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Employee Work Motivation

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2560-1

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E
Employee Work Motivation
Chung-An Chen
School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore,
Singapore
Synonyms
Employee work morale; Employee work motives;
Employee work motivators; Incentives for
employees
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce basic
definitions, measurements, theories, and related
concepts of work motivation. As readers of this
book are mainly those who plan to map a career in
the public sector, this chapter also includes themes
particularly related to public administration such
as public sector motivation, public service moti-
vation, and motivation crowding effect.
What Is Work Motivation?
As Rainey (2009) indicates, everyone has an intu-
itive grasp of motivation, but it remains a concept
that is often poorly defined. Over 140 definitions
have been offered in the last couple of decades
# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
A. Farazmand (ed.), Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2560-1
(Landy and Becker 1987). For example, work
motivation can refer to “a person’s desire to
work hard and work well” (Rainey 2009,
p. 248). It can also mean “psychological forces
within a person that determine the direction of the
person’s behavior in an organization, effort level,
and persistence in the face of obstacles” (George
and Jones 2012, p. 183). The two definitions have
different foci: the first definition concerns the
overall levels of desire to work hard, whereas
the second one emphasizes psychological forces
that lead to a hardworking behavior. Various the-
ories and measurement instruments have been
developed based on different meanings and defi-
nitions of work motivation.
Work Motivation as a Person’s Desire to Work
Hard
Researchers are often baffled when they try to
capture the desire to work hard: Is the desire to
work hard the same as a hardworking behavior?
Should we consider one’s propensity, attitude, or
real behavior? In fact, when measuring work
motivation, scholars often include all these fac-
tors. For example, Patchen et al. (1965) ask “On
most days on your job, how often does time seem
to drag for you?”, which questions the respon-
dent’s attitude, and “How often do you do extra
work for your job that isn’t really required of
you?”, which questions the respondent’s real
behavior. Others employ affirmative statements
like “I put my best effort to get the job done
regardless of the difficulties” and “I am willing
2 Employee Work Motivation
to start work early or stay late to finish a job” to
measure various aspects of work motivation
(Chen and Bozeman 2013; Wright 2004).
Although scholars claim that the constructs are
valid, it is very likely that respondents
overestimate their work effort and the willingness
to work hard. Few may want to admit that they are
indolent workers, so in general the ratings are
inflated. In this, scholars suggest the use of
“observations about coworkers’ motivation”
(Landy and Guion 1970). This may effectively
rectify the problem of self-reporting, but data col-
lection will be a long and inefficient process. That
may explain why thus far this method is
underemployed.
Perhaps due to measurement difficulty,
scholars use several proxy concepts to capture
whether employees are well motivated. The most
commonly used motivation-related concepts are
job involvement, job satisfaction, and organiza-
tional commitment (Moynihan and Pandey
2007a). While these attitudinal variables are con-
venient to measure, they may not fully reflect how
much one is motivated. For example, it is likely
that a public servant is very satisfied with his job
condition and loyal to his agency, but still be
unwilling to work extra hours. Scholars are
urged to be cautious when they apply these con-
cepts in motivation research.
Work Motivation as Psychological Forces That
Lead to a Hardworking Behavior
Psychological forces reside in persons. There are
basically two types of psychological forces:
intrinsic and extrinsic. Behavior derived from
intrinsic motivation is performed for its own
sake, and people who perform the behavior often
enjoy it, experience a sense of achievement, and
consider that they have done something meaning-
ful. Behavior driven by extrinsic motivation is
performed for purposes external to individuals
such as obtaining monetary rewards and praises,
or avoiding penalties. The intrinsic-extrinsic
dichotomy is a popular motivational typology in
the research of organizational behavior (OB), per-
haps because of its simplicity. For example:
• In Herzberg’s (1966) two-factor theory, all
hygiene factors are extrinsic (e.g., salary,
working conditions, etc.), whereas motivators
are in general intrinsic (e.g., growth, the work
itself, etc.) in nature.
• Lawler (1971) uses “extrinsic rewards” to refer
to job situations given by others and “intrinsic
rewards” to stand for higher-level need satis-
faction in Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs
such as self-esteem and self-actualization.
Readers are reminded that intrinsic motivation
and extrinsic motivation do not have to be mutu-
ally exclusive. Sometimes people can be moti-
vated both intrinsically and extrinsically at the
same time. While the intrinsic-extrinsic dichot-
omy provides a convenient means of classifying
motivation factors and analyzing their impact on
behavior, it oversimplifies the complex structure
of motivation. For example, pursuing promotion
and avoiding supervisor’s blame are both extrinsic
motivators at work, but we usually expect that
pursuing promotion accompanies more work
effort and higher performance. The motivational
typology in self-determination theory (SDT)
(Ryan and Deci 2000), which goes beyond
intrinsic-extrinsic dichotomy, offers researchers a
more comprehensive view of human motivation.
Four Types of Work Motivation in Self-
Determination Theory (SDT)
The most distinctive feature of SDT is its careful
analysis of extrinsic motivation. There are three
types of extrinsic motivation, as shown in Fig. 1.
On the very left of the spectrum is external regu-
lation, the first type of extrinsic motivation. Exter-
nal regulation means that people behave to satisfy
an external demand such as avoiding physical
punishment or obtaining an external reward con-
tingency (Vallerand and Ratelle 2004). For exam-
ple, a student studies math because his teacher
punishes him when he fails to do well or because
his parents give him money when he gets a good
grade. Regarding work motivation, it refers to
when one works to obtain financial reward and
job security, or to avoid criticism (Gagné
et al. 2015; Tremblay et al. 2009).
Employee Work Motivation 3

