Motivation IO psy

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Running head: MOTIVATION 1 Motivation in Industrial and Organizational Psychology Valeria Angelini University of Miami

Transcript of Motivation IO psy

Page 1: Motivation IO psy

Running head: MOTIVATION 1

Motivation in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Valeria Angelini

University of Miami

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Motivation in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Industrial and organizational psychology is the specific study which takes psychological

theories and adapts them to the behavior of employees and the particular situations found in the

workplace. Within the field of industrial and organizational psychology there are many specific

areas of interest. In these areas, specific psychological concepts are analyzed in order to

determine how they affect the behavior and the overall state of the employee within the

workplace.

One of the most interesting and prolific areas of study in industrial and organizational

psychology is motivation. Motivation "is 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" (Pinder 2008, pp 3). There are many different aspects of

motivation and as a result, many different studies have been conducted on this subject in order to

better understand all of its components and how it has the tendency to affect different people in

different ways.

One particularly important aspect of motivation, especially with respect to industrial and

organizational psychology, is the principle that motivation can either be intrinsic or extrinsic.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are components of an incentive theory which aims to determine

how best to motivate different people. Intrinsically motivated people attribute their thoughts,

behaviors, as well as both their successes and their failures to their own self (Ryan and Deci

2000). These people feel a stronger sense of autonomy and thus reflect a larger sense of control

over everything that they do. In contrast, extrinsically motivated individuals feel the opposite

way. These individuals do not feel that they are in control of their own outcomes. For these

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individuals, rewards like money or recognition are important in order to influence them to

perform certain tasks (Ryan and Deci 2000).

Studying different aspects of motivation like those previously discussed is important in

order to understand why people do the things that they do. In industrial and organization

psychology, this is especially important as it not only helps to understand the employees but it

also provides a framework by which it is possible to predict what employees will do next. Based

on this, the applications of research on motivation would include the ability to motivate

employees and influence them so that they are able to complete specific tasks and augment their

work-related outcomes.

In this paper, four different studies on motivation within the field of industrial and

organizational psychology will be analyzed. These studies are different from one another

focusing on different aspects and elements of motivation in employees. Although there a re vast

differences between these studies, it is important to place these within the context of one another.

These studies have all recently been conducted and are reflective of current research on

motivation within this academic field.

In order to better understand motivation, the studies will be presented independently and

described at length. From here, it will be possible to make bigger generalizations about

motivation in industrial and organizational psychology. This will be reflective of this area of

study as a whole and will also allow for the generation of conclusions about the role that

motivation plays within this field. Furthermore, through this exercise, it will become evident that

it is necessary to draw parallels between different conversations within the same topic in order to

generate innovative and meaningful information about motivation in the field of industrial and

organizational psychology.

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The recovery potential of intrinsically versus extrinsically motivated off-job activities

Brunnelhuis and Trougakos (2014) carried out this stud, titled, “The recovery potential of

intrinsically versus extrinsically motivated off-job activities”, in order to better understand how

motivation affected the recovery potential of employees. Employee recovery is described as the

after-hours process where employees are able to alleviate the stress that they built up during the

work day. Although it would be best if employees were able to go home and spend all of their

time recovering, in reality few people get the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time

on this process. When most people get home they have additional work and chores they must

take care of. These tasks prevent a person from getting to recover and may actually build up

additional stress for the employee. This paper examines the differences between people with

intrinsic and extrinsic motivation when it comes to their approach to off-job activities.

The study has two main aims. The first is that the researchers wanted to develop a better

understanding of the boundary conditions of recovery activity-recovery outcome relation. This is

important because there still isn’t enough evidence to determine whether all individuals benefit

from leisure off job activities and are harmed by high-duty off job activities. Determining

whether intrinsically and extrinsically motivated people have different approaches to these

activities will provide the basis for determining differences between people in the recovery

process.

The second aim of this study is to determine the best way to measure recovery. The

study aims to evaluate the outcome measures used in the past like fatigue, need for recovery,

feeling recovered, wellbeing and positive effect in order to determine the best means by which

this variable can be measured. This is important in order to set variables which can be measured

in subsequent experiments.

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Based on the two aims outlined, the researchers have also identified four hypotheses to

guide their studies. The hypothesis are based on the existing literature on the subject while

making predictions based on the specific studies which they have set out to undertake. Their first

hypothesis states that people with intrinsic motivation will have stronger negative relationships

between exhaustion in the mornings and social, low-effort and physical activities after work. The

second hypothesis states the opposite from the first as it states that for people with intrinsic

motivation, there will be stronger positive relationships between feeling recovered in the

mornings and social, low-effort and physical activities after work.

