regulatory processes in goal pursuit are regarded as volition. Consistent with the common use of
the term motivation, I distinguish the two, related motivational subsystems in terms of goal
choice and goal striving (or pursuit) and reserve the term motivation to reference both goal
choice and goal striving processes.
Over the past few decades motivational scientists have come to a consensus on the
organization of explicit (or conscious) motivation processes. This consensus has been achieved
by using goals as the coordinating construct for disparate streams of research on goal choice and
goal striving. Although some theories remain better suited to understanding and predicting goal
choice and other theories to understanding and predicting goal striving, there has been a sharp
rise in the number of studies that simultaneously examine elements of both systems (e.g.,
Kozlowski & Bell, 2006).
To put recent developments in perspective, I first provide a brief review of late 20th
century progress on goals, goal choice, goal setting, and goal striving. Following this review, I
describe recent work on goal orientation and related perspectives.
Goals. Goals are the mental representations of outcome states that an individual seeks to
realize. In the workplace, goals may refer to learning outcomes (e.g., learn to install a pipe),
performance outcomes (e.g., design a webpage), or consequence outcomes (e.g., obtain a
registered nursing degree). Goals direct attention and help to organize and sustain the
individual's effort and actions for the purpose of goal accomplishment.
Because goals direct behavior toward the accomplishment of desired outcomes, including
job performance, work motivation researchers have studied two goal-related issues in-depth:
Goal selection (the goal that an individual adopts) and goal commitment (the extent to which the
individual binds him/herself to goal accomplishment). In these areas, research has focused on a
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number of related questions, including the role of person and situation variables on goal adoption
(e.g., Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1993; see Hollenbeck & Klein, 1987), how individuals allocate
attention and effort across multiple goals (DeShon, Kozlowski, Schmidt, Milner, & Wiechmann,
2004; see Mitchell, Harmon, Lee, & Lee, 2008), and how and why individuals revise their goals
(Schmidt & DeShon, 2007; Tolli & Schmidt, 2008).
Research in cognitive and personality-social psychology indicates that goals are rarely
developed in isolation. Rather, goals are situated in a web of complex, interrelated goal
hierarchies. Goals at the top of the hierarchy represent outcomes that occur as a consequence of
accomplishing goals at lower levels in the hierarchy. Earning a medical degree, for example,
requires accomplishment of lower-order goals distributed over time, such as passing different
courses required for the degree. Higher-level goals are typically distal, complex, and may be ill-
defined with respect to the lower-order goals required for higher-order goal accomplishment.
The adoption of a higher-order consequence goal, such as attaining a medical degree, sets into
motion an integrated stream of cognitive and motivational processes that direct attention and
action toward interim or lower-order goal accomplishments. Problems encountered in the
execution of lower-order goals may also redirect attention to the higher order goal, and
contribute to outcome goal revision or abandonment.
Goals are also distinguished in terms of their attributes and/or focus. Goals may be
specific or vague, easy or difficult, simple or complex, behavioral, cognitive, or affective,
proximal or distal, or adopted for different reasons (e.g., to demonstrate competence or avoid
appearing incompetent). Different theories of work motivation, such as Locke's (1976) task goal
theory and VandeWalle's (1997) goal orientation formulation, emphasize different aspects of the
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articulated goal that, in turn, has different implications for motivational processing and
performance.
Goal choice. Cognitive theories of motivation, such as Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975)
Theory of Reasoned Action, Triandis' (1980) Theory of Interpersonal Behavior, and Vroom's
(1964) Expectancy-Value formulation (VIE) are frequently used to predict behavior intentions,
goal choice, and motivational force for goal accomplishment, respectively. Although these and
related models differ in a number of ways, such as how the criterion is operationalized, the role
of affect, and the way that social influences are represented, each model has its roots in the
family of expectancy-value models developed first in economics and subsequently adopted in
psychology during the mid-1900s.
Expectancy value formulations make several strong assumptions. These models assume
that individuals are rational decision-makers who choose among perceived courses of action by
applying the hedonic principle of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. As rational decision
makers, an individual's goal choice or behavior intention decision is posited to reflect the
outcome of an internal, cognitive analysis regarding the relative costs and benefits associated
with different choice options. For example, according to Vroom's (1964) VIE theory, individuals
choose among different possible work goals based on their subjective perceptions about: (a)
whether the goal can be accomplished with the effort and other personal resources available to
the individual (e.g., can I accomplish the performance goal?; Expectancy), (b) whether goal
accomplishment will bring about the target outcome (e.g., the instrumentality of achieving the
performance goal for obtaining a pay raise; Instrumentality), and (c) the perceived valence of the
performance outcome (e.g., the attractiveness of a pay raise, the unattractiveness of feeling
fatigued as a result of sustained mental effort; Valence).
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The introduction of Vroom's expectancy-value formulation into the I/O literature in the
mid-1960s stimulated decades of empirical research on theoretical and methodological aspects of
expectancy-value formulations. Excellent reviews of the empirical evidence on the predictive
validity of expectancy value theories and methodological issues are provided by Mitchell (1974,
1980) and Sheppard, Hartwick, and Warshaw (1988). Overall, empirical findings on expectancy
value formulations indicate that these theories are most effective for predicting choice among
mutually incompatible courses of action, such as which of several job offers to accept.
As Mitchell (1974, 1980) indicates, VIE and related models suffer from both conceptual
and methodological problems. Some of the biggest problems with theory and research in
expectancy-value research pertain to the episodic nature of the theories, the use of between-
subject designs to test a within-subject formulation, and the inability of the theories to account
for motivation processes that occur in the gap between intention and behavior. Although tests
using within-subject designs show improved predictive validity for behavior and task
performance, expectancy-value formulations remain more useful for predicting discrete choice
than performance streams. An even broader criticism of expectancy-value theories involves the
assumption that individuals are rational decision-makers. There is substantial evidence in allied
fields that show individuals do not choose goals after performing a full rational analysis of
options or solely on the basis of maximizing positive outcomes. Image theory (Beach &
Mitchell, 1987) addresses this and other issues using a match-type model where individuals are
proposed to make decisions based on the compatibility match between images related to goals
and strategy with self-concept. Although there has been some empirical support for Image
Theory, this formulation is not often used in work motivation research.
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Later expectancy value formulations by Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980) and Kanfer
and Ackerman (1989) incorporated advances from cognitive psychology. Extending earlier
expectancy value models, the Naylor et al. (1980) and Kanfer and Ackerman (1989) portrayed
personal resources as multidimensional, including not only attentional effort, and time, but
potentially other personal resources such as social capital. In addition, these formulations
conceptualized choice as a personal resource allocation process across a range of activities,
including self-regulatory processes and nontask activities. The conceptualization of choice as a
continuous resource allocation process that occurs as a function of person attributes, task
demands, self-regulatory and nontask activities, improved the viability of these models for
predicting ongoing behavior and skill acquisition (see Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989).
Despite the many criticisms of classic expectancy value formulations, modified
formulations remain popular. Social psychological models, such as Ajzen's (1991) theory of
planned behavior, that take into explicit account the social context in which behavioral intentions
are formed, continue to attract research attention, particularly in the prediction of discrete
behaviors, such as attendance and turnover (see Armitage & Conner, 2001; Fishbein & Ajzen,
2010). Resource allocation models also continue to be used in studies investigating multiple
goals, goal revision processes, self-regulatory activities, and performance over time in the
context of skill acquisition and teams. Using the Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980) formulation,
Pritchard and his colleagues have also shown the efficacy of resource allocation models in the
development of programs to enhance work motivation and performance in organizational
settings (see Pritchard, Harrell, DiazGranados, & Guzman, 2008).
Goal setting. As criticisms of expectancy-value formulations in I/O psychology and
related fields mounted during the 1970s, work motivation researchers turned their attention to
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goal setting. Consistent with other cognitive formulations, Locke (1968) proposed that goals
served as the immediate regulators of action, and that difficult, specific goals led to higher levels
of performance than easy, nonspecific goals. Goal setting research findings reviewed by Locke
et al. (1981) provided strong empirical support for the beneficial influence goal setting on task
performance, particularly with respect to the setting of difficult and specific goals. Locke et al.
(1981) proposed that goals influenced performance by: (a) directing attention and action, (b)
mobilizing effort, (c) prolonging goal-directed effort over time, and (d) motivating the individual
to develop effective strategies for goal attainment.
Goal setting theory and research flourished during the late 20th century, and goal setting
rapidly eclipsed expectancy value as the dominant work motivation paradigm in the field. A
large number of empirical studies provided general support for each of the four proposed
mechanisms by which goals influenced performance, and goal setting theory quickly expanded
to incorporate self-regulation constructs and processes in the explanation of how goals
influenced task performance (Locke & Latham, 1990).
As goal setting theory and research progressed, attention began to focus on potential
boundary conditions associated with the beneficial effects of goal setting on performance. The
first issue pertained to observed differences between the differential influence of assigned vs.
self-set goals (see Locke & Schweiger, 1979). In most work settings, employees are assigned
task goals. In these instances, the issue is not predicting the direction of action, but rather what
factors predict the employee's willingness to adopt the assigned goal and the employee's
commitment or intensity of personal resource allocation to the goal. Findings by Latham, Erez,
and Locke (1988) showed the criticality of the employee's participation in the goal setting
process, even if only minimally when supervisors employed a "sell" rather than "tell" procedure,
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for goal setting to exert a positive effect on performance. The findings on the effects of
psychological participation in goal setting, in turn, spurred a new stream of theory and research
on goal commitment.
A second condition under which goal setting might be less effective pertains the
complexity of the task. Review findings by Wood, Mento, and Locke (1987) showed that goal
setting was more effective in enhancing motivation and performance when used with simple
tasks than with complex tasks. Using a complex air traffic simulation task, Kanfer and Ackerman
(1989) showed that the impact of performance goal setting on performance might be beneficial
or detrimental depending on the attentional demands of the task, the individual's cognitive
abilities, and the self-regulatory activities undertaken as a result of goal setting. In accord with
predictions, they found that among individuals with lower levels of cognitive abilities, the
provision of performance goal assignments during the early (cognitively demanding) phase of
skill learning was detrimental to performance, but that goal assignments made later in skill
acquisition (when the task was cognitively less demanding) had a beneficial effect on
performance.
The differential impact of goal setting on performance as a function of individual
differences in cognitive abilities, task demands, and self-regulatory activities focused attention
on the characteristics of goals that might divert attentional resources and hinder task
performance. Kanfer and Ackerman (1989) argued that performance goals implemented early in
training diverted critical attentional resources needed for performance toward the management of
negative emotions associated with inability to accomplish the goal. This notion was supported in
subsequent studies by Latham and his colleagues (Seijts & Latham, 2005; Latham & Brown,
2006; Winters & Latham, 1996) who showed that the provision of learning goals (that reduced
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rather than exacerbated concern about performance accomplishment) in complex task
performance exerted a greater beneficial effect on performance than performance goals. These
findings are also consistent with goal orientation theory and research that shows the purpose of
action (embedded in this paradigm as goal type), exerts a motivational influence on performance
through its effects on the direction of resource allocations during action.
Goal striving. Goal choice sets the stage for action, but when intentions cannot be
readily accomplished individuals activate self-regulatory processes to support goal-directed
action. Goal striving refers to the self-regulatory processes and actions by which individuals
support goal intentions over time and/or in the face of personal or environmental obstacles to
goal accomplishment.
Theory and research on self-regulation processes has its modern origins in the expansion
of behavioral models during the 1960s and 1970s (Bandura, 1969, 1973; Kanfer & Phillips,
1969; Mischel, 1968; Mischel & Ebbesen, 1970). Social learning, cognitive-behavioral, and
social-cognitive models of action all emphasized the self-regulatory processes by which
individuals exercise control over their behavior, affect, and cognitions for purposes of goal
attainment. Self-control is a form of self-regulation in which the individual seeks to attain a goal
that is not supported by prevailing environmental contingencies, such as when an employee
seeks to write a report while coworkers are holding a party, or when an employee's goal for
completing a project requires that he/she work late into the night despite growing fatigue. Meta-
cognition, defined by Flavell (1979) as the metacognitive knowledge and experiences used to
manage cognitions, affect, and behavior strategies in goal-directed learning, represents another
subset of the broader domain of self-regulation, often studied in the educational psychology.
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In work and organizational psychology, conscious self-regulation of action is typically
not required when goals can be readily accomplished, or involve habitual or highly routinized
behaviors, such as typing a letter. However, when goal accomplishment require planning
(studying for a test), coordination of actions (making a presentation), mid-course adjustments in
strategy (e.g., winning a race), or resisting environmental presses that run counter to goal
accomplishment (working instead of going out with friends), self-regulatory processes facilitate
sustained motivation and performance. In the modern workplace, where work often takes place
in nonwork contexts (e.g., home), involves self-management of emotions in dealing with clients
and coworkers, and is directed toward the accomplishment of complex goals over time, effective
self-regulation has become an important feature of performance.
