ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Employee Motivation

Employee Motivation

1) 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, 2005). 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.

In contrast, extrinsic motivation is most often evident when an activity is uninteresting and satisfaction comes not from the activity itself but rather from the extrinsic consequences to which the activity leads. Extrinsic motivation can be either autonomous or controlled. The clearest examples of extrinsic motivation are rewards and punishments. In other words, when people are extrinsically motivated the desirable consequences derive not from the activity's being interesting or personally important to them but rather from its being instrumental to some extraneous consequences they desire.

2) 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.

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 freedom. However, extrinsic motivation, which pertains to activities that are not interesting and thus require a motivating contingency, can vary in the degree to which it is autonomous.

3) The prototype of extrinsic motivation, which is what has been discussed so far, involves behaving to attain a tangible reward or to avoid a punishment. It is the most controlled, least autonomous type of motivation. Behavior motivated this way is said to be externally regulated—that is, initiated and maintained by contingencies external to the person. However, there are also more autonomous types of extrinsic motivation. For instance, an external regulation and the value associated with it can be internalized to differing ...