The third and fourth hypothesis continue to focus on intrinsic motivation. The third

hypothesis states that when motivation is intrinsic, the positive relationships between exhaustion

and stressful off duty activities will be decreased. Meanwhile, the fourth hypothesis concludes

that when motivation is intrinsic, the positive relationships between feeling recovered and

stressful off duty activities will be decreased. Overall, from their hypotheses, it appears that the

researchers expect people with intrinsic motivation to be better adapted to the situations that they

face and better able to recuperate by the mornings.

In order to study these questions it is relevant to investigate individuals with a high stress

job as these will be the people more likely to experience exhaustion and a need for recovery as a

result from their job. As such, this study was actually performed on nurses in the Netherlands.

The study used a random sample of nurses from different departments at a health institution. The

study consisted of 100 nurses and when they were being selected, there was a 74% positive

response rate from the potential candidates. All nurses worked the day shift in order to minimize

the added stressors of a night shift.

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Since nurses are so used to filling out paperwork, the researchers thought that it would be

appropriate for the nurses to fill out surveys. In addition to generic surveys about their

demographic information, the nurses answered questions about motivation, recovery and

exhaustion. The nurses were also asked to keep a diary to monitor the changes in their feelings

throughout the day. They were reminded to fill out their journals in the mornings and ting the

afternoons before they went home.

The study found that the nurses that felt recovered in the morning had tended not to

participate in work-related our household tasks at home. Instead, the recovered nurses had

participated in social, low-effort and physical activities. Meanwhile, when the nurses reported to

be exhausted in the mornings, it was typically correlated to age, the amount of work and stress

that they had the previous day. Furthermore, the positive relationship between leisurely activities

and feeling recovered was more evident in employees with intrinsic motivation. Employees with

intrinsic motivation were also better able to eliminate the relationship between stressful tasks and

exhaustion the following morning.

Overall, the findings of this experiment suggested that people with intrinsic motivation

have much higher recovery potential than those with extrinsic motivation. As jobs become more

stressful, this information becomes more valuable as it is evident that it is necessary to try to

push employees to develop intrinsic motivation in order to better complete their jobs.

Intrinsically motivated employees were less likely to feel exhausted as they were better able to

recover overnight making them much more valuable employees in the workplace. These findings

are significant as they can be taken and used in any workplace to try to improve the overall

performance and state of mind of employees.

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The mediating role of affect in the relationship between need satisfaction and autonomous

motivation

Vandercammen, Hofmans and Theuns (2014) conducted a study to determine the

relationship between affect and motivation. The published study was called “The mediating role

of affect in the relationship between need satisfaction and autonomous motivation.” Before

conducting the study, the researchers hypothesized that there is a relationship between the

satisfaction of the need for autonomy and autonomous motivation and that this relationship is

influence by affect. When affect is positive, the relationship is more positive and when the affect

is negative, the relationship is more negative. The researchers also hypothesized that positive and

negative affect would have similar effects on the relationship between satisfaction of the need for

competence and autonomous motivation and well as satisfaction of the need for relatedness and

autonomous motivation.

In the first study, a daily diary study was used to determine the effects of positive and

negative affect on the need satisfaction-motivation relationship. Here, seventy two employees

from Belgium (38 men and 34 women) were selected from twenty two different companies to

take place in the study. The participants would go to work like normal but at the end of the day

they received an email with a link to an online survey. This was repeated for 10 consecutive

working days. During the survey task, the employees were asked to reflect on a specific task that

they had completed during the way. Additionally, the participants were asked to reflect on how

that specific task affected their psychological needs. Motivation and positive and negative affect

were especially analyzed in this task.

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Since this study was completed on Dutch employees, it was relevant to ensure that the

questions were well translated. Additionally, it was important to ensure that positive and

negative affect were evaluated according to Dutch standards since there are variations between

different cultures. In a similar fashion, a Dutch scale was used to measure motivation to ensure

that the experiment as a whole was culturally specific. This is an important consideration to

make in international studies.

This study found that all three of the need satisfactions (the need for autonomy, the need

for competence and the need for relatedness) were correlated with affect. When affect was

positive the correlation was positive and when affect was negative, the correlation was negative.