Investigation of self-regulatory processes during the mid-20th century delineated three
key subprocesses: self-monitoring, self-evaluations, and self-reactions. Self-monitoring refers to
the individual's attention to the outcomes of one's actions related to the goal. Self-monitoring is
necessary for self-evaluation and self-reactions, though what the individual monitors may or may
not be relevant for goal attainment. Self-evaluations refer to cognitive processes that determine
goal progress. Self-evaluation processes serve both an information and motivational function,
providing information about whether the current action strategy must be adjusted for goal
attainment and whether personal resource allocations are sufficient. Self-reactions, the most
well-known of which is self-efficacy, pertain to the individual's integrated cognitive-affective
judgment of confidence regarding the likelihood of goal attainment.
Broad interest in self-regulation among organizational scientists during the late 20th
century also spurred the development of many research programs on the influence of different
self-regulation components, such as self-monitoring and self-efficacy judgments. In 1983,
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Ashford and Cummings proposed a theory of feedback seeking based on the notion that feedback
seeking from others was a primary means by which employees self-monitor their performance.
Consistent with self-regulation approaches, Ashford and Cummings (1983) showed that
individuals who did not seek feedback from others (for fear of obtaining negative feedback)
developed less accurate perceptions of performance than individuals who used active feedback
seeking strategies. From a motivational perspective, the Ashford and Cummings (1983) findings
suggest that problems in goal striving may begin early in the self-regulatory sequence if
individuals do not accurately monitor their performance.
Interest in self-regulation and goal striving among work motivation researchers also grew
in response to findings that showed goals and behavioral intentions were often only weakly
associated with performance, particularly when performance was difficult or occurred over a
protracted time period. Early studies on the role of self-regulation in work motivation and
performance were conducted by Latham and his colleagues (Frayne & Latham, 1987; Latham &
Frayne, 1989) in the context of goal setting research. Latham and Frayne (1989) examined the
effectiveness of self-regulatory training as an adjunct to goal setting in a field study designed to
increase attendance among employees with chronic histories of absenteeism. They found that
employees who participated in self-regulatory skills training showed subsequently higher levels
of job attendance than employees who did not receive self-management training. Subsequent
research by Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens (1990) compared the relative efficacy of goal setting
alone and goal setting plus self-management training on transfer of training in a salary
negotiation task. Gist et al. (1990) found that individuals in the goal setting plus self-
management training condition showed greater transfer of training and overall performance than
individuals in the goal setting-alone condition. The theoretical integration of goal setting and
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self-regulation formulations during the late 1980s (see Locke & Latham, 1990) led to numerous
studies investigating the impact of self-efficacy on goal choice, commitment, and performance.
Most modern motivation theories accord self-efficacy judgments a major causal role in
determining work motivation and performance. Self-efficacy judgments, though powerful
predictors of action in novel contexts or early skill acquisition, have also been shown to exert
weaker causal influence on motivation and performance in the context of skill acquisition (e.g.,
Heggestad & Kanfer, 2005; Mitchell, Hopper, Daniels, George-Falvy, & James, 1994; see
Kanfer, 1993). One recent controversy about the relationship between self-efficacy judgments
and performance further suggests that our understanding about the role that self-efficacy plays at
different points in the motivation system may be incomplete. In essence, the argument pertains to
the relationship between self-efficacy judgments and performance. Although many studies show
that self-efficacy judgments are positively related to motivation and performance (see Bandura &
Locke, 2003), several studies have been reported that show a negative, rather than positive
relationship between self-efficacy and performance (Vancouver, Thomson, Tischner, & Putka,
2002; Vancouver, Thomson, & Williams, 2001; Yeo & Neal, 2006). Vancouver has argued that
these findings are consistent with cybernetic models of self-regulation that posit a negative (not
positive) relationship between self-efficacy and personal resource allocations when performance
meets or exceeds the goal, in much the same way that a thermostat turns off the heater when the
desired temperature is reached. Vancouver, More, & Yoder (2008) have recently proposed a
multiple goal process explanation for reconciliation of the discrepant findings. Schmidt and
Deshon (2009, 2010) provide strong empirical evidence for explanations that focus on the
conditions in which the relationship is examined, including prior task success and task
ambiguity. lthough the controversy continues, it appears that the discrepancies obtained in the
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sign of the self-efficacy-performance relationship reflect the influence of important, understudied
questions related to the dynamics between task conditions, the purpose of action, and goal
revision over time.
Purposive Approaches to Motivation
Over the past 15 years or so, work motivation researchers have concentrated on the
motivational and performance consequences of an individual's purpose or reason for goal
accomplishment. Whereas prior goal setting research focused largely on the impact of goal
attributes such as difficulty or specificity, purposive approaches focus on the mental orientation
that accompanies the formulation and pursuit of difficult, specific goals. In this section I describe
several streams of research in this developing paradigm. First, I describe two conceptualizations
that distinguish and connect the explicit goal choice and goal striving motivation subsystems;
namely, Gollwitzer's (Gollwitzer, 1990; Gollwitzer & Kinney, 1989) mind-set theory and Meyer,
Becker, and Vandenberghe’s (2004) integrative model of employment commitment and
motivation. Next, I discuss theory and research in intrinsic motivation. Finally, I review theory
and research on the impact of goal orientation on motivation processes and performance.
Purpose and the relationship between goal choice and goal striving. According to
Gollwitzer (1990, 2003), goal choice and goal striving involve different mindsets, or
motivational orientations. Individuals engaged in goal choice are proposed to employ a
deliberative mindset that emphasizes seeking accurate, unbiased information and using that
information to perform a cognitive appraisal of goal options. Following goal choice, however,
Gollwitzer argued there is a useful change in mindset from deliberative to implemental. He
proposed that during the planning and execution phases of goal-directed action (i.e., goal
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striving) individuals adopt an implementation mindset, characterized by selective attention to
information that supports the desirability of the chosen goal.
Findings from a series of studies by Gollwitzer (Gollwitzer & Kinney, 1989; Taylor &
Gollwitzer, 1995) and others (e.g., Armor & Taylor, 2003; Webb & Sheeran, 2008) provide
empirical support for the difference between motivational orientations held during goal choice
and goal striving. These studies show that individuals who hold a deliberative mindset are more
attentive to negative goal-related information than individuals who hold an implemental mindset.
Further, individuals who hold an implemental mindset report stronger illusions of control,
increased self-efficacy and more optimistic outcome expectations about goal accomplishment
than individuals who hold a deliberative mindset.
Gollwitzer's mindset theory underscores the long-standing distinction between goal
choice as a decisional process and goal striving as an action process. Mindset findings also
increase the salience of a second long-standing question in motivation science; namely, what
connects the two mindset processes? Heckhausen (1991) suggests that the strength of the goal
developed in the choice system is an important variable in determining the initiation and
maintenance of goal striving processes. One way that goal strength has been conceptualized in
the work motivation literature is in terms of goal commitment, or the "force that binds an
individual to a course of action that is of relevance to a particular target" (Meyer & Herscovitch,
2001).
Mindset theory emphasizes the differences in mental orientation associated with goal
choice and goal pursuit. In I/O psychology, however, theory and research has focused on the
factors and processes that bridge the two motivation subsystems and bind the individual to the
pursuit of selected goals; namely, goal commitment. The Meyer and Allen (1991) multi-
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dimensional conceptualization of commitment compliments mindset theory by distinguishing
among dimensions of commitment and their influence on goal striving. Specifically, Meyer and
Allen (1991) proposed three forms of commitment; affective commitment, or the binding of the
goal to action as a function of desire, normative commitment, or the steadfastness of goal pursuit
out of a sense of obligation to others, and continuance commitment, or the resoluteness of goal
persistence as a consequence of perceived costs for not adopting the goal or goal abandonment
(also see Meyer & Allen, 1997). Although different mindsets may be involved in goal choice and
implementation processes, the Meyer and Allen (1991) conceptualization suggests the
motivation for goal commitment may also affect the manner in which decisions are implemented
in action. Consistent with this notion, Meyer et al. (2004) have recently proposed an integrative
model of commitment and motivation that links different dimensions of commitment to different
goal purposes or foci. Although the Meyer et al. (2004) model is relatively new and in need of
empirical testing, the proposed linkages between goal purpose and commitment dimension have
important implications for practice. For example, in some work settings and collectivist cultures,
the formulation of goals based sense of obligation (e.g., finish assigned work on a team project
because others depend on this performance) may yield higher levels of continuance goal
commitment and stronger self-regulatory processes than goals formulated to maximize pleasure
and sustained through affective goal commitment (e.g., finish assigned work on a team project
because it is interesting and will bring about feelings of competence).
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
The notion that goals may be adopted for intrinsic and/or extrinsic purposes and, in turn,
affect goal pursuit is well-established in psychology, and serves as the foundation for theory and
research in intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to psychological processes involved
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in task performance for the purpose of enjoyment and interest; that is, tasks performed for their
own sake. In contrast, extrinsic motivation typically refers to processes involved in task
performance for the attainment of outcomes from others or the environment (extrinsic
incentives). Theory and research on intrinsic motivation is arguably the most well-known topic
in the domain linking purpose and motivation.
Research on intrinsic motivation builds upon theories that assume all people possess
motives for autonomy, competence, and control. Theories of intrinsic motivation hold that
individuals are intrinsically motivated when they attribute the cause of their actions to be self-
determined, rather than determined by external forces (that do not permit satisfaction of
autonomy or control motives). Individuals who attribute their behavior to external causes are said
to be extrinsically motivated.
Studies by Deci, Lepper and their colleagues during the 1970s and 1980s (see Kanfer,
1990) showed that the provision of extrinsic rewards (e.g., money) undermined intrinsic
motivation, and was associated with reduced task motivation and task persistence. Early theories
(Cognitive Evaluation Theory; Deci, 1975) proposed that the detrimental influence of extrinsic
events on intrinsic motivation depended on the extent to which the individual perceived the event
as controlling (vs. informational). This explanation subsequently focused research on the
conditions under which extrinsic events, such as rewards and feedback, were interpreted as
controlling, and their downstream effects on task interest, enjoyment and behavior.
Over the past decade, Deci and his colleagues have proposed a new formulation; Self-
determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000, 2002). In contrast to CET, SDT provides a
detailed description of how environments support and disrupt expression of the self-
determination motive. SDT also proposes that the motive for self-determination may be satisfied
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in some conditions that include extrinsic rewards or feedback. Specifically, SDT organizes
extrinsic and intrinsic motivation conditions along a continuum. At the lowest level on the
continuum is a motivation, a condition in which there are no intrinsic or extrinsic prompts or
attributions for action. The next level is external regulation, or the classic condition when
individuals perceive the reason for their behavior is due solely to obtain the external reward.
Beyond that however, SDT proposes another form of extrinsic motivation called introjected
regulation. In this form of extrinsic motivation there is some self-determination and autonomy,
as the individual performs in order to satisfy self-worth contingencies, such as wanting to look
competent to others. A yet more self-determining form of extrinsic motivation occurs in what
Deci refers to as identified regulation contexts, where the individual performs an activity because
he/she identifies with its value or meaning. The most self-determining form of extrinsic
motivation is posited to occur in integrated regulation, when individuals perform an activity
because the individual it has become part of the individual's sense of self. At the top level of the
continuum is intrinsic motivation, where the individual performs the activity for its own sake and
enjoyment.
In contrast to previous formulations, the SDT framework is more relevant to the
workplace, where extrinsic reward contingencies and feedback are commonplace. Further, the
mapping of attributions for action along a single regulation continuum provides a useful
framework for systematic investigation of differences in self-regulatory activities as a function
regulation level. As a consequence, research using SDT has begun to attract greater attention
among work motivation researchers (e.g., Gagne & Deci, 2005; Gagne & Forest, 2008).
Goal Orientation Formulations
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Early intrinsic motivation research focused on the effect of perceived extrinsic control on
task motivation and behavior, but did not examine how the perceived purpose for performance
influenced specific self-regulatory variables or strategies. Intrinsic motivation research also
focused on the motivational and performance consequences of the individual's (past-oriented)
attributions for the cause of action, rather than the individual's (future-oriented) goals. In the late
1970s and early 1980s, education psychology researchers began to study how the purpose of task
performance affects the goals that an individual adopts and the self-regulatory processes that are
used to attain the goal.
