MOTIVATION AND JOB PERFORMANCE

REPORT ON MOTIVATION AND JOB PERFORMANCE



Motivation and Job performance

Introduction

The study of leadership deals with the behaviors and processes through which superiors in a hierarchy manage, empower, supervise, inspire, and relate to their subordinates. It concerns the ways they determine future directions for individuals, groups, or organizations and then catalyze their subordinates' actions in accord with the specified directions. Leadership is, in a very real sense, the means through which leaders motivate their followers to engage the tasks and activities necessary to actualize a decision or vision.

Self-determination theory (SDT), formulated by motivational psychologists Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan, maintains that to promote optimal outcomes, leaders need to appeal to different types of motivation. SDT sees autonomous motivation and controlled motivation as the two most important types of motivation. Autonomous describes the motivation of people who experience a sense of volition, willingness, and choice. In contrast, controlled describes the motivation of people who feel coerced or seduced. The concepts of autonomy-supportive leadership and controlling leadership are used to distinguish the ways leaders relate to subordinates and thus affect their performance.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

The distinction now made in organizational psychology and management between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation dates back more than four decades (e.g., Porter & Lawler, 1968). Intrinsic motivation is evident when people engage in an activity because they find it interesting and derive spontaneous satisfaction from doing it (Deci, 1975). When people are intrinsically motivated they behave with a full sense of volition and choice; they experience an activity as satisfying in its own right. Intrinsic motivation is a type of autonomous motivation. Competence and autonomy are fundamental psychological needs that must be satisfied if people are to be psychologically healthy and function effectively, and people will be intrinsically motivated only to the extent that they feel competent and autonomous. (Porter & Lawler, 1968)

Does intrinsic and extrinsic motivation act together?

Nearly four decades ago, Porter and Lawler advocated structuring the work environment so effective performance would lead to both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. They believed that to accomplish that would entail enlarging jobs to make them more intrinsically interesting and providing extrinsic rewards contingent upon effective performance such as raises and promotions. The result, they theorized, would be maximal motivation and job satisfaction. Implicit in this approach was the assumption that intrinsic and extrinsic rewards would act together to increase motivation and job satisfaction. However, studies by Deci as early as 1971 that tested the additivity assumption found that giving people monetary rewards contingent upon completing an interesting activity decreased their intrinsic motivation for the activity. Other studies showed that deadlines, threats, and surveillance also decreased intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation seemed definitely not additive. (Ryan and Deci 2000)

Extrinsic motivation and the relative autonomy continuum

Intrinsic motivation, which means engaging in an activity out of interest in the activity itself, is invariantly autonomous. That is, when people are intrinsically motivated, they initiate the activity and are of necessity experience a sense of ...