Additionally, motivation had a positive correlation to the satisfaction of both needs. These results

supported the hypothesis of the authors and suggested that need satisfaction and motivation were

in fact positively correlated. This supports the existing literature making it a valuable study

although there were some significant limitations with the data. The researchers found that the

diary was a useful means of assessing participants however, since the diary readings were not

measured until later, the variables were not examined in the moment that they were experienced.

This means that when the participants went to recall the events, their memories may not have

been very clear and their recollection of the task performed or of the feelings felt may have

subsequently suffered.

The authors wanted to replicate the findings of the first part of the experiment while

accounting for their limitations. To do this, they repeated a similar experiment but ditched the

idea of journaling in order to collect information at the moment. The researchers felt that this

design would provide more information about the directionality of the relationships and provide

more reliable data.

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To conduct this study, thirty seven new Belgian employees were selected. Of the

participants 17 were men and 20 were women. While the first experiment samples employees

from different companies, this second part took all of the employees from the same company. In

order to ensure that the data was collected at the appropriate time, the participants in this study

were issued smartphones specifically for use in this study. The study lasted ten consecutive

working days. The researchers would randomly page the participants four times a day. Each day,

two pages would be randomly issued before lunch and two would be randomly issued after

lunch. At this page, participants were asked to report on their level of need satisfaction and thirty

minutes later they had to report on their autonomous motivation. This design was selected in

order to avoid issues with directionality.

The researchers used different questionnaires from the first part of the study but they

ensured that all of the material was culturally appropriate once again. Different scales and

questionnaires were used in order to cross-validate the results and show consistency across the

different measures. In this study, similar results were found. Positive affect was found to have a

positive correlation with all three of the need satisfactions however, negative affect was only

found to be negatively correlation to the need for autonomy and competence. The similarities in

the results across the two studies essentially confirms the original results. The positive

relationship between positive affect and the need satisfactions was established and through the

second study, a temporal relationship was observed.

The results of this study are consistent with the literature about the role of positive affect

in self-determination theory. Self-determination theory is a motivation theory which establishes

the relationship between motivation and need satisfaction. This study elaborates on that

information by establishing the role of positive and negative affect and demonstrating the

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difference in the outputs of the relationships. This study seems minor in the grand scheme of

what has already been established in this literature however it is important because it

demonstrates that while self-determination theory is a well established theory, there is still an

immense amount of work which can be done to expand on this body of knowledge.

Age-related differences in work motivation

Inceoglu, Segers and Bartrum (2012) published a study called “Age-related differences in

work motivation” in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. This study

had over 10,000 participants who were asked in depth demographical questions as well as

questions about their motivation and psychological state in order to determine whether there was

any relationship between the age of a worker and his or her attitude towards the job and their

level of motivation. This study is especially important as our society undergoes massive lifestyle

changes which are leading many people to be employed much later on in their lives as opposed

to the earlier retirements which were once seen.

This study was divided into to major parts. The first part of the study had 9,388

participants. These participants had all completed the SHL MQ questionnaire. The MQ

questionnaire is a good tool to use in measuring motivation because it measures the long-term,

stable motivation. The MQ is made up of 18 different scales which total up to 144 items in total.

In this scale, different situations are presented and participants have to assess each of these

situations and determine how they would affect the participants’ motivation to work. The MQ is

an established measure whose content validity has been studied extensively making it a

worthwhile measure for use in this study.

The study found that as employees grew older, their motivation did change. There wwre

significant differences between the five age groups. Six of the eight work outcomes related to

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energy were correlated with age. It was found that energy increased until 36-45 years of age

when it then began to decline. This pattern was most evident in the factors for competition and

power. In contrast, the intrinsically rewarding motivators had a positive correlation to age. This

means that those factors increased as age increased. Conversely, extrinsically rewarding

motivators were negatively affected by age. The only two factors which did not have a

significant relationship with age were material reward and progression. Against the original

expectations of the researchers pleasant working conditions and job security were not linked with

age.

The second study carried out used the same MQ used in the first study, but a completely

different set of participants. There were 2,512 participants in the second study and over two

thirds of them had managerial experience. The participants were from twelve different European

countries and a lot of the participants were either expatriates or worked closely with the field of

international business. The methodology of this experiment was very similar to the methodology

of the first experiment published in this article.