Nicholls (1984) and Dweck (1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) articulated early goal
orientation perspectives in the context of understanding why children who adopted a similar goal
often showed different patterns of goal striving, learning and performance (beyond the effects of
cognitive abilities). According to Nicholls (1984) and Dweck (1986), children who hold a
learning or task goal orientation also maintain a self-referenced conception of ability (i.e., focus
on how much had been learned), and tend to view performance improvement and greater task
mastery as positive outcomes. In contrast, individuals who hold an ego or performance goal
orientation are proposed to regard task performance as a means to an end, and to view
performance useful only in so far as it provides a demonstration of one's ability to others. These
differences in goal orientation, in turn, affect the quality of goal striving strategies used to
accomplish the goal, persistence following failure or setbacks, and learning and performance.
Similar to early research in intrinsic motivation, the applicability of goal orientation
formulations to work settings was not readily apparent and early interest among work motivation
researchers was limited (see Kanfer, 1989). However, with the development of two adult
measures of individual differences in goal orientation in the late 1990s (Button, Mathieu, &
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Zajac, 1996; DeShon & Gillespie, 2005; VandeWalle, 1997), investigations of goal orientation in
the work motivation domain grew dramatically. In the development of adult goal orientation
measures, Button et al. (1996) and VandeWalle (1997) showed that goal orientation was best
understood as a multidimensional construct, and could be fruitfully applied to understanding
work motivation in the work setting. Button et al. (1996) developed a two-dimensional adult
measure of goal orientation based upon Dweck's formulation; VandeWalle (1997) developed a
three-dimensional measure that further distinguished the performance goal dimension into two
dimensions—performance goal orientation directed to proving one's competencies and gaining
positive judgments from others (Performance-Prove), and performance goal orientation directed
toward avoiding demonstration of one's lack of ability and negative judgments from others
(Performance-Avoid).
Although goal orientation has been conceptualized as both a trait and a state, the majority
of work motivation studies to date have examined the effects of goal orientation states (induced
through instructions or context) on motivation and performance. Quantitative and qualitative
reviews of the goal orientation research literature are provided by Carr, DeShon, and Dobbins
(2001), Day, Yeo, and Radosevich (2003), Payne et al. (2007), Rawsthorne and Elliot (1999),
and Utman (1997). In general, these reviews provide support for the facilitative effect of learning
goal orientation on goal setting, self-regulatory activities, learning, and performance. In contrast,
many, but not all, studies find a significant negative relationship between performance-prove or
performance-avoid goal orientation, goal striving, and performance. Findings with respect to the
impact of performance-prove goal orientation are inconsistent. Building on these findings,
current research has broadened to examine the impact of goal orientation in leadership (e.g.,
Whitford & Moss, 2009), in training (e.g., Chiaburu & Marinova, 2005; Colquitt & Simmering,
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1998; Cox & Beier, 2009), and job search (e.g., Creed, King, Hood, & McKenzie, 2009; Van
Hooft & Noordzij, 2009). Recently, some researchers have proposed integrative formulations
that place goal orientation processes within broader self-regulation frameworks (DeShon &
Gillespie, 2005; Yeo, Loft, Xiao, & Kiewitz, 2009).
Motivational Orientation: Trait Conceptualizations
In contrast to goal orientation at the state level, stable individual differences in goal and
motivational orientation at the trait level operate over a longer timescale. Individuals who are
high in trait learning goal orientation, for example, are not only more likely to adopt a learning
goal orientation to specific tasks, but also to show higher levels of self-regulatory skill in
overcoming obstacles to goal attainment. That is, goal and motivation orientation traits can be
expected to exert cross-level effects at multiple points in motivational processing. Elliot and
McGregor (2001) and Elliot and Thrash (2001) provide summary reviews of findings with
respect to the effects of achievement and avoidance motivational orientations on goals and self-
regulatory processes .
During the past two decades, interest in trait level goal and motivational orientation has
burgeoned. Different programs of research in neurobiology, personality and social psychology,
and motivation provide convergent evidence for two trait orientations and their differential
impacts on motivational processing, learning, and performance. Formulations by Elliot and
Harackiewicz (1996), Higgins (1998), and Kanfer and Heggestad (1997), posit that individuals
who score high on what is variously described as approach motivation (Elliott & Harackiewicz,
1996), promotion regulatory focus (Higgins, 1998), or performance mastery orientation (Kanfer
& Heggestad, 1997) engage in more effective learning, meta-cognitive, and self-regulatory
activities during goal adoption and goal striving than persons who score high in avoidance
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motivation (Elliott & Harackiewcz, 1996; Kanfer & Heggestad, 1997), prevention regulatory
focus (Higgins, 1998) or performance-avoid goal orientation (VandeWalle, 1997). These
motivational orientations are further consistent with evidence from neurobiology theory and
research on the existence of two general neurobehavioral systems; a behavioral activation system
(BAS) sensitive to rewards and characterized by positive emotion and approach, and a behavioral
inhibition system (BIS) sensitive to punishment and characterized by negative emotion and
inhibition.
Although the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences studied in different approaches
vary, findings across these research paradigms provide convergent empirical evidence for the
positive influence of approach-related goal and motivational orientation on learning and
performance. However, findings on the deleterious impact of avoidance-related goal and
motivational orientations on learning and performance are less uniform and appear to depend on
the nature of the task as well as the motivation and performance outcomes studied. In the
organizational domain, Diefendorff & Mehta (2007) found that workplace deviance measures
were negatively related to approach motivation traits but positively related to avoidance
motivation traits. Similarly, Heimerdinger & Hinsz (2008) found that avoidance motivation was
negatively related to performance in an idea-generation task.
Summary
Work motivation researchers have taken advantage of recent advances in other areas of
psychology to develop new theories and conduct research directed toward understanding the
impact of implicit motives and nonconscious processes on explicit goal setting and self-
regulation processes. Two issues currently hinder further advances in these areas. First, the
development of reliable and valid measures of individual differences in implicit motives is still in
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the early stages. Second, most research to date has looked at the influence of nonconscious
processes on behaviors and motivational mechanisms as they occur in controlled settings using
carefully designed tasks. Research is needed to determine whether these findings scale up to
affect goal choice and behavior in work settings. Questions about the generalizability of findings
to the workplace include, but are not limited to understanding when nonconscious processes are
most likely to affect behavior, the role of nonconscious affect-driven processes in goal
commitment and goal shielding, and the extent to which individuals are able to effectively
modulate nonconscious tendencies that disrupt progress toward goal attainment (e.g., to control
feelings of fatigue in order to complete a project). During the past decade, work motivation
researchers have worked on both these issues. Early findings suggest that investigation of
implicit motives and nonconscious processes offers great promise in further clarifying the role of
personality and affect in work motivation and performance outcomes.
Goals remain the focal point for most work motivation theorizing and research. But the
focus of goal-related research has changed. Investigations of how specific attributes of the goal
affect self-regulation and performance has declined as work motivation researchers have adopted
a more holistic and person-centered view of goals. New person-centered perspectives emphasize
the impact of purpose on how information is processed (mindsets associated with selecting a goal
and accomplishing a goal) and the meta-cognitive strategies used in self-regulatory activities in
goal pursuit. With the exception of self-efficacy, theory and research on self-regulatory processes
that occur during goal pursuit has also shifted. In contrast to earlier research focused on the
impact of goal attributes on specific self-regulatory components (such as performance
monitoring), recent studies have focused on the relationship between goal orientation and self-
regulatory strategies and patterns during goal pursuit.
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Work motivation research has also begun to focus on abiding and difficult questions
about the impact of goal dynamics on motivational processes and performance. In many
instances, the impetus for research on these questions comes from the real-world work setting. In
the workplace, individuals are often assigned more than one task, each with unique task
demands, goals, and timelines for completion. Understanding how individuals allocate resources
and regulate their activities across tasks is likely to yield knowledge that can be used in work
design. Another important area in goal dynamics pertains to the person and situation factors that
contribute to goal revision, the resolution of goal conflicts, and goal abandonment. From a
practical perspective, research is needed to understand different ways that individuals cope with
goal conflicts and the distinct motivational orientation states and self-regulatory patterns
associated with goal revision compared to goal abandonment.
Determinants of Motivation: Content, Context, and Change
Organizations and the employees who work in them often turn to work motivation
researchers for evidence-based knowledge about the person and situation characteristics that
most influence work motivation and the ways in which this influence occurs. Not surprisingly, a
large portion of theory and research in work motivation pertains to the influence of person
attributes and environmental conditions on motivation, learning and performance. Over the years
a multitude of person characteristics and situation factors have been studied, alone and in
different combinations. Although the development of the Five Factor Model has helped to
organize research on the influence of personality traits on work motivation, there have been few
attempts to systematize research on the effects of situation and context on work motivation (see
Johns, 2006; Meyer, Dalal, & Hermida, 2009). And neither the Five Factor Model nor situational
frameworks address motivation issues related to time.
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Recently, Kanfer et al. (2008) proposed a broad "Three C's" meta-heuristic scheme for
organizing the relevant determinants of work motivation. A non-exhaustive list of determinants
in the Content, Context, and Change categories is provided in Table 1.
-------------------------------
Insert Table 1 about here
-------------------------------
Content determinants include variables related to interindividual differences, such as
knowledge, skills, abilities, personality traits, motives, affective tendencies, interests, and values.
Context determinants refer to exogenous (external to the individual) features of the action
setting. Context variables may be further organized into features of the immediate work setting
(e.g., supervision, work demands), features associated with the broader socio-technical work
context (e.g., organizational policies, organizational climate), variables related to the individual's
nonwork demands and activities (e.g., care-giving demands), and variables related to the broader
socio-cultural and economic environment (e.g., cultural norms, values, unemployment rate). The
third C refers to change; that is, factors associated with the temporal dimension. Temporal
influences on work motivation may come into play several ways. In terms of motivational
processes per se, time-sensitive factors, such as fatigue, may influence goal pursuit and the
willingness to revise one’s goal. Alternatively, time-sensitive factors, such as the development of
knowledge and skills as a result of job performance, may affect work motivation by altering
perceived person-task or person-job fit. Time also plays a role in distinguishing among
employees. Changes in cognitive abilities, motives, and interests over the life course can affect
work motivation through its impact on self-efficacy, the utility of performance for attaining
valued outcomes, and age-related changes in the utility of high levels of cognitive and physical
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effort (Kanfer, 1987). Figure 2 displays a schematic of the “three C’s” and their relationship to
motivation processes. In the remainder of this section I describe notable advances in each
determinant class.
-------------------------------
Insert Figure 2 about here
-------------------------------
Content Influences: Person Attributes and Traits
In 1990, with the exception of research in achievement motivation, there was relatively
little systematic research on the influence of personality traits on work motivation and behavior
(see Kanfer, 1990). A major reason for this state of affairs was the absence of a conceptually
sound structure for organizing the multitude of personality traits that had been studied (see Guion
& Gottier, 1965). The introduction of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality structure into
I/O psychology in the early 1990s provided a much-needed solution to this problem, and
launched a prolific period of research on the impact of personality traits on motivation and
performance (see Judge & Ilies, 2002, and Kanfer & Kantrowitz, 2002, for reviews).
Over the past two decades, research on person determinants of work motivation has also
broadened beyond the study of the broad five personality traits. Recent studies have focused on
traits not well-specified in the FFM, including affective traits (e.g., negative and positive
affectivity), motivational traits (e.g., action orientation), and self-related traits (e.g., core self-
evaluations, personal initiative). To further organize the broad array of person attributes currently
under investigation in work motivation, I use a modified version of the framework originally
proposed by Thorndike in 1947 for the purpose of categorizing different types of person
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influences on test performance. The adapted meta-organizing framework for person attributes is
shown in Figure 3.
-------------------------------
Insert Figure 3 about here
-------------------------------
Consistent with the Thorndike scheme, person attributes are classified on the basis of
their permanence (i.e., lasting or temporary) and scope (i.e., general or specific). For present
purposes, I classify individual differences in cognitive abilities, knowledge, and skills, and
nonability traits, such as the FFM personality traits, as lasting influences on motivation and
action. These person characteristics are not posited to vary appreciably across contexts (although
their expression may vary across contexts) or time, and are generally viewed as exerting an
indirect or distal influence on motivation through their effects on goals. Permanent person
attributes that are also general include most personality traits, such as conscientiousness. Lasting
but specific person attributes, such as job knowledge, exert their influence on motivation in a
narrower range of contexts. In contrast to lasting and general person attributes, lasting but
specific person characteristics, such as interests, are likely to affect motivation through their
impact on select variables, such as goal commitment and self-efficacy.
Transient person attributes refer to person influences that occur as a consequence of the
person-situation interaction. These person characteristics contribute to motivation by creating
what is often referred to as a motivational state. Biologically-based person attributes, such as
fatigue and stress, are examples of general (pervasive) but temporary person attributes that can
affect motivation through their impact on resource availability. In contrast, transient and context-
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specific person attributes, such as regulatory focus or anger are likely to influence motivation
through their effect on self-regulation processes.
