Beyond Talk: Creating Autonomous Motivation Through Self-Determination Theory (original) (raw)
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Motivation and theory of self-determination: Some management implications in organizations
Journal of EconomicsBibliography, 2018
This conceptual paper describes the important role of motivation in organizations and the Self-Determination Theory that is an approach to human motivation and personality based on humans' evolved inner resources for personality development and behavioral self-regulation. Some management implications of this theory are discussed to improve motivation of employees and performance of organizations.
Advances in Developing Human Resources
The Problem According to self-determination theory (SDT), employees can experience different types of motivation with respect to their work. The presence of the different types of motivation is important given that, compared with controlled regulation (introjected and extrinsic motivation), autonomous regulation (intrinsic and identified motivation) leads to a host of positive individual and organizational outcomes. Despite this empirically validated phenomenon, managers remain unaware of the outcomes of motivation in the workplace and of the practices that can foster autonomous regulation through psychological need satisfaction. The focus of the article will be to review relevant literature to reveal the benefits that SDT principles can bring to the workplace. The Solution Managers are encouraged to promote autonomous regulation first by assessing their employees’ motivation for a particular outcome and by structuring three elements of the work environment (job design, interpersona...
Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations: The State of a Science
Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior
Self-determination theory (SDT) is a macro theory of human motivation that evolved from research on intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and expanded to include research on work organizations and other domains of life. We discuss SDT research relevant to the workplace, focusing on (a) the distinction between autonomous motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation and fully internalized extrinsic motivation) and controlled motivation (i.e., externally and internally controlled extrinsic motivation), as well as (b) the postulate that all employees have three basic psychological needs—for competence, autonomy, and relatedness—the satisfaction of which promotes autonomous motivation, high-quality performance, and wellness. Research in work organizations has tended to take the perspectives of either the employees (i.e., their well-being) or the owners (i.e., their profits). SDT provides the concepts that guide the creation of policies, practices, and environments that promote both wellness and ...
The Impact of Motivation on Proactive Behavior in the Perspective of Self-Determination Theory
KnE Social Sciences, 2019
Using the Self-Determination Theory, the authors investigate the consequence of motivation. Specifically, this study analyzes the impacts of amotivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation toward proactive behavior of headquarter employees. Answering research problems and examining hypotheses, the authors applied regression technic to analysis eighty three data collected in the state organization which cover the Divisions under Directors of Finance and Human Resources and Sales Division outside of Finance & Human Resources Directors. The results of this research show that amotivation, extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation significantly and directly affect headquarter employee's proactive behavior. These findings imply that company should give attention to the emergence of amotivation because amotivation can reduce or eliminate an employee's proactive behavior in work which can ultimately disrupt the company's performance. Moreover, the authors conclude by presenting theoretical and managerial implication.
Self-determination in a work organization
Journal of Applied Psychology, 1989
Research testing self-determination theory was discussed in terms of recent work on intrinsic motivation, participative management, and leadership. On three occasions, managers' interpersonal orientations-toward supporting subordinates' self-determination versus controlling their behavior-were related to perceptions, affects, and satisfactions of the subordinates. Data from 23 managers and their subordinates in a major corporation showed that managers' orientations did correlate with the subordinate variables, although the magnitude of the relation varied, seemingly as a function of factors in the corporate climate. An organizational development intervention, focused on the concept of supporting subordinates' self-determination, was provided for the managers. Evaluation of the program showed a clearly positive impact on managers' orientations, though a less conclusive radiation to subordinates. of choice and personal initiative. The idea of managers' supporting self-determination is conceptually and philosophically consistent with participative management and vertical job enlargement, although it differs from them by focusing on the interpersonal orientation of managers rather than on the decisionmaking process or the job design.
Self-determination theory and work motivation
Cognitive evaluation theory, which explains the effects of extrinsic motivators on intrinsic motivation, received some initial attention in the organizational literature. However, the simple dichotomy between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation made the theory difficult to apply to work settings. Differentiating extrinsic motivation into types that differ in their degree of autonomy led to self-determination theory, which has received widespread attention in the education, health care, and sport domains. This article describes self-determination theory as a theory of work motivation and shows its relevance to theories of organizational behavior. definitively that tangible rewards undermine intrinsic motivation, recent theories of work motivation have still failed to accept the robustness of the findings. For example, suggested that rewards would not undermine intrinsic motivation if they did not deactivate implicit motives related to task enjoyment. However, the statement was pure speculation, and no empirical support for the speculation was provided. Furthermore, support for the hypothesis that expected, tangible rewards administered engagement-contingently or completion-contingently would undermine intrinsic motivation is so strong that, if Kehr's theoretical speculation were correct, it would mean that these types of rewards must, in fact, deactivate implicit enjoyment motives.