Motivation Extrinsic motivation Intrinsic

motivation

Regulation External Introjected Identified Internal

Locus of control External Somewhat external Somewhat internal Internal

Self-determination Weak Somewhat weak Somewhat strong Strong

Controlled motivation Autonomous motivation

Employee Work Motivation, Fig. 1 Motivational typology in self-determination theory (SDT)

Next to external regulation is introjected regu-
lation. People who fall into this category perform
an action not to avoid physical penalty, but
instead, intangible and self-created pressure such
as anxiety and shame. For example, without exter-
nal punishment or reward, a student may still
choose to make a serious effort to study math
because he feels ashamed and anxious if he per-
forms worse than his classmates. Regarding work
motivation, it concerns whether “I don’t want to
lose” or “I want to prove I can” propels workers to
make efforts (Hwang et al. 2002). Both external
regulation and introjected regulation are typical
controlled motivations as individuals fail to per-
ceive a sense of autonomy when they act. When
people are regulated in these two cases, their self-
determination is weak, and they do not believe
that they have full control over their behavioral
consequences; that is, the locus of control
concerning that behavior is external to them.
Not all extrinsic motivators create a sense of
being controlled. Identified regulation, the one
next to introjected regulation, means that individ-
uals choose to be regulated for a positive identi-
fied value. For example, a student studies math
hard because math, in his mind, is a valuable and
useful subject as he plans to map his career in
engineering. As becoming an engineer is identi-
fied as an extrinsic but valuable goal, the student
may not feel controlled when he studies math. In
other words, his action is not forced; it is produced
by an intrinsic desire to achieve an extrinsic goal.
At work, identified regulation concerns whether
one accepts a job due to the chances for
advancement, career development, and higher
social status (Gagné et al. 2010).
The last type of motivation is intrinsic motiva-
tion, which signifies internal regulation when one
performs an action. An intrinsically motivated
worker feels excited and happy whenever she
works, and working is in itself a reward to her.
People who are intrinsically motivated also dem-
onstrate a strong internal locus of control (Spector
1988), meaning that they are not only an active
causal maker but are also in full control over their
behavioral consequences. Identified regulation
and intrinsic motivation are thus considered as
autonomous motivations.
Although the coexistence of autonomous moti-
vation and controlled motivation is not entirely
impossible, theoretically speaking, the increase of
controlled motivation often accompanies the
decrease of autonomous motivation. In addition,
human motivation evolves over time, depending
on whether employees perceive that their three
most important psychological needs are met.
When needs are met, internalization happens,
meaning that autonomous motivation gradually
exceeds controlled motivation. The three needs
are autonomy, competence, and relatedness
(Broeck et al. 2010):
• Autonomy: Individuals experience a sense of
choice and psychological freedom when they
perform an activity. For example, employees
feel free from rigid rules and other people’s
commands.
4 Employee Work Motivation
• Competence: Individuals feel that they are able
to handle problems in their job. For example,
employees perceive that they have enough
knowledge and skills to do their job well.
• Relatedness: Individuals feel that they are psy-
chologically connected to important others.
For example, employees feel that they are not
alone and are well respected in their
everyday job.
Work Motivation and Public
Administration
Poorer Overall Work Motivation in the Public
Sector
Public administration scholars have conducted
several public-private comparison studies and
concluded that public and private organizations
indeed differ in environments and employee
work attitudes (Boyne 2002; Rainey and Boze-
man 2000). Public organizations are confronted
with a greater measure of red tape, political inter-
ference, hierarchical control, and goal ambiguity.
These features can destroy employees’ overall
work motivation and compromise their sense of
job involvement, job satisfaction, and organiza-
tional commitment (Buchanan 1975; Chen 2012).
The Concept of “Public Sector Motivation”
The unique environment of public organizations
does not only affect employees’ overall levels of
work morale and attitudes; it also influences var-
ious autonomous and controlled work motiva-
tions. For example, the presence of merit
protection along with a high level of job security
in the public sector attracts those who long for a
stable career. A lack of monetary reward such as
performance bonus may deter those who covet