The organization of person influences on motivation using Thorndike's (1947)
classification scheme is generally consistent with findings across disparate research literatures
that show an indirect influence of general person attributes and a direct influence of transient
person attributes on motivational processes. To date, most work motivation research has focused
on general and lasting attributes (such as personality traits) and transient and specific person
characteristics (such as anger).
Personality traits. In contrast to earlier reviews of the relationship between personality
traits and performance that did not benefit from an empirically-derived organization of the
personality trait domain (e.g., Guion & Gottier, 1965), the Barrick and Mount (1991) meta-
analysis of personality trait-performance relations using the FFM trait scheme revealed
significant relationships between individual differences in conscientiousness and neuroticism and
diverse measures of performance. Specifically, conscientiousness showed a positive relationship
to performance while neuroticism showed a negative relationship to performance. Subsequent
studies on personality-performance relations (see Hurtz & Donovan, 2000) provide further
support for the predictive validities of these broad personality traits on performance.
In an attempt to explain these observed relations, Kanfer (1992) suggested that
personality traits influence performance through their effects on motivational processes.
Empirical support for this notion was obtained in studies by Barrick et al. (1993) and Barrick,
Stewart, and Piotrowski (2002), in which motivational variables were found to mediate the trait-
performance relationship, and in a study by Chen, Gully, Whiteman, & Kilcullen (2000) that
found that the impact of trait variables on performance were mediated by goals and self-efficacy.
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Results of a later meta-analysis by Judge and Ilies (2002), investigating the relationship between
personality traits and motivational variables (e.g., goal level) further indicated the robustness of
the relationship between two personality traits (Conscientiousness and Neuroticism) and
motivation using criterion variables from three different work motivation theories. Although
research investigating the influence of the FFM trait dimensions on motivation and performance
remains popular, there have also been more studies investigating select traits that are not well-
represented in the Five Factor structure of personality, such as motivational traits (Kanfer &
Heggestad, 1997), core-self-evaluations (Judge, Locke, & Durham, 1997) and personal initiative
(Frese & Fay, 2001; Frese, Kring, Soose, & Zempel, 1996).
The Thorndike meta-organizational scheme implies that general and lasting person
attributes (personality and other nonability traits such as interests) operate in a similar manner to
affect work motivation. However, to date, most work motivation research on personality traits
has been studied in isolation from studies that examine other important general and lasting
person attributes, such as individual differences in cognitive abilities, vocational interests, or
values. Ackerman (1997) and Lubinski (2000) have suggested that an integration of historically
disparate streams of research in cognitive abilities, personality, vocational interests, knowledge,
and values can improve our understanding and prediction of motivation and performance. These
researchers argue that communalities among general and lasting person attributes arise as a
consequence of the common biological influences and environmental affordances that promote
the tandem development of individual differences in cognitive and noncognitive traits over the
life course. In developed countries, for example, individual differences in cognitive abilities are
typically assessed prior to entry into elementary school and used to place students in different
learning environments that are considered optimal for the child’s aptitudes. These environments
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directly impact the level and type of intellectual and social challenges the child experiences in
the school setting. It is not unreasonable to expect that the interaction of the individual's
characteristics and his/her school environment, in turn, influences later work interests, work
values, as well as the work opportunities available to the individual during the transition to adult
employment.
From a structural perspective, the association of different general and lasting person
characteristics into broad constellations or complexes may be conceptualized hierarchically, with
basic dimensions of cognition, temperament and motives often showing strong associations with
the development of select personality traits, vocational interests, and even work values. Research
that use theory-driven integrations of related person attributes to study their effects on motivation
and performance encourages the development of more parsimonious and practically-useful
approaches to understanding person influences on motivation and performance.
Organizational justice motives. One complex of general and lasting person attributes that
continues to command attention in the work motivation literature pertains to universal motives
for justice. Similar to traits, interests, and values, universal motives for justice reflect outcome
preferences that remain relatively stable across situations and the life course, even if the
particular conceptualization of justice may be culture-specific. In contrast to personality traits,
however, individuals do not appreciably differ in strength for satisfaction of justice motives.
Rather, justice motives activate motivational processes as a consequence of the person-situation
transaction. In this sense, although justice motives are lasting and general, the influence of the
motive on motivation and action occurs only when the individual perceives a threat to motive
satisfaction.
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Early theories of organizational justice grew out of equity and exchange formulations
(e.g., Adams, 1965). According to equity theories, situations an individual perceives to be unfair
or unjust creates heightened psychological tension. Motivation arises from the desire to reduce
the psychological tension, though the way that individuals accomplish this reduction in tension
may be through changes in cognition rather than changes in behavior. Theory and research on
organizational justice through the 1980s focused largely on delineating the motivational
pathways by which perceptions of procedural injustice or unfairness influenced work behavior
(see Greenberg & Cropanzano, 1999).
Over the past two decades, theories of organizational justice have matured and research
has expanded to examine the determinants and consequences of other forms of justice, including
interactional justice, relational justice, and informational justice. As with research on procedural
justice, research on relational and informational forms of justice has focused primarily on the
contextual features that elicit perceptions of injustice and subsequent behavior change. In a
comprehensive meta-analysis of justice research findings between 1975 and 1999, Colquitt et al.
(2001) found that both distributive and procedural forms of justice were positively related to
motivational outcomes, such as job commitment and task performance.
In the past few years, research on the impact motive violations on motivation has
declined as attention has shifted to examining impact of person characteristics on justice
perceptions. Studies by Truxillo, Bauer, Campion, and Paronto (2006) and Shi, Lin, Wang, and
Wang (2009), for example, examined the relationship between the FFM personality traits and
justice perceptions in the context of personnel selection and among incumbent employees,
respectively. Both studies found a positive relationship between Agreeableness and
organizational justice perceptions, and a negative relationship between Neuroticism and
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organizational justice perceptions. From a motivational perspective, these results suggest that
violations of justice motives in the workplace may be more salient to individuals high in
neuroticism than individuals low in neuroticism. To date, however, there has been little attention
to the impact of fairness perceptions on motivational orientation and self-regulatory activities
used for goal accomplishment. Studies are also needed to illuminate the relationship between
different forms of perceived injustice and associated patterns of motivation and behavior over
time.
Summary
Research on the influence of person characteristics on work motivation has increased
dramatically over the past two decades. This increase is due largely to the introduction of the
FFM of personality into the organizational domain. Using this scheme, work motivation
researchers have been able to accumulate research findings and obtain consistent evidence for
the relationship between Conscientiousness and Neuroticism traits and motivational variables
and outcomes. Emerging programs of research on specific variables, such as personal initiative,
reflect a further maturation of this portion of the field, as researchers attempt to identify and
study the impact of key behavioral tendencies for work motivation. Consistent with
recommendations by Ackerman (1996, 1997) and Lubinski (2000), programs of research by
Judge and his colleagues on core self-evaluations (e.g., Judge & Bono, 2001; Judge & Hurst,
2007) and Kanfer and Ackerman and their colleagues (e.g., Kanfer, Ackerman, & Heggestad,
1996; Kanfer, Wolf, Kantrowitz, & Ackerman, 2009) have also focused on delineating the
relationship between trait complexes, motivation processes and performance.
Nonetheless, there are still a number of important gaps in our knowledge. Theory and
research on the impact of person attributes in the general but temporary category, including
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health, stress, and fatigue variables, has received substantial research attention in the
occupational health literature, but has yet to be incorporated into mainstream work on
motivation. Similarly, there is also surprising little research directed toward the influence of
individual differences in affect on motivation and performance. Seo, Feldman-Barrett, and
Bartunek (2004) proposed an integrative model for the role of affective experience in work
motivation, using the concept of "core affective experience" to capture the impact of affective
experiences on goal choice and goal commitment. In addition, there has been little attention to
identifying the distinct motivational signatures of discrete emotions (Kanfer & Stubblebine,
2008). Research to identify the goal characteristics and self-regulatory strategies that uniquely
associated with different emotions is likely to be helpful to supervisors in the services sector. It
may also be for example, that individual differences in affective tendencies influence not only
the experience of an emotion, but also the goals that are formed in response to the emotion and
the effectiveness of self-regulatory activities to modulate the emotion. Research to investigate
the impact of specific affective person attributes, such as hostility, on emotion and motivation is
another area that has potentially important theoretical and practical implications.
Contextual Influences on Motivation
Context refers to the milieu in which work motivation takes place, and may be described
in a multitude of ways. At the simplest level, context may be distinguished in terms of function,
such as skill acquisition, job search, or teamwork. Although such an organizing scheme is useful
for noting the importance of motivation across the range of organizational activities, it does not
capture the complex relationships among situational variables or the communalities and
distinctions among contextual variables across settings.
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Most work motivation theory and research over the past 50 years has focused on the
impact of variables active in the immediate performance setting, such as rewards, decision
latitude, social interactions, and task variety (see Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Karasek, 1979,
1989). Although research findings in these perspectives often show significant relationships
between job demands and work conditions with work motivation, several factors have
contributed to a general decline in scientific study of context using these models. First,
researchers have identified several conceptual and methodological problems with formulations
that focus primarily on job task variables. In addition, the changing nature of work has shifted
attention to the question of whether and how other layers of context, such as societal culture,
influence work motivation (e.g., see Gelfand et al., 2007).
In a related vein, the introduction of social, information-processing (SIP) approaches by
Salancik and Pfeffer (1978) and Lord and Foti (1986) encouraged new ways of thinking about
context and its effects on work motivation. Specifically, these researchers argued that individuals
actively construct perceptions of the work context based on social cues in the environment.
These perceptions are then organized and stored in schemas that, once developed, tend to
promote the neglect of information that is inconsistent with the existing schema (Lord & Foti,
1986). Although SIP models have not attracted a great deal of attention among work motivation
researchers, the SIP perspective differs from job-based formulations in several important ways
for work motivation. First, SIP approaches formally recognize the role of preconscious processes
that direct attention to particular features of the work environment. Contemporary research in
nonconscious motivation processes expand upon this notion. Second, building on advances in
cognitive, information-processing psychology through the 1980s, Lord and his colleagues
showed how features of work were mentally represented in cognitive schemas, and the impact of
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schemas for decision-making. In modern work motivation research, nonconscious schemas
contribute to the development of automaticity, as well to problems in behavior change. Third,
SIP approaches refocus attention to the role that interpersonal relations play in perceptions of the
workplace and job context. In the modern work motivation theory, the impact of social cues on
work motivation has moved to investigation of the influence that an individual’s coworker
relations, social network, and social capital plays in motivational outcomes, such as
organizational citizenship behavior (e.g., Bowler & Brass, 2006) and turnover (Randel & Ranft,
2007).
As the physical and psychological context for job performance broadens (e.g., coffee
shop meetings; teamwork), organizational researchers have begun to study context influences
from a variety of levels, ranging from the impact of features associated with the immediate work
environment to the impact of organizational and national cultures on expectations and norms for
work behavior. One potentially useful heuristic for thinking about different levels of context is to
use the analogy of an onion. Like an onion, people perform work in a context that is multi-
layered, with each layer influencing other layers. With the individual at the center, variables that
capture features of the immediate work setting, such as task demands and social relations, can be
represented as the layer that is most proximal to the individual, yet fully embedded in broader
organization, represented as the next layer of the onion. Salient socio-technical features of the
organization context that may exert direct or indirect effects on the individual include, for
example, the unique culture, climate, and norms of the organization. In turn, organizations are
embedded in societies and cultures that may also be distinguished in terms of characteristics such
as norms, values, and orientations with respect to social relations and power.
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Similar to an onion, changes at any layer may exert direct and lagged impact on other
layers and the individual. The introduction of new production technology, such as the desktop
computer in the 1980s for example, can rapidly change the individual’s context of work within a
work unit and the schedule of intrinsic rewards associated with performance of reconfigured
jobs. Perhaps the most important point in using the onion analogy is that changes at different
levels of context rarely occur in isolation. Features of the workplace, compensation, the
organization, leadership, and societal norms for how and when nonwork family and leisure
activities should occur often covary in ways that create distinct, complex situation constellations
that distinguish occupational families. For example, knowledge work, whether it be directed
toward product design, software development, or teaching, is often performed in settings
characterized by high levels of decision latitude, task interdependence, noncontingent pay
structures, nonhazardous work conditions, and the use of reward structures that reinforce
outcomes (e.g., new product development, teamwork) rather than single behaviors (e.g.,
attendance). Further, these features of work are often associated with the use of a management
style and an organizational culture and climate that differ significantly from the style and culture
that exists in production work. Even more broadly, organizations that produce knowledge, rather
than products, tend to grow best in stable economic mediums and in developed or rapidly
developing countries.