The second study found that the energy related work outcomes, like achievement,

competition, fear of failure, and personal growth, were negatively correlated with age. As

employees got older, these outcomes were less important and less motivating to them. Intrinsic

motivation factors like personal principles and autonomy had a positive correlation with age, just

as the researchers had expected. The other factors analyzed were found to have no relationship

with age. This is interesting given that there were slight differences between the results of this

study and the first study.

Since the two studies were very similar as they used the same methodology, it is relevant

to compare them to one another. The researchers aimed to investigate the overlap in results

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across two different groups of participants. Although the actual size of effect differed between

the two studies, the overall patterns seen in the results were consistent. The researchers

acknowledged that for study two they had made a more conscious effort to control for the

demographics. To see how these additional efforts affected the effect sizes a regression analysis

was conducted however this statistical test showed that it was unlikely that the differences in

effect sizes could be attributed to the additional controls placed on the demographics in study

two.

While conducting the statistical analysis in this study, the extensive demographic

information collected made it possible to control for control for gender, managerial experience,

and university education. The researchers knew that these additional controls were important as

they were possible to influence the different job features and work outcomes. The researchers

found that managerial experience and university education were not as influential as gender.

Differences between the genders were found in the relationship between age and work

motivation however, it is relevant to note that even with these differences, the results followed

the general pattern observed across all studies.

Although a lot of different factors were examined in this study, it is more important to

group these factors in order to make generalizations about the results. Overall, older employees

tended to favor the intrinsic motivation factors while younger employees tended to favor the

intrinsic motivation factors. The change in motivational emphasis makes sense as with time,

one’s values begin to change thus affecting the factors that motivate them. Furthermore, this

study demonstrates that against popular belief, older employees are not less motivated. This is a

concept which is misunderstood as the reality is simply that older employees are differently

motivated. The lack of importance that older employees attribute to intrinsic factors may come

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across as a decrease in motivation but in reality, they are just swapping out intrinsic factors for

extrinsic ones thus symbolizing a change in their motivational patterns.

The results from this study are very relevant from a managerial point of view. Managers

are always dedicated to finding ways to motivate their employees. As employees get older and

their values change, it is necessary to reassess their motivational systems in order to maximize

their work output. By being more in tune to the nature of employees’ motivation it is possible to

better manage and lead these employees and managers can also make the most out of the time

they spend at work.

The relationship of training motivation to participation in training and development

Tharenou (2001) published the article “The relationship of training motivation to

participation in training and development” to describe her experiment discussing how training

motivation in employees affects their experience during the training and development period on

the job. Training is a process for new employees but existing employees also undergo training in

order to ensure that they are up to date on all of the skills and processes required by their job.

Many employers consistently train employees in order to maximize their performance in the

workplace. Although training is generally seen as a positive experience from a managerial and

psychological point of view, some employees are resistant to the idea of training or brush it off

as if it were unimportant.

Training is important not only because it increases the skills of employees but it also

positively influences their motivation as well as their overall outlook on their job, their employer

and their career. This study introduces information from other studies which has been used to

identify three separate aspects of pre-training motivation. These are motivation to learn, self

efficacy and valence-instrumentality-expectancy beliefs. Overall, training motivation has been

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defined as the motivation to learn or the expectancy motivation as the person is motivated by

what they anticipate to come or what they anticipate that they will stand to gain from the training

experience.

The first hypothesis laid out by the researcher is that training motivation and a supportive

and fostering work environment will influence participation in training. This suggests that

employees that are more motivated and feel as if their workplace is more supportive of their

endeavors will show greater interest in their training. The second hypothesis is that “training

motivation (motivation to learn, motivation through expectation) mediates the prediction by the

work environment (job challenge, supervisor support, and lack of barriers) of participation in

training and development” (pp 602). The last hypothesis states that for employees that are more

training motivated, a supportive work environment will play a larger role in whether or not they

participate than those employees who do not show motivation to train at all. This would suggests

that the supportive work environment is only influential if employees already show some form of

motivation towards the training.

To carry out this experiment, the researcher wanted a wide variety of participants.

Participants were chosen from different fields of work in both the private and public sector.

Additionally, participants were chosen at different levels of the work hierarchy ranging from

upper management to the lowest subordinates. After potential participants were selected, they

were mailed a survey. Over five thousand surveys were mailed out and nearly three thousand

were returned. Of the participants that returned surveys, three fourth volunteered to follow up

with the researcher a year later at which point they were mailed the same survey they had filled

out to assess change over time.

The survey used by this researcher incorporated known and generally accepted scales.