high pay from accepting a public service job.
Public sector employees’ special “wants” or
“needs” are referred to as public sector motiva-
tion (Gabris and Simo 1995).
A huge volume of empirical studies have been
done to discover public sector motivation
(Buelens and Van den Broeck 2007; Jurkiewicz
et al. 1998; Khojasteh 1993; Lyons et al. 2006;
Wittmer 1991). The approach taken to conduct
such research is simple: listing multiple items of
human needs (e.g., security, benefits, salary,
advancement, helping, growth, prestige, interest-
ing work, etc.), asking both public and private
employees to place a value/rank on each item,
and comparing public-private differences. In gen-
eral, scholars reach the following conclusions:
• In both the public and private sectors, the Top
5 needs are very similar, although the ranking
of these needs differ slightly in the two respec-
tive sectors. The Top 5 needs are security, pay,
advancement, achievement, and work content.
• Compared to enterprise workers, public
employees have less desire for prestige,
money, and advancement.
• Compared to enterprise workers, public
employees show a greater need for security, a
stable career, and fringe benefits. They also
care more about challenging and intellectually
stimulating work content.
• Finally, compared to enterprise workers, public
employees demonstrate a stronger desire to
benefit the society. Scholars further develop
this feature and create a new concept called
public service motivation (PSM). Readers
are reminded here that PSM does not refer to
public sector motivation.
The Concept of “Public Service Motivation”
(PSM)
As mentioned, the research of PSM starts with
public-private comparison on employee motiva-
tion. The simple finding that “public employees
are more likely than their business peers to be
motivated by prosocial factors” was expanded
both conceptually and empirically by Perry and
Wise (1990). They define PSM as “an individual’s
predisposition to respond to motives grounded
primarily or uniquely in public institutions and
organizations” and argue that PSM has three dis-
tinctive categories: rational, norm based, and
affective. Following this pioneer study, Perry
(1996) developed the first PSM measurement
instrument which consists of the following four
dimensions: attraction to policy making, commit-
ment to the public interest, compassion, and self-
sacrifice. The plethora of PSM research in recent
Employee Work Motivation
decades is mainly grounded in these two early
studies. According to a recent review article
(Perry et al. 2010) and most recent evidence,
scholars have obtained the following findings:
• PSM determines one’s sector selection. The
greater an individual’s PSM, the more likely
the individual seeks jobs in public
organizations.
• PSM is positively related to individual perfor-
mance, especially in the public sector. PSM is
negatively correlated with a desire for money,
so public organizations that attract many high-
PSM people are less dependent upon monetary
incentives.
• PSM is unlikely to be a type of controlled
motivation. It should be autonomous in nature
(Vandenabeele 2007).
• PSM is not entirely good. It is a double-edged
sword. High-PSM people are more likely than
low-PSM people to be frustrated by unfriendly
public sector features such as red tape and
hierarchical control (Steen and Rutgers 2011).
The rapid increase of PSM research is accom-
panied by a few challenges (Bozeman and Su
2014). First, although PSM was initially defined
as motives grounded “uniquely in public organi-
zations,” it is hard to deny that nonpublic servants
(e.g., nonprofit employees) can be high-PSM indi-
viduals, if PSM refers to compassion and self-
sacrifice. Therefore, scholars have broadened the
scope of PSM by making it a general prosocial or
altruistic motivation, but this makes PSM a less
distinctive concept. In addition, motivation is the
reason that individuals choose to perform a certain
action. However, PSM exists without a clear pub-
lic service behavior, making PSM more like atti-
tudes or values, not motivation. For example, a
low-level public servant may be eager to serve
people in her daily work, but “attraction to policy
making” is unlikely to be a major motivator.
Despite these theoretical challenges, PSM
remains one of the scholars’ favorite topics.
5
PSM and Motivation Crowding Effect
Research on PSM is inseparable from motivation
crowding theory. Motivation crowding effect
(Frey and Jegen 2001) refers to a situation where
one’s intrinsic motivation, or autonomous moti-
vation, can be affected after one experiences
external inducements. For example, a student
loves math and she thinks that math is valuable
for her future. One day, the teacher creates a new
policy: monetary reward of $500 when her score
exceeds 90, but punishment when her score is
lower than 70. Eventually, this student may forget
the value of math and lose the happiness in study-