Managing the context in which work is performed in order to promote work motivation
and positive work attitudes is arguably the principal task of most supervisors and unit leaders.
Unfortunately, however, there is currently no theory of situations to guide managers or work
motivation researchers in systemizing and aggregating findings about the effects of context on
motivation (Johns, 2006). Meyer and his colleagues (Meyer & Dalal, 2009; Meyer, Dalal, &
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Bonaccio, 2009; Meyer, Dalal, & Hermida, 2010) have recently proposed a formulation that
organizes features of the work setting using the psychological concept of “situational strength.”
Based in part on Mischel’s (1968) notion of situational strength, Meyer et al. (2010) define
situational strength as “implicit or explicit cues provided by external entities regarding the
desirability of potential behaviors.” According to Meyer et al. (2010), the overall strength of a
work situation is comprised of strength in four dimensions: clarity, consistency, consequences,
and constraints. Clarity refers to the extent to which attributes of the workplace and social cues
create a clear understanding of work role and job responsibilities, Consistency refers to the
extent that workplace attributes and social cues create perceptions of the job as comprised of
compatible tasks and roles. Constraints refer to the extent to which physical, technical, and social
attributes of the job place limits on the influence of an individual’s decisions and behaviors. The
consequences dimension refers to the extent to which contextual variables affect the significance
of action for self, coworkers, the unit, and the organization.
Meyer et al. (2009) provide initial evidence for the feasibility of this framework in an
investigation of the moderating role that occupation-level constraints and consequences have on
the relationship between conscientiousness and job performance. Concordant with their theory,
Meyer et al. (2009) found that the conscientiousness-performance relation was stronger in
occupations characterized by low levels of constraint on the consequences and constraint
dimensions than higher levels on these dimensions. The utility of this approach for organizing
the impact of various contextual variables appears promising, but requires further empirical
testing. In particular, research to identify the differential impact of situational strength
dimensions on self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation is likely to be quite useful for building a
conceptual bridge between context and motivation.
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Both older and newer approaches to context influences on work motivation hold that the
impact of exogenous variables on work motivation obtains as a consequence of how features of
the environment are perceived and interpreted by the individual. An important next step in this
area will be to illuminate the effects of person attributes, time and variable constellations on the
perception and interpretation of work milieu, and subsequent influences on goal choice and goal
pursuit. It may well be, for example, that the impact of situational variables on work motivation
changes over time as a function of the individual’s goals. Among novice emergency medical
technicians (EMTs), for example, strong situations that provide detailed guides for what to do
and pay attention to while trying to stabilize a patient for hospital transfer is likely to enhance
effective resource allocations and performance. Among experienced EMTs, however, strong
situations may diminish work motivation (although not job performance) for precisely the same
reason; namely, perceived inflexibility in how performance is enacted and reduced opportunity
for self-determination. How different layers of context influence situational strength, and the
conditions in which strength facilitates or diminishes work motivation are important questions
for future research in this area.
Context-grounded motivation research. Motivation is always studied in context, but over
the past few decades changes in the nature of work and the workforce have focused attention on
the role of motivation in two specific contexts; namely, training and teams. The widespread
integration of self-regulation perspectives in training theory and research and development of
more sophisticated models of learning has revitalized motivation research in this context (Bell &
Kozlowski, 2002, 2008; Ford, Smith, Weissbein, Gully, & Salas, 1998; Sitzmann, Bell, Kraiger,
& Kanar, 2009). In contrast to older models of learning that assume stability in motivation across
the course of training, contemporary models propose more dynamic conceptions of motivation
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during training. Similarly, the extension of self-regulation to the study of team processes has
spurred theory and research on the influence of teams and team dynamics on individual
motivation and performance in the team context. Recent advances in these situations are
highlighted below.
Motivation in training and development. There is a long history of theory and research on
the role of motivation in job skill training and development (Goldstein, 1993). Prior to the latter
part of the 20th century, however, training and development research focused largely on the
impact of training design characteristics (e.g., feedback, modeling) on performance of new job
entrants engaged in job-specific skill training, such as typing or operating a printing press. Little
attention was paid to individual differences in motivation to learn, perform, and transfer training
outcomes or to motivational processes as they unfolded during training (see Noe, 1986).
Over the past four decades, however, there has been a steady increase in the role that
motivation plays in training and development. In the current work world, training is no longer
constrained to the front-end of careers and jobs, but rather an activity that can be expected to
occur with regularity across the career course. In some occupational sectors, such as IT and
healthcare, new technologies are driving major changes in the skill sets required for maintaining
a high level of job performance over time. For individuals who are increasingly likely to spend
five or more decades in the labor workforce, life-long learning is becoming a prerequisite for
career success and employability. In the research arena, investigations of goal setting and self-
regulation in learning and training environments have repeatedly shown the importance of
motivational processing in complex skill acquisition (e.g., Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989). Given
these trends, it is not at all surprising that theory and research on the role of motivation in
contemporary training contexts has burgeoned (Kozlowski & Salas, 2010).
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One area of great interest to organizations concerned with continuous learning pertains to
understanding of what motivates individuals to enroll in development activities. The decision to
participate in skill training represents the first and perhaps most critical step in training, since
failure to participate makes the question of motivation during learning and motivation for
transfer of training moot. Meta-analytic findings by Colquitt et al. (2000) indicate that individual
differences in select traits, such as locus of control, play an important role in motivation for
training. Findings by Baldwin, Magjuka, and Loher (1991), Guerrero and Sire (2001), and others
(see Mathieu & Martineau, 1997) also indicate that employees who are allowed to decide
whether they participate in organizationally-sponsored or supported training show higher levels
of motivation for training (as reflected in training commitment, allocation of time and effort
toward class attendance, time spent in on-task learning) than employees who are not allowed to
participate in the enrollment decision. These findings are consistent with motivation theories that
emphasize self-determination and participatory decision-making. In terms of voluntary training
participation, Hurtz and Williams (2009) found that perceived availability of development
activities and high learning goal orientation exerted significant positive effects on training
participation.
However, factors that motivate the decision to enroll in training may be quite different
from factors that motivate sustained learning over the duration of training (Beier & Kanfer,
2009). A large number of studies in educational and social/personality psychology as well as in
industrial and organizational psychology have examined self-regulatory processes during
learning and skill acquisition (Elliot, 2008; Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989; Zimmerman & Schunk,
2001). Findings from these complementary streams of research indicate the importance of self-
efficacy and active self-regulation of emotion and behavior during learning for positive learning
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outcomes. Many studies also show that performance goal orientation exerts a negative effect on
learning outcomes, though the mechanisms by which this negative effect occurs is still not well-
understood (DeShon & Gillespie, 2005; Payne et al., 2007).
Two current streams of research in training, by Frese and his colleagues and Bell and
Kozlowski and their colleagues, highlight the role of motivation in modern training
environments. In the early 1990s, Frese and Zapf (1994) suggested that giving trainees the
opportunity to make errors and encouraging trainees to learn from their errors during training
may improve learning outcomes. In contrast to training approaches that focus on error avoidance,
error management training (EMT) assumes that errors are unavoidable in active learning and that
total elimination of errors may be difficult to achieve in complex tasks. From a motivational
perspective, the EMT-active learning approach is posited to improve learning in part by
enhancing task engagement. As Keith and Frese (2005) noted, however, the positive effects of
EMT on performance are moderated by the extent to which the task and training environment
provide clear, unambiguous feedback. Keith and Frese (2005) examined the motivational
influence of EMT compared with error avoidant training approaches using a sample of college
students learning to use the PowerPoint 2000 computer program. After an introduction to the
program, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) error avoidant
training, (b) error management training, or (c) error management plus meta-cognitive instruction.
The results provided support for the proposed mediating role of emotion regulation and
metacognitive activities in the effects of training condition on performance. Consistent with
resource allocation theories (e.g., Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989), Keith and Frese (2005) found that
the positive effects of the two error management training conditions over the error-avoidant
condition on performance were fully attributable to their influence on enhancing emotion control
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and meta-cognitive activities during training. Specifically, trainees in the error management
conditions reported higher levels of emotion regulation following errors than trainees in the error
avoidant conditions.
Results of a recent meta-analysis of EMT effects on training and transfer task
performance by Keith and Frese (2008) provide support for basic tenets of the framework. From
a motivational perspective, the positive impact of EMT on adaptive transfer performance appears
to occur through two pathways: (a) reduction of disruptive emotional reactions that divert
attentional resources away from learning, and (b) more frequent activation of meta-cognitive
processes following error detection. However, the findings in EMT research suggest several
important boundary conditions on the efficacy of EMT for motivation and enhanced transfer
performance, including the provision of training environments that provide clear performance
feedback and the impact of training on adaptive transfer performance (versus analogous or near
transfer performance). In addition, investigations on the effectiveness of EMT approaches for
adaptive transfer performance have been limited to college-educated adult samples for use in
software skills and other computer-related skills. Additional research is needed to assess the
generalizability of these findings to other workers in different domains.
A second distinct, but related stream of motivation research in the training context by
Kozlowski, Bell and their colleagues has examined the impact of different active learning
interventions on training performance, as well as skill transfer and adaptation. Bell and
Kozlowski (2008) examined three self-regulatory pathways (cognitive, motivational, and
emotional) by which different active learning interventions influenced performance. Individuals
who adopted a mastery goal orientation to training showed increased levels of self-efficacy,
intrinsic motivation, and metacognitive ability. Bell and Kozlowski (2008) also showed that error
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framing interacted with trainees’ trait goal orientations to affect state goal orientation during
training. However, the effect of error framing was largely to increase state mastery goal
orientation among trainees low in trait mastery goal orientation; error framing had no effect on
individuals already high on mastery goal orientation. The Bell and Kozlowski (2008) findings
shed light on the importance of evaluating the interactive effects of trainee traits and training
designs on learning outcomes.
Motivation in teams. Historically, the bulk of theory and research on individual level
motivation in the team context has focused on the impact of group characteristics (e.g., size) and
the downward impact of team-level phenomena, such as team cohesion, on individual team
member motivation and behavior. For example, recent findings by Pearsall, Christian, and Ellis
(2010) show that reward system characteristics play an important role in motivating team
member effort and mitigating team-level social loafing phenomena. Over the past few decades,
however, there has been a trend toward the development of theories and research on motivation
in the team context that focus on the relationship between individual and team-level processes
Recent theoretical work by Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro (2001), and Chen and Kanfer (2006) on
motivational processes in team contexts build upon evidence of homology between goal choice
and self-regulatory motivational processes at the individual and team level, and advances in
multilevel modeling (Chen, Bliese, & Mathieu, 2005; Chen et al., 2002; DeShon et al., 2004).
Meta-analytic findings by DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus (2010) provide empirical support for
the influence of proposed motivational states on team performance. Micro-analytic studies by
Chen, Kirkman, Kanfer, Allen, and Rosen (2007) and Chen, Kanfer, DeShon, Mathieu, and
Kozlowski (2009) provide additional support for the cross-level influence of team efficacy on
individual level motivational processes over time.
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Change (Temporal) Influences on Motivation
Most work and organizational theories focus on the effects of motivation on behavior or
performance at a specific point in time or on average over an aggregated period of time (e.g., a
week or month). Nonetheless, motivational scientists have long recognized that motivation
occurs over time, and that time and time-sensitive factors can also exert important influences on
the direction and intensity of resource allocations. Over the past decade, interest in temporal and
time-related influences on work motivation has blossomed, with researchers pursuing questions
about the influence of time from many different perspectives (e.g., Carstensen, 1993; Fried,
Grant, Levi, Hadant, & Slowik, 2007; Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004; Marks et al., 2001; Schmidt,
Dolis, & Tolli, 2009; Simons, Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Lacante, 2004; Steel & Konig, 2006;
Vancouver et al., 2001).
The first problem that confronts researchers interested in investigating the effects of time
on motivation is how to conceptualize and assess the effects of time on motivation separately
from the array of changes in other determinants that take place over time. For example,
endogenous, biological factors contribute to increasing levels of fatigue as a function of time-on-
task. Motivation, however, may mediate the impact of fatigue on performance, and support a
pattern of sustained performance over time (Ackerman, in press). Investigations to examine the
impact of time on goal choice or goal pursuit thus requires repeated assessment of proximal
internal and external determinants and consequences of motivation, rather than just distal traits
and performance trends.