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Items from Noe and Wilk’s motivation to learn scale were used. Additionally, the researcher

created some of her own questions in order to specifically target her own objectives for the

study.

The results of this study generally supported the hypothesis. The researcher found that

that training motivation and a supportive and fostering work environment did in fact positively

influence participation in training. Supervisor support was especially important with respect to

the work environment as this was a very strong predictor of the extent to which the participant

participated in the training. Conversely, hypothesis two was not supported by the data. Direct

and mediator analysis was performed and the researcher was able to determine that job

challenge, supervisor support and lack of barriers did not mediate training motivation in this

experiment.

The last hypothesis was supported by the data though, the researcher found that for

employees that are more training motivated, a supportive work environment will play a larger

role in whether or not they participate than those employees who do not show motivation to train

at all. In studying this, it was found that as long as the employee was motivated to train, the

amount of support the employee received from the workplace could actually be used in order to

predict the extent to which the employee would participate in the training.

This study shows that employees will be more inclined to participate in the training and

that they will get more out of the training if they are self-motivated and if they feel a sense of

support from their organization. This is important for employers because through these findings

it is possible to influence employees so that they are more receptive to training. While it is

impossible to improve the training motivation of employees for them, highlighting the benefits

of training and establishing how training can help them grow may increase their motivation

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towards this process. Furthermore, employers should always set out to be supportive of their

employees. Creating a culture where employees feel as if they are being supportive and fostered

is important because it will increase the participation of those employees that are already training

motivated.

By ensuring that employees always feel a sense of support and encouragement the

employer is really working their hardest in order to ensure that the employee is at the best place

possible workwise. While this may seem obvious, many times employers feel that employees

should have a strong sense of self direction and be able to work independently. Although training

is an independent development process, this study shows the importance of ensuring that the

work environment is one where employees feel supported as this will help them to develop their

individual long term potential.

Integration of the studies

One of the strongest points of comparison between these four studies is the factor of

intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. In the first study, employees with intrinsic motivation were

able to recover better after work. This is important because working is stressful and for

employees who are not able to recover after hours, the workload may seem especially difficult

and they may feel easily overwhelmed. In the third study, it was found that employees that grew

older developed a more intrinsic sense of motivation. Instead of caring about the material aspects

of the job, these employees began to care more about how the job made them feel and the

intangible elements it brought to their lives.

It is interesting that the researcher of the second study pointed out that often times it is

thought that older employees lose motivation. In reality, these employees just become more

intrinsically motivated. This observation suggests that at the surface level, people do not pick up

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on intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is easier to see and identify, some might argue that

it is even easier to understand. This is important to consider because as the first study pointed

out, intrinsically motivated employees fare better stress wise. By focusing more on intrinsic

motivation in the workplace, employees might perform better while also feeling a greater sense

of fulfillment.

Although the fourth and final study did not specifically address intrinsic motivation,

elements of this are clearly visible. In this study, employees were assessed on how motivated

they were to complete training. Completing training is likely a daunting task for extrinsically

motivated individuals. This experience will not bring them any extrinsic rewards. When

employees are trained, they are not provided any additional tangible incentives. For an

intrinsically motivated employee this is not a problem because they can recognize the importance

of self-education and self-growth. However, for an extrinsically motivated employee this

experience is a nightmare as they do not stand to gain any recognition or any type of bonus

money or prize for their participation.

The second study did not deal with intrinsic or extrinsic motivation rather it dealt with

another very important theory in motivation. Self- determination theory was established in the

early 1970s by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. This theory focuses on the extent to which a

person’s behavior is self motivated or self- determined (Deci 1975). This theory outlines three

innate needs that every individual has which eventually lead to optimal functioning. The three

needs are competence, relatedness and autonomy (Deci 1975). The theory is based on the fact

that these three needs motivate people to carry out the activities which keep them in a positive

psychological state.

The self-determination theory has as an assumption that humans are innately proactive

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with their drive and emptions and that they have a tendency towards growth (Deci and

Vansteenkiste 2004). While this is true, it does not mean that all individuals are always heading

upward bound in a positive direction. As the second study found, individuals with a positive

affect. People with a more positive approach were more likely to show competence, relatedness

and autonomy in that study. Meanwhile, people with a more negative approach did not exhibit

these factors. These findings tie in with the concept of autonomous motivation. When people are

positive they also have a tendency to be more self-motivated and driven which improves their

outcomes.