ing the subject and instead perceive that she is
controlled by external forces (monetary incentive
or avoidance of punishment). The phenomenon
that autonomous motivation decreases (and con-
trolled motivation increases) after the introduction
of external inducements is called motivation
crowding-out effect.
Scholars argue that the increase of external
interventions such as red tape and hierarchical
control can undermine PSM (Moynihan and
Pandey 2007b). Monetary rewards such as
performance-based pay, in many cases, can
crowd out PSM as well (Langbein 2010). How-
ever, it should be noted that money and PSM are
not always incompatible. Motivation crowding-
in effect can appear when individuals perceive
monetary reward as a type of support instead of
control. For example, an entry-level public
employee needs a substantial sum of money to
support his ailing mother’s medical expenses.
When he receives a huge performance bonus, he
does not need to worry about paying for the
expenses. Monetary reward in this case may not
reduce his PSM. Instead, it increases his public
servant identity and fosters his PSM.
Both motivation internalization in SDT and
motivation crowding effect remind scholars and
managers that motivations are not
static. Autonomous motivation overpowers con-
trolled motivation today, but controlled motiva-
tion can prevail over autonomous motivation
tomorrow. One can be fully motivated today, but
can entirely lose motivation the next day. There-
fore, understanding the process of motivation is as
6 Employee Work Motivation
important as understanding the types of
motivation.
Process Perspectives of Work Motivation
Process perspectives concern how the motiva-
tional process works. Process perspectives
reviewed in this section include expectancy the-
ory, equity theory, goal setting, and job design.
Expectancy Theory
Expectancy theory (Vroom 1964) addresses two
questions. Firstly, do individuals believe that their
work effort will result in a given level of perfor-
mance (expectancy)? Secondly, do individuals
believe that their performance will lead to the
attainment of desired outcomes such as pay, secu-
rity, and a feeling of accomplishment
(instrumentality)? Individuals will not be moti-
vated until they answer “yes” to the two questions.
In addition, valence must be high enough to moti-
vate people. The magnitude of valence is mea-
sured by how desirable an outcome is for
employees. For example, everyone needs a pay-
check, but magnitude of valence is much higher
for those who have a pressing need for money.
Nonetheless, research limitation exists. It is never
easy to list all possible outcomes important to
people and to measure the valence.
Equity Theory
This theory was first proposed by Adams (1965).
Equity theory is well grounded in the concept of
social comparison (Festinger 1954). Social com-
parison theory assumes that humans have a basic
drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities. In the
absence of objective, nonsocial means, people
evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing
themselves with others. At work, individuals
often compare the outcome/input (especially
pay/effort) ratio with others. After making com-
parison, feelings of inequity may appear. In the
case of underpayment, individuals may take the
following measures to restore equity (Adams
1963):
• They try to change the inputs (reducing effort)
or outcomes (asking for raise).
• They try to change referents’ inputs or out-
comes (complaining to the supervisor).
• They change their perceptions of inputs and
outcomes (hypnotizing themselves that their
job is more difficult than that of the referents).
• They change referents or leave the organiza-
tion (quitting comparison).
Compared to their private sector peers, public
employees in general perceive a lower level of pay
equity. Internally, when public employees com-
pare themselves with colleagues in the same
agency, they face ambiguous organization goals
and vague indicators for performance measure-
ment. Employees are very likely to feel that their
hard work is not commensurate with salary. More-
over, the lack of performance bonus in the public
sector may compound feelings of inequity, espe-
cially when compared to the business sector.
Goal Setting
Two kinds of goals are especially motivating:
specific goals and difficult goals (Locke and
Latham 1990). Why so? Scholars contend that
these goals (i) direct employees’ attention and
action toward goal-relevant activities, (ii) cause
employees to put forth more effort, (iii) cause
employees to create an action plan to achieve the
goals, and (iv) cause employees to be persistent
when facing obstacles (George and Jones 2012).
However, difficult goals can be detrimental if
there is no clear communication between goal
designers (managers) and employees. It is not
hard to imagine that difficult goals without con-
stant instruction and feedback can discourage