The study of temporal influences on motivation highlights an abiding problem in
motivation psychology; namely, the interplay of biological factors, self-related factors, and
environment demands (e.g., task demands) on the pattern of resource allocation observed. Most
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studies of work motivation focus on the impact of a person or situational variable (e.g.,
performance incentives) on the allocation of resources to a specific target task independent of
other tasks and factors. However, as Kanfer and Ackerman (1989) note, the impact of person and
situation factors on motivation for a performance on a single task must also take into account
task demands and time-linked changes in task demands as a consequence of practice. The
provision of difficult, specific goals, for example, may initially increase motivation and facilitate
learning. For tasks that can be proceduralized (e.g., driving), however, the demands on attention
lessen with practice and task performance may be sustained by changes in knowledge and skill,
rather than continued high levels of resource allocation. That is, motivation may remain constant
over time, but the impact of motivation on performance changes as a function of how practice
influences task demands. In these instances, high levels of performance after practice may be
maintained by knowledge and skill development rather than by high levels of motivation.
In contrast, in jobs and tasks where performance cannot be improved through the
development of automaticity through practice, sustained levels of motivation are required to
maintain performance. In these situations, performance provides a relatively accurate assessment
of motivation change over time, but motivation may be more strongly determined by within-
subject factors than by an intervention such as goal setting. In summary, the use of performance
measures to assess motivation over time requires consideration of dynamic task demands, self-
processes, and competing goal demands.
The influence of time on work motivation processes may be captured at different levels
of analysis, and assessed directly or indirectly. Repeated measurement of expectancies, goals,
goal orientation, self-efficacy, self-evaluative behaviors, the direction of attentional effort, the
use of different self-regulatory strategies, and time spent on the task permits direct assessment of
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changes in motivation over time. Direct methods may be used to assess changes in motivational
processes as a function of time on task or to assess changes in motivation across longer
timescales, such as during a new employee’s probationary period. The influence of time-related
variables may also be studied indirectly using between-subject designs to evaluate how variables
such as an employee’s future time perspective and chronological age, affects goal choice, goal
striving and changes in resource allocation policies over time within and across tasks.
Research on the effects of time on motivational strength for performance of a specific
task has waxed and waned over the past 40 years. Atkinson and Birch (1970) proposed a theory
of motivational dynamics and task switching in which target task performance was hypothesized
to decline over time as a function of the declining value of further performance and the
increasing attractiveness of performing an alternative task. Raynor and Entin (1982) proposed an
extension of the expectancy-value formulation, taking into account the influence of the length of
the subordinate pathway for final outcome goal accomplishment and the relationship among
elements in the pathway to the final goal. Neither the Atkinson and Birch (1970) or the Raynor
and Entin (1982) formulations generated much interest in work motivation, although there has
been some recent work on the impact of future time perspective. For example, Simons, Dewitte,
and Lens (2004) suggest that in the context of student achievement, individual differences in
future time perspective influence intrinsic motivation and the self-regulatory strategies used to
accomplish task performance.
One currently prominent line of inquiry on the effects of time on motivation involves the
temporal depletion and replenishment of personal resources needed for motivational processes.
Baumeister’s Ego Depletion Theory (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998;
Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998) posits that the personal resources required for self-
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regulation and self-control diminish with use. According to Ego Depletion theory, sustained self-
regulation (as is often required to perform a complex task over long periods of time) drains the
personal resource pool and diminishes the capacity for and effectiveness of self-regulatory
activities. Several studies provide support for the notion that the effectiveness of self-regulation,
particularly in the service of emotion regulation, diminishes over time in situations that involve
continuous use. Resource depletion has also been shown to occur when individuals must engage
as a function of engaging in goal choice activities over time, such as might occur among EMTs
when responding to a disaster. Baumeister argues that individuals are unlikely to fully deplete
their limited resources for goal choice and self-regulation, particularly in situations where they
anticipate that self-regulation will be required for future performance. That is, unlike a flashlight
battery that will completely discharge if the flashlight is left on, Baumeister et al. (1998) and
Hobfoll (1989) argue that individuals attempt to conserve or slow the rate of resource depletion
when they perceive future demands for self-regulation prior to any opportunity for resource
replenishment (i.e., pacing oneself with respect to resource consumption). Whereas Baumeister’s
theory emphasizes resource depletion associated with length of use, Hobfill’s Conservation of
Resources theory (1989) emphasizes the impact of job stressors on rate of resource loss and
depletion.
Baumeister also argues that resources needed for motivation and self-regulation may be
replenished over time through rest and the pursuit of activities that do not require self-regulation.
Sonnentag and her colleagues (Sonnentag & Frese, 2003; Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007; Sonnentag &
Kruel, 2006) have examined this idea in a series of studies designed to identify the conditions
that promote resource recovery following work-related resource depletion. Using experience
sampling methodology, Sonnentag investigated work and nonwork factors that might influence
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resource recovery following depletion associated with job performance (Binnewies, Sonnentag,
& Mojza, 2009; Fritz & Sonnentag, 2005, 2006).
A central question for future research in this line of inquiry is to determine what features
of work most strongly influence resource depletion and recovery. For example, Hobfoll’s (1989)
theory suggests that work conditions, such as supervisory support, may buffer the negative
impact of resource loss associated with sustained self-regulation, and a study by Tice,
Baumeister, Shmueli, and Muraven (2007) suggests that positive affect may also buffer resource
depletion. Further research is needed to understand the role of tasks, person characteristics, and
social context on resource depletion and recovery (Bakker, Hakanen, Demerouti, &
Xanthopoulou, 2007). For example, in the context of skill acquisition, Kanfer and Ackerman
(1989) found that individuals with higher levels of attentional resources (i.e., cognitive abilities)
reported fewer resource-consumptive off-task cognitions during skill acquisition than individuals
with lower levels of attentional resources. Extending this finding to the workplace suggests that
certain forms of supervisory or coworker support or technologies that reduce work load may
attenuate resource depletion in demanding tasks. In emergency situations and high-risk
teamwork, for example, individuals often demonstrate high levels of sustained motivational
intensity over long periods of time. Investigation of how team member interactions operate to
slow the pace of resource depletion, and so facilitate sustained task effort for long periods of
time is a promising avenue for future research.
Individuals may also implement their own strategies to reduce or prevent resource
depletion associated with job demands. Research in the lifespan literature suggests two broad
strategies, accommodation and transformation, by which individuals may reduce demands on
personal resources (e.g., Heckhausen & Schultz, 1995). Accommodation refers to actions an
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individual may take to alter the environment in ways that better accommodate personal goals,
needs, and motives. During the course of performance, for example, anxious individuals who
experience resource depletion associated with emotion regulation, may revise work goals
downward to conserve resources and shield secondary goals related to sense of competence.
Similarly, individuals with more available resources and less demand for emotion regulation
during job performance may revise work goals upward to sustain task motivation and satisfy
secondary goals related to mastery. To date, however, there has been little research on what
motivates the use of accommodation strategies in taxing jobs and tasks.
Individuals may also use transformation strategies to reduce resource depletion.
Transformation strategies refer to behaviors taken to improve the person-job fit by making self-
changes that promote resource conservation. As Heckhausen and Schultz (1995) note,
transformation strategies require additional resource allocations and are typically only used when
accommodation strategies are not possible or ineffective. Improving job skills and knowledge is
one obvious transformation strategy for resource conservation in the workplace. However, as
Heckhausen and Schultz (1995) suggest, the additional resource demands associated with
learning and behavior change in order to better meet job demands may make transformation
strategies less attractive than accommodation strategies that shape the environment to the person.
Although research using Baumeister and Hobfill’s resource frameworks have only recently
gained the attention of work motivation researchers, these conceptualizations appear quite
promising for understanding the costs of sustained emotion regulation in the workplace, and the
most effective interventions for slowing the rate of depletion and improving resource recovery in
the workplace. In particular, it would be quite useful to know the conditions that trigger the use
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of self-initiated strategies for resource conservation, and the factors that determine the choice to
use transformation versus accommodation strategies for resource conservation.
Another interesting approach for understanding motivation over time focuses on a time-
linked outcome of considerable importance in the workplace, namely, procrastination. Although
there have been several studies investigating the influence of traits (e.g., action control, see Kuhl,
1986) on procrastination, Steel and Konig (2006) have recently proposed a general motivation
formulation that specifically addresses resource allocation policies across activities as a function
of time and their effects on procrastination. According to Steel and Konig (2006), time
influences individual resource allocations across tasks through its effect on the value that
individuals attach to events and outcomes that occur at in the future. Using temporal discounting
theory, Steel and Konig (2006) propose individuals will discount the value of events and
outcomes that occur in the future and allocate fewer resources to accomplishment of distal
outcomes than to accomplishment of proximal goals that have not been discounted. Steel and
Konig (2006) describe a number of interesting implications of TMT for the development of
motivational interventions to mitigate the temporal discounting effect on goal choice and
allocations of time across tasks, and for the mitigation of procrastination behavior.
As Dalal and Hulin (2008) note, task goals provide a naturally occurring and useful
demarcation for studying motivation processes over time. Analysis of time effects across single
goal performance cycles also corresponds well to single-cycle theories of work motivation.
However, other units of analysis may shed further light on how time affects resource allocation
policies across concurrent task goals. Use of temporal cycles organized around person attributes,
such as Type A tendencies, may also shed light on whether individual differences exert a
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separate effect on the speed and quality of explicit goal choice processes and the strength of self-
regulatory activities over time.
Time influences on work motivation associated with employee age. Research in
developmental and lifespan psychology documents changes within the person that occur across
the lifespan, including declines in select cognitive processing abilities that contribute to fluid
intelligence, increases in declarative knowledge that contributes to crystallized intelligence,
changes in motive primacy, and changes in intensity of select personality traits (see Kanfer &
Ackerman, 2004, for a review). Intra-individual differences in these abilities and traits occur very
slowly, and the impact of age-related differences in motivation is typically studied using cross-
sectional samples that compare individuals at different chronological age periods (e.g., young,
midlife, old). Findings obtained to date indicate a general downward shift with age in the valence
of common extrinsic rewards, such as a promotion or increased pay, and a general upward shift
with age in the attractiveness of intrinsic outcomes, such as autonomy (in the form of flexible
work scheduling) and competency (in the form of opportunity to utilize skills; Warr, 2008).
Age has also been shown to be negatively related to training speed and learning self-
efficacy, most likely as a consequence of the age-related decline in fluid intellectual abilities that
influence both these variables. Taken together with the age-related decline in the attractiveness
of extrinsic rewards, these findings suggest that older workers (with lower levels of learning self-
efficacy) are likely to be less motivated to participate in new skill learning than younger workers.
However, findings by Simpson, Greller, & Stroh (2002) indicate that older workers are no less
motivated than younger workers for learning opportunities, and were more likely to participate in
such opportunities when the criterion for participation extended to nonorganizationally
sponsored learning opportunities. Studies by Sitzmann and her colleagues (Sitzmann et al., 2009;
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Sitzmann & Ely, 2010) suggest that the use of prompts to employ self-regulatory strategies
during training enhanced learning and reduced attrition over the course of training. These results
suggest that motivational declines associated with perceptions of slow progress and poor
performance among older workers may be mitigated by the use of instructional designs that
assist and promote effective self-regulation strategies.
Transactional Perspectives
The allocation of personal resources to work-related activities is not a single decision, but
rather an ongoing process that is influenced by changes in the person, the environment, and the
transaction between the person and the environment. In this section I briefly review recent work
on the motivational processes by which person-environment transactions influence performance
and attitudes.
Match theories of job performance and work attitudes. A central thesis in the person-
environment research literature, and a widely-held belief among organizational practitioners is
that alignment of employee and organization goals, values, interests, and competencies facilitates
work motivation, positive job attitudes and job intentions (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational
commitment), and performance. These models do not posit that values, objectives, and
competencies needed by the organization and possessed by the individual be identical, only that
the individual perceive that his/her values, objectives and competencies are congruent with the
demands of the job. As George and Brief (1996) suggested, a high level of perceived congruence
between an employee's goals and that of his/her team members may exert a positive impact on
performance through its effect on adjusting resource allocation policies, or as Kristof (1996)
suggests, by helping persons know "the right thing" to do. Similarly, perceptions of poor
alignment or lack of congruence between one's goals and those of other team members is
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expected to exert a negative impact on motivational processes and, in turn, work behavior and
attitudes.
Perceptions of congruence are contextually sensitive, and research has shown the impact
of a wide range of person and situational variables on different fit perceptions (Kristof, 1996, for
a review). Organization change programs and the way in which they are implemented, for
example, may substantially change employee perceptions of fit and congruence at one or more
levels, including organizational, work group, and job levels. Employee perceptions of fit may
also occur as a function of job tenure, age-related and/or nonwork related change associated with
the person, rather than the environment. At hire, employees may perceive job tasks as
challenging and report a high level of perceived congruence between the cognitive demands of
the job and one's knowledge, skills, and abilities. Over time, however, the perception of abilities-
demand fit may weaken as the demands of the job no longer require substantial effort or
attention. For these employees, a once challenging job has become boring.