Although this study does not mention intrinsic motivation, in analyzing it it is evident

that that individuals with positive affect which are described to be self-motivated in the study are

actually intrinsically motivated individuals. These individuals have an overall positive outlook

and a means by which they can motivate themselves without having to rely on extrinsic rewards

or outside forms of motivation. Based on this study, it is clear that these are the most well-

adapted employees with the best potential to succeed which is relevant to note as it is consistent

with the findings of the other studies.

In reflecting on these three studies it would be really easy to make the assumption, or

rather the generalization, that it is simply much easier to be an intrinsically motivated employee.

While this may seem true, this is not the type of statement that can be made. First and foremost,

it is relevant to acknowledge that there are both good and bad intrinsically motivated employees

just as there are both good and bad extrinsically motivated ones. Secondly, whether a person is

intrinsically or extrinsically motivated is not necessarily something that they can control. A

person’s source of motivation is dependent on many things like culture, personality, and previous

experiences. While and individual can make an effort to try to be more motivated by intrinsic

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factors, if it is something that does not come naturally to him or her it will not be an easy task to

change the way that he or she thinks.

Despite the fact that employees can’t be magically changed to suddenly become

intrinsically motivated, it is possible to influence them to consider more intrinsic values of

motivation. This is something that can happen naturally over time as is seen in the third

experiment. Through this process of encouraging employees to think more about the intrinsic

payoffs of their work, it may be possible to shape other behaviors like their ability to recover

after work as seen in the first study or increasing their receptiveness and willingness to

participate in training, as seen in the fourth study. Based on these studies it is evident that

influencing employees to be more intrinsically motivated may lead them to develop better

behaviors in the workplace.

From the analysis of these four studies another interesting question also develops. It is

relevant to investigate how extrinsically motivated employees can improve their performance.

Based on this investigation of motivation, it is likely that these employees are so dependent on

extrinsic factors that they are unable to motivate themselves however this is not to say that there

are no successful and productive extrinsically motivated individuals. Focusing more on these

will be interesting in order to generate more comparisons between intrinsic and extrinsic

motivation and also in order to establish ways in which employers can work to maximize the

potential of extrinsically motivated individuals.

In reviewing these different studies, the breadth of the subject of motivation in industrial

and organizational engineering is clear. After carefully analyzing these studies though, it

becomes clear that although there are different points of focus and of emphasis, the bottom line

is that it is necessary to determine what motivates employees. By determining what motivates

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employees, it is possible to enrich them and provide them with motivation. This will inevitably

encourage them to do more work and of higher quality, regardless of the motivation behind their

actions.

As the self-determination theory emphasizes, humans are innately proactive with their

drive and emptions and that they have a tendency towards growth (Deci and Vansteenkiste

2004). Whether they are proactive because of money or their own sense of belonging at their

organization is not as important. All of these studies into motivation help us to understand more

about people and why they are either proactive or not. In learning this, theories can be developed

to help construct frameworks to influence people in order to make them more productive and a

greater asset to the workplace.

Here, it is possible to see why motivation is such an important topic in industrial and

organizational psychology. Industrial and organizational psychology is the specific study which

takes psychological theories and adapts them to the behavior of employees and the particular

situations found in the workplace. Obviously this is done with the intent of creating better

employees and a more efficient workplace. Better employees are employees that are more

efficient and thus more motivated to do their jobs. Furthermore, motivating employees is

essential for the creation of a better workplace. Through a variety of studies like the ones

outlined above and by comparing them to one another to generate meaningful analysis, as has

been done, the objectives of industrial and organizational psychology are being met and the body

of knowledge within this field continues to grow allowing employers to optimize their

organizations.

References

Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum.

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Deci, E. L. and Vansteenkiste, M. (2004). Self-determination theory and basic need satisfaction:

Understanding human development in positive psychology. Ricerche di Psichologia, 27,

17–34.

Inceoglu, I., Segers, J., & Bartram, D. (2012). Age-related differences in work

motivation. Journal Of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 85(2), 300-329.

Pinder, C. C.(2008). Work motivation in organizational behavior (2nd edition). New York:

Psychology Press.

Ryan, R. and Deci, E.L (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New

Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology,25 (1), 54–67.

Ten Brummelhius, L.L. & Trougakos, J.P. (2014). The recovery potential of

intrinsically versus extrinsically motivated off-job activities. Journal Of Occupational &

Organizational Psychology, 87(1), 177-199.

Tharenou, P. (2010). The relationship of training motivation to participation in

training and development. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 74

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