employees. In addition, difficult goals are more
suitable for employees with high self-efficacy,
which is the belief that individuals can success-
fully perform a behavior. Difficult goals are, how-
ever, unsuitable for employees who lack adequate
skills/knowledge and who need full attention for
learning.
One last important point is that goal setting can
be incompatible with work that requires a high
level of creativity. Goals come with performance
Employee Work Motivation
measurement, but creativity can hardly be mea-
sured with quantifiable indicators. A typical
example is scientific research: once researchers
are required to produce a certain number of pub-
lications within a short period of time, they usu-
ally sacrifice the novelty of research and choose
topics that can be replicated easily or topics that
require minor incremental improvement.
Job Design
Scientific management assumes that job simplifi-
cation and job specification (e.g., subway
workers) can maximize productivity, but job
monotony can demotivate people. More recent
perspectives that remedy the problem presented
by scientific management are job enlargement and
job enrichment. Job enlargement involves
increasing the number of tasks, but keeping tasks
at the same level of difficulty. Job enrichment
involves designing jobs that facilitate employees’
self-improvement and growth. For example, man-
agers can allow employees to decide their own
work schedules, decide how to get job done, and
learn new skills (George and Jones 2012).
The job characteristics model further endorses
the concept of job enlargement and enrichment.
There are five dimensions in this model (Hackman
and Oldham 1975): skill variety, task identity, task
significance, autonomy, and feedback. If we use
self-determination theory to understand this
model, we may find that the first three dimensions
can improve a person’s perceived competence,
and feedback fosters one’s perceived relatedness.
Therefore, these characteristics can eventually
enhance employees’ intrinsic motivation.
Research Tips for Young Public
Administration Scholars
Work motivation has long been one of the most
important topics in public administration
research. Empirical findings show that public
employees, compared to their business sector
counterparts, have a lower level of work morale.
In addition, factors that motivate public and pri-
vate sector employees are not entirely identical.
Among all differences, the chance to serve the
7
public interest attracts the greatest attention.
Grounded in these findings, some directions are
offered to young public administration scholars
for future research.
Self-determination theory (SDT), despite its
maturity, has not appeared frequently in the public
administration literature. More prevalent use of
SDT should be encouraged. Scholars may first
consider integrating SDT with PS-
M. Contemporary public administration literature
assumes that PSM is autonomous in nature and it
should be altruistic. However, a public service
behavior does not have to be always motivated
by purely altruistic reasons, and individuals may
not feel autonomous when they serve people. For
example, a high-level public official works very
hard to make public policies, yet it is not because
he loves it or thinks it is valuable, but because he
is afraid that media may come after him and the
agency. It is also possible that he does not want to
look inferior (like a loser) when he faces his
private sector friends. The “selfish” motivations
for public service are left underexplored in con-
temporary PSM research, but SDT can well cap-
ture these introjected and external regulatory
styles.
Following this line of research, scholars can
even incorporate the three most important needs
in SDT, autonomy, relatedness, and competence,
into analysis. Regarding autonomy, scholars can
investigate whether red tape, hierarchical control,
political interference, and performance pay
increase employees’ controlled motivation for
public service. They can also explore whether
mentoring, formal training, and job rotation
enhance employees’ perceived competence and
accordingly promote their autonomous motiva-
tion for public service. Finally, regarding related-
ness, it will be interesting to study the impact of
oral praise on work motivation and have it com-
pared with the effect of instrumental incentives
such as money and advancement. Relatedness can
also refer to the relationship between public ser-
vants and citizens. Testing whether cynicism
undermines public servants’ work motivation
can be an interesting topic.
8 Employee Work Motivation
Cross-References
▶ Human Resource Management
▶ Job Satisfaction and Motivation in Nonprofit
Organizations
▶ Motivation
▶ Motivation in Organization
▶ Motivation Through Management
▶ New Public Personnel
▶ Organizational Behavior
▶ Public Service Motivation
▶ Public Personnel Motivation
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