A large research literature exists on the consequences of different forms of fit between
an individual and his/her work environment (Kristof, 1996). Surprisingly, however, only a
relatively small portion of this research focuses directly on motivational processes. During the
1980s, Dawis and Lofquist (1984) proposed a Theory of Work Adjustment that emphasized the
importance of person-environment fit, and described fit in terms of its effects on employee
motivation and need satisfaction. Although Dawis and Lofquist (1984) delineated the
motivational processes by which perceptions of fit direct and energize work performance, there
has been relatively little research to examine the validity of the their proposed pathways between
fit and work outcomes. From a different but complementary perspective, French, Caplan, & Van
Harrison (1982) highlighted the negative motivational consequences associated with perceptions
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of poor person-environment (P-E) in terms of higher feelings of job stress, higher levels of
negative affect, and more physical health problems (see Edwards, 1996; Shaw & Gupta, 2004).
Greguras and Diefendorff (2009) describe a promising new direction for theory and
research on the motivational processes and mechanisms by which perceived congruence may
affect performance and attitudes. Noting the communality between need satisfaction models and
universal motive theories, Greguras and Diefendorff (2009) proposed that intrinsic motives for
autonomy, relatedness, and competence mediate perceived fit-outcome relations. Findings
obtained using a sample of managers provide support for the mediating role of individual
differences in perceived satisfaction of these motives in different perceived fit - performance and
attitude relations. Consistent with SDT, as well as the Theory of Work Adjustment (Dawis &
Lofquist, 1984), these findings indicate that perceptions of congruence in different dimensions
influences work performance and attitudes through its influence on intrinsic motive satisfaction.
The Greguras and Diefendorff (2009) findings represent part of a growing trend in fit research to
investigate the positive, rather than negative, consequences of perceptions of different types of fit
on work behavior and performance (Vancouver & Schmitt, 1991).
Consequences of Motivation: The Criterion Problem
Most work motivation research evaluates motivation in terms of the behaviors and
performance observed on a single target task. In the modern workplace, however, employees are
often assigned multiple tasks, each with a different deadline for completion. In these instances,
assessments of motivation require measurement of the individual’s resource allocation across
tasks as well as resource allocations within each task. In multiple goal or task situations, the
assessment of motivation across tasks typically involves measures of time allocated to each task.
To fully evaluate motivation in multiple goal or task environments, however, researchers must
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also assess the impact of time to total resource allocation across all tasks, and how changes in
goals, self-efficacy, and goal pursuit in each component task affect time allocations to other
tasks. An excellent example of the complexities and advantages involved in assessing motivation
in a multiple goal regulation setting is provided by Schmidt et al. (2009).
Changes in the nature of work also raise the question of what are the appropriate indices
of work motivation. Extant models of work motivation are designed to provide prediction of
effort and persistence on a single, well-defined task (e.g., painting a room). However, many
modern jobs require motivation to accomplish multiple, inter-dependent tasks (e.g., prepare and
launch a new store opening) or ill-defined tasks (e.g., produce a new company slogan).
Motivation in these job tasks is likely to involve complex and inter-related resource allocation
policies governing the use of time, effort intensity, and the use of personal capital (e.g., social
and technical knowledge) for successful performance. Research is needed to determine the
factors that influence effective and ineffective strategies for goal pursuit in multi-form and
creative task accomplishments. Findings from this line of work are likely to be of substantial
practical importance for the early identification of motivational problems, and for the
development of effective interventions in these task settings.
Work Motivation Strategies and Practices
Advances in work motivation are closely connected to changes in the nature of work.
During most of the 20th century, motivation theory and practice focused on identifying the
fundamental determinants of work motivation, the psychological processes involved in goal
choice and goal pursuit, and effective organizational strategies to increase employee effort on the
job and to reduce turnover. Expectancy-value theories, goal setting, participative decision-
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making approaches, job characteristics theories, and equity theory generated research that added
new knowledge to predicting motivation for a specific work task.
At the start of the 21st century, however, most employees perform multiple work tasks,
often concurrently. Over the course of a workweek, a registered nurse may treat a dozen patients,
communicate information about each patient to physicians, radiologists, surgeons, and physical
therapists, update electronic patient files, counsel patient families, and negotiate schedule and
workload with other nurses on the unit. Accomplishment of each task requires allocation of
personal resources that vary as a function of task demands, task deadlines, importance, and
intrinsic interest in the task. It is no longer feasible or desirable for organizations to monitor and
reward performance of each job task as it occurs. In the 21st century job, employees are often
tasked with motivating themselves to organize job tasks, to allocate personal resources to
different task goals as conditions dictate, and to modify allocation policies when performance
progress is not sufficient. In short, job performance in many workplaces today demands self-
management. From a resource allocation perspective, the most effective motivational strategy is
one in which performance accomplishments are associated with attainment of valued rewards. In
short, the most effective strategy is intrinsic motivation, in which tasks are performed for their
own sake and performance accomplishments satisfy intrinsic motives for competence,
achievement, control, self-determination, and autonomy. Consistent with this notion, purposive
theories, such as Dweck’s goal orientation theory Deci’s SDT, have rapidly gained popularity.
Purposive theories of motivation emphasize goal pursuit and the use of intrinsic
incentives to power self-regulatory activities over time for goal accomplishment. As Steel and
Konig (2006) TMT suggests, extrinsic incentives such as yearly bonuses, are frequently too far
in the future to motivate allocations of time and effort to the accomplishment of immediate sub-
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goals prerequisite for achieving the complex goal outcome at some future date. In training, for
example, extrinsic incentives (e.g., promotion or pay raise contingent on final course
performance) are not powerful incentives for allocating more time to studying at the beginning of
the course. And the provision of extrinsic incentives for attainment of each subgoal is not a
realistic option. SDT and purposive theories of motivation address this practical problem by
delineating the conditions that promote sustained self-regulation of effort over time using
intrinsic incentives, such as a sense of self-determination, communion with others, competence,
control, and autonomy.
Accordingly, the problem in modern motivation theory and practice is not whether
extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic motivation, but rather how to use extrinsic rewards to
promote and sustain intrinsic task motivation. Although more empirical research is needed on
this question, the findings to date suggest that the negative impact of extrinsic rewards on
intrinsic motivation may be limited to specific person-situation conditions. In routine jobs, such
as cashiering, initial interest in work tasks and performance motivation may be low without the
provision of performance-contingent extrinsic bonus payments to stimulate the adoption of
difficult goals and goal striving. Over the course of goal pursuit, however, individuals are likely
to become more proficient at the job, and goal attainment may yield intrinsic as well as extrinsic
rewards. As intrinsic incentives become more salient, extrinsic rewards for performance
accomplishment may be phased out, as individuals pursue higher levels of performance for
purposes of intrinsic motive satisfaction. Depending on the task, however, intrinsic motivation
may wane over time as further allocations of time and effort yield smaller improvements in
performance and correspondingly weaker intrinsic rewards. Experienced cashiers, for example,
are likely to perform at a high level with less effort due to task proceduralization, making further
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performance improvement and intrinsic rewards for performance less likely unless the individual
allocates substantial increases in time and effort. However, the provision of performance-
contingent extrinsic rewards again at this point, in the form of social recognition or
employee/team competitions among similarly experienced individuals, may stimulate the higher
allocations of time and effort necessary for improved performance and heightened feelings of
competence and self-determination. In summary, this analysis suggests that the primary purpose
of extrinsic rewards in the modern workplace (beyond rewards associated with the employment
contract) is to promote and sustain intrinsic work motivation, rather than to directly sustain
motivation and performance indefinitely.
Findings in goal setting and goal orientation research provide indirect evidence to support
this conceptualization. Numerous studies show that extrinsic rewards exert a positive influence
goal choice, but can also exert a detrimental impact on goal pursuit. Findings in goal orientation
further show that individuals who adopt goals for purposes related to the satisfaction of intrinsic
motives related to learning, mastery and accomplishment employ more effective self-regulatory
strategies and show higher levels of performance than persons who adopt goals for purposes
related to satisfaction of other-oriented, extrinsic motives (to prove one’s ability to others, to
avoid looking incompetent to others). In some instances, however, when task demands are low or
individuals are experienced at the task, the adoption of a performance prove goal orientation may
promote the use of effective self-regulation strategies and higher levels of performance.
To date, researchers have focused on the goal attributes that facilitate intrinsically
rewarded forms of goal pursuit and higher levels of performance. However, as reviews by Parker
and Ohly (2008) and Fried and Ferris (1987) suggest, intrinsic motivation may also be promoted
or diminished by the context of action. For example, using Meyer’s notion of situational
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specificity, work contexts that are high in clarity and consistency are likely to produce
environments that are conducive to the development of intrinsic motivation, while environments
that are high in constraints and consequences are likely to diminish intrinsic motivation.
Similarly, the effectiveness of transformation leaders in enhancing subordinate motivation may
be best understand in terms of what these leaders do to create conditions that induce intrinsic
motivation among subordinates. Organizing diverse motivational strategies in terms of their
impact on facilitating intrinsic forms of motivation is likely to greatly facilitate the translation of
research findings into effective managerial practices.
Practical Challenges and Emerging Research Directions
The previous sections highlight recent progress in work motivation theory and practice.
Although theory and research continues in the quest for basic understanding (e.g., Stokes, 1997),
practical concerns have spurred research in a number of new directions. In this section I describe
a few current practical challenges, and their implications for research and practice.
Aging and work motivation. Over the next three decades, the proportion of the workforce
over the age of 65 is predicted to grow to nearly 30%. Organizations are already struggling with
how to effectively recruit, manage, motivate, retrain, and retain older workers. Early theory and
research on work motivation as a function of adult development suggests that age-related
changes in cognitive abilities and nonability traits, motives, and interests exert an important
influence on work motivation and performance. In particular, age-related changes in abilities and
skills among individuals that perform jobs which place strong demands on these abilities and
skills (e.g., firefighter) is likely to have a direct influence on perceptions of person-job fit, work
attitudes, and retirement intentions. Age and job tenure may also exert a negative influence on
work motivation among individuals who perform a routine job that does not make demands on
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age-sensitive abilities and skills, but rather affords few opportunities for skill utilization or
intrinsic motive satisfaction. Employee age may also play a negative role in work motivation as a
consequence of age-sensitive attitudes and behaviors of coworkers, supervisors, or clients. In
these instances, motivation for work may decline sharply as opportunities for satisfaction of
affiliation motives and a positive self-concept shrink.
To date, organizations have responded to age-related problems in work motivation using
a variety of strategies, including changing the work role, providing age-appropriate incentives for
staying on the job, and educating managers about the influence of age on work competencies.
However, few applications are evidence-based and studies of age-related changes in motives,
interests, and self-regulation strategies remain sparse (for exceptions see Kooij, De Lange,
Jansen, Dikkers, & Kanfer, in press; see Shultz & Adams, 2007, for a review). Future research in
this area will require a reconsideration of the achievement construct and longitudinal research
designs that permit investigation of how person and occupation characteristics influence
motivation to work and motivation at work.
Motivation in teams. Teams are ubiquitous in organizations, and new technologies have
spurred the increasing use of inter-professional teams and teams of teams, or multi-team systems
in the workplace (Marks, DeChurch, Mathieu, Panzer, & Alonzo, 2005). Corresponding to this
trend, theory and research on team-level processes and motivation surged during the late 20th
century. Nonetheless, there are still a number of practically-important questions to be addressed
regarding the determinants and consequences of motivational processes in the team context.
Marks et al. (2001) suggest that motivational processes play a crucial role in team-level activities
to manage interpersonal relationships that support team performance. Despite these advances in
team motivation, our understanding of cross-level influences between team-level and team
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member motivation processes remains incomplete. To date there has been relatively little
research examining the relationship between different motivational states and interpersonal
management strategies (see Rico, Sanchez-Manzanares, Gil, & Gibson, 2008). We also do not
fully understand the key factors that influence the spread of affective states, such as
disappointment, across members of the team, or the cross-level effects of affective states on
individual and team-level decision making as they may play out in real-world military,
healthcare, and other work team settings. In a related vein, research to understand the influence
of motivational orientations on action processes and interpersonal goal conflicts is another
promising direction for future research. Using the adaptive team leadership model proposed by
Kozlowski, Watola, Jensen, Kim, and Botero (2009) as an organizing framework for such
research may be quite fruitful.
Relational dynamics and work motivation. As jobs move from production to services,
relationships with coworkers, supervisors, and clients take on increased importance in ratings of
job performance. Findings across a variety of topics suggest that these social relationships are
also potentially important determinants of work motivation and behavior. Numerous studies in
leadership, for example, have focused on the impact of a leader’s relationship with a subordinate
on employee work motivation, job attitudes, and performance. Studies of emotion regulation in
service jobs, and research on events that trigger strong affective reactions also suggest that
interpersonal conflicts demand additional resource allocations for emotion regulation and
restoration of attentional focus to work goals. Interpersonal dynamics are also frequently
implicated in the direction of resource allocations, such as toward helping others or engaging in
counterproductive behaviors.
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Research is needed to understand how coworker dynamics facilitate and dampen work
motivation and influence the direction of action. Coworker relations influence the interpretation
of work events and can also elicit strong, other-oriented affective feeling states, such as pride,
shame, guilt, and jealousy. Social relations and the individual’s social ties at work can also
contribute to an individual’s work identity. Social power is also likely to influence the success of
job crafting efforts. In the modern workplace, coworker relations are typically embedded in a
social network that can affect motivation for coming to work and for behavior at work (e.g.,
Bowler & Brass, 2006). Research is needed to examine how attributes of an individual’s social
network, and change in relationships with key members of the network influence an individual’s
goals and methods for task accomplishment.
Motivation and leadership. Motivation is an integral part of leadership theory and
practice. Advances during the 20th century focused on the behaviors and processes by which
supervisors and leaders win the “mind” of their subordinates and followers. Investigations of
how leaders motivate workers in the team context represents a fertile area for investigating the
impact of implicit leader behaviors on subordinate motivation, as well as the role of affectively-
driven leader behaviors on winning the “hearts” of followers through goal orientation and
commitment processes.
Work motivation over time. As noted previously, we still know relatively little about the
determinants of work motivation cycles or their natural timescales. Studies of within-subject
variability have focused largely on affect and mood states. Within-subject studies to identify the
impact of personality traits and occupational demands on variability in the direction of resource
allocations, motivational state, and goal revision cycles will help to inform the relative
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contribution of situational strength and implicit motivation processes on work behavior. Findings
from this line of research also have practical implications for work design.
Motivation in training and development. The development of dynamic models of learning
and investigations of motivation within these models reflects the renaissance that is taking place
in this domain. Although there has been substantial progress made in specifying the motivational
processes involved in self-regulated learning, organizations and social policy makers continue to
raise important research questions in this area. For example, new instructional technologies and
e-learning opportunities raise many questions about how these structures may affect situational
strength and the self-regulatory strategies used during learning and for transfer. With tens of
millions of adults currently engaged in on-line skill learning, a better understanding the
motivational implications of these environments on learning, behavior, and performance is
crucial.
Research on motivation in training would also benefit from closer attention to the
trainee’s learning environment. Increasingly, individuals complete training in groups and classes
characterized by diversity in age, gender, and ethnicity. Training is often conducted on-line
during nonwork time. Anecdotal stories by trainees suggest that trainee class diversity, limited
social interactions with other students and the teacher, evaluation apprehension, and the cost of
training on nonwork activities may exert deleterious effects on training motivation. Research to
identify best practices for sustaining motivation during training, particularly among mid- and
late-life trainees is urgently needed.
Putting back the “I” in work motivation. Theory and research in work motivation
continues to focus on the role that self-related variables, such as self-efficacy and core self-
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evaluations play in goal choice, goal pursuit, and job performance. A logical next step in this
direction is to consider the role of broader self constructs, such as work identity on motivation.
Work identity refers to self-concept that is grounded in the tasks that individuals perform,
the work roles that they adopt, the organizations they work in, the occupations with which they
identify, and the ways that they go about performing their work (Walsch & Gordon, 2008). As
such, work identity is a developmental process that likely creates a work schema which may
show greater resistance to change with age.
A small but growing number of researchers have begun to study work motivation from an
identity perspective. Research by Wrzesniewski (2003; Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, &
Schwartz, 1997), for example, distinguishes between individuals who view their work as a job
(focused on attainment of extrinsic rewards, such as pay), a career (focused on advancement), or
a calling (intrinsically motivated engagement, for the purpose of performing socially useful
work). In a related vein, Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) introduced the term “job crafting” to
refer to the ways in which individuals attempt to shape the job in a way to provide greater
opportunities for satisfaction of intrinsic and social motives (similar to accommodation strategies
discussed previously). Although the main focus of work motivation theory and research will
likely remain on proximal influences on work behavior and job performance, identity theories
offer a higher-level conceptualization of motivational orientation that may be particularly helpful
in identifying patterns of goal choice, goal pursuit, job crafting, affective reactions, and work
outcomes associated with individuals with different perceptions of the purpose for their work.
Work motivation and well-being. Self-concordance theory (Sheldon, 2002; Sheldon &
Elliot, 1999) posits that individuals who pursue goals and activities they enjoy and believe in
experience higher levels of subjective well being. As applied to work, this theory suggests that
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work motivation plays an important role in worker well-being. Although work motivation has
been rarely studied in terms of worker well being beyond that of job satisfaction (for an
exception, Judge, Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005), mounting societal and organizational concern
about worker well-being suggests that more attention be given to the factors that promote self-
concordant motivation and the consequences of self-concordant motivation for worker well-
being. Findings by Bono and Judge (2003) indicate the role of transformational leadership in
promoting self-concordant motivation among subordinates. Further research is needed to extend
these findings and more precisely delineate the motivational processes that enhance worker well-
being.
Summary and Discussion
Although work motivation remains an area of scientific and practical importance, this
review suggests that there has been substantial change in the key constructs, processes, and
issues that currently command the attention of motivational scientists and practitioners. In
contrast to prior theories that emphasized rational models of goal choice, explicit person motives,
and self-management processes, emerging formulations focus on the determinants and
consequences of the individual’s goal orientation, and the impact of nonconscious processes and
implicit motives on goal choice, goal pursuit, affective states, and performance. Although self-
efficacy, goals, and personality traits continue to be studied in work motivation, the focus of
attention has subtly shifted toward understanding the dynamics by which these inputs change
over time. And affect, long accorded a subordinate role in motivational processing, continues to
garner research attention as an independent influence on behavior and a major determinant of
self-regulatory processing. Scientific advances, the changing nature of work, and the growing
emphasis on worker adjustment has, in turn, shifted research attention to different aspects of
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content, context, and change influences on work motivation. As discussed previously in this
chapter, Table 2 highlights some of the current gaps in our knowledge and potentially fruitful
areas for future research.
-------------------------------
Insert Table 2 about here
-------------------------------
At a more general level, two themes permeate recent theory and research in work
motivation. The first theme pertains to the increasing use of person-centric rather than
performance-centric approaches. Performance-centric approaches minimize within-person
dynamics and emphasize how changes in work design, managerial practices, and organization-
level variables (e.g., climate) affect motivation and performance of different individuals at a
particular point in time. Accordingly, performance-centric approaches tend to bias investigations
about the determinants of motivation and performance toward the study of stable person traits
and changes in the environment. Such approaches have been quite useful, particularly in the
study of motivation in production environments where job structure is often high, an individual’s
goal choice can be accomplished through an immediate increase in allocations of effort (rather
than prolonged goal pursuit), and behavior is often closely coupled to job performance.
In contrast to performance-centric approaches, person-centric approaches emphasize the
role of adult development and ongoing person-situation interactions in work motivation. Person
characteristics, goals, and experiences are posited to influence what features of the environment
are salient to the individual, the interpretation of these perceptions, and their translation into
motivational variables, such as self-efficacy. Person-centric approaches also assume that changes
in motivation and work behavior bring about changes in both the individual and the environment.
Work Motivation
79
The adoption of a person-centric approach to work motivation offers several distinct
theoretical and practical advantages. Person-centric approaches encourage multi-level,
longitudinal research designs that can illuminate potential differences in the impact of context
both across persons and within persons over time, as well as the potential impact of person traits
on context and within-person motivation over time. From a practical perspective, person-centric
approaches provide organizations with information about age-normed influences on work
motivation and how different interventions affect different aspects of work behavior over time.
This is particularly important in the modern workplace, where organizations may not be able to
precisely predict which behaviors and work outcomes are going to have the greatest importance
for job performance in the future. The many advantages of person-centric approaches for
studying person and situation factors that influence goal formulation and goal pursuit in the
workplace are likely to increase the dominance of this perspective for some time.
A second theme that runs through much of the recent work in the field pertains to the
growing interest in the role that affect and social relations play in work motivation. For most of
the 20th century, theories of work motivation viewed affect as a static influence on performance,
either in terms of the valence that individuals attach to different work outcomes, or as a work
attitude (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). However, research on implicit motives, nonconscious
motivational processes, and events that trigger nonconsciously mediated behaviors (such as
anger) maintain a very different view of affect. These approaches generally view affect as
dynamic and as distinct, biologically-driven, nonconscious processes associated with behavior
tendencies that activate during action in much the same way that explicit traits influence
cognitively-mediated motivation processes. This conceptualization puts motivation and affect on
a more equal footing, and suggests that motives and nonconscious affective tendencies operate in
Work Motivation
80
unison to influence goal choice and goal pursuit (i.e., work motivation). Indeed, newer theories
suggest that explicit self-regulatory activities largely operate in the service of managing
nonconscious affective tendencies that conflict with explicit goal accomplishment (e.g., Kehr,
2004), and the existence of a nonconscious goal and regulatory system for these affectively-
driven action tendencies (Bargh, 2008).
Work motivation researchers are also devoting more attention to how social interactions
and interpersonal dynamics influence affective states and nonconscious affective action
tendencies. The rich social medium in which modern work is performed increases the likelihood
that different emotions will be activated, either as a direct consequence of social interactions or
in the anticipation of social interactions (e.g., anxiety). Research currently in progress to
investigate the relationship between social interactions and the stream of emotions that occur
over the workday can be expected to importantly contribute to further progress in understanding
the impact of affect on work motivation.
The adoption of person-centric approaches and the emphasis on social relations and
affective processes increases the salience of several thorny questions in motivational science,
such as how individuals prioritize resource allocations in multiple goal/task settings, why and
how individuals adjust resource allocations to multiple goals/tasks over time, and how
individuals resolve goal conflicts, when individuals abandon goals, and factors that affect
strategy choice for regulation of implicit motive tendencies and negative emotions. As this
review attests, there is good reason to be optimistic that the field will continue to make progress
answering these and other central questions about work motivation. Theory and research
advances over the past two decades also show that work motivation researchers are equally
inspired by pressing practical problems in the workplace. Examples of emerging research
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81
streams inspired by real-world issues include studies on motivation in and of teams, the impact
of culture and work unit diversity on motivation and performance, the antecedents and
consequences of different motivational strategies during job search, the effects of motivation on
successful aging in the workplace, the influence of motivational conflicts on self-regulated job
performance, an motivational influences on creativity and innovation. The nature of recent
advances, driven equally by the goal of translating basic research for practical use, and the goal
of translating organizational and worker motivation concerns into workable research questions,
bodes well for the field.
Work Motivation
82
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Table 1. Work motivation determinants organized by Content, Context, and Change domain.
Cognitive Abilities Personality and Motivational Traits
Content (Inter-Individual) Influences on Work Motivation
Knowledge and Skills Affective/Implicit and Explicit Motives
Interests Values
Beliefs, Attitudes Self-Concepts
Context Influences on Work Motivation
Culture (Societal) Off-job Demands and Constraints
Organizational and Team Culture/Climate Organizational Practices and policies
Leadership/Social Relations Work role and job demands/design
Change-Related Influences on Work Motivation
Organizational Change Adult Development (within-person change)
Team Processes Self-Regulatory Activities
Work role/Job Redesign Job Experience/Learning
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Table 2. Examples of current knowledge gaps in work motivation research.
Content (Person) Influences
Person Well-Being (e.g., health)
:
Non-Conscious/Affective Motives (e.g., Hostility)
Motivational Signatures of Discrete Emotions
Trait Complexes
Context (Environment) Influences:
Situational Strength
Intra-team processes (e.g., conflict)
Multi-team processes (e.g., cultural differences, goal coordination demands)
E-Learning
Change-Related Influences:
Intrinsic motivation processes
Resource Depletion, Recovery, and Fatigue
Adult Development (Aging)
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Figure Captions
Figure 1. A static representation of the “Three C’s” model of work motivation.
Figure 2. Timescales/orders of magnitude, motivation targets, and methods in work motivation
research (adapted from Revelle, 1989).
Figure 3. An organizing framework for person attributes that influence work motivation (adapted
from Thorndike) and example person attributes.
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Temporary
Lasting
Fatigue Cognitive Abilities
Stress Personality Traits General
Attribute Scope
Job Knowledge & Skills Specific
Vocational Interests Regulatory Focus
Attribute Permanence