Self-Determination Theory in Human Resource Development: New Directions and Practical Considerations
Advances in Developing Human Resources
The Problem There has been a “Copernican turn” in approaches to motivation and management: The focus in human resource development (HRD) and management circles today is no longer on how companies can motivate or incentivize employees from the outside, but instead on how they can effectively foster and support the high-quality motivation that comes from within employees. Developing affective commitment and intrinsic motivation is highlighted as a key to organizational success and employee satisfaction. The Solution In this article, we review our applications of self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2017) concerning how organizations can both assess and build a culture of high-quality motivation. We review a continuum of types of motivation in the workplace that range from passive or controlled compliance to personal valuing of and intrinsic interest in one’s work. We then discuss how support for employees’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness lea...
PLOS ONE, 2021
Despite the vast body of studies within self-determination theory, the impact of factors which influence performance in experimental paradigm is still underresearched. The aim of the two studies presented in this paper was to investigate the impact of basic psychological needs on performance with the simultaneous presence of external incentives. Study 1 tested whether the satisfaction of competence and relatedness during task performance (while external incentives were present) can impact individual’s performance. Study 2, on the other hand, investigated whether the basic psychological needs and provision of external incentives can impact an individual’s performance. Moreover, in both studies the mechanisms behind the need–performance relationship was checked. Our results showed that out of the three basic needs, competence had the strongest positive impact on performance, which was partially mediated by the subjective evaluation of the levels of difficulty and intrinsic motivation....
Empowering leadership: balancing self-determination and accountability for motivation
Personnel Review, 2021
PurposeThis study set out to investigate the role of self-determination and accountability in the relationship between empowering leadership, motivation and performance.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 172 participants working in an international software development organization. Hypotheses were tested in PROCESS using the Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrapping method.FindingsResults indicate that empowering leadership played a significant role satisfying basic psychological needs. As expected, the satisfaction of needs is related to autonomous motivation. Crucially, perceived accountability was also positively related to autonomous motivation.Research limitations/implicationsThe cross-sectional design of this study limits the ability to rule out the possibility of reverse causation.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that traditional management practices such as accountability can be successfully utilized in conjunction with self-determination theory with...
Motivation science, 2021
Self-determination theory (SDT) is a still rapidly expanding framework of basic and applied research, underpinned by a global network of scholars and practitioners. Herein we focus on one feature of SDT that helps explain its continued growth-the fact that it is a truly human science that takes into consideration our attributes as persons, including our capacities for awareness and self-regulation, as well as vulnerabilities to defensiveness and control. Within SDT these human capacities are studied using diverse methods, and across all sub-disciplines of psychology. In this review we focus particularly on people's capacity for autonomy as it applies to their individual functioning, interpersonal relationships, and societal interactions. If there is a core legacy to SDT it is one of representing a generative and philosophically coherent framework based on a convergent network of empirical evidence with relevance across domains and cultures, and to our basic experiences and concerns as humans. 2 In this article we were invited to discuss the legacy of self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2017; Vansteenkiste & Soenens, 2015), a task we undertake with hesitation. The term legacy can have a meaning of something bequeathed after death, for which SDT is clearly not ready. Today SDT is more alive than ever, with a steeply escalating trajectory of both basic research efforts and evidence-supported applications. Behind this robust growth lie hopefully several legacies (defined as enduring contributions!) in diverse fields, such as parenting, work, education, health care, sport, psychotherapy, and technology use, and covering a wide variety of topics such as vitality, eudaimonia, mindfulness, life goals, emotion regulation, and developmental psychopathology, among others. Given its breadth, in this short article we will focus on one legacy that we see as particularly relevant to SDT's place in motivation science. That legacy is SDT's central role in what we call the "Copernican turn" in empirical studies on motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2017), a turn from a focus on people as simply objects of causal processes toward an understanding of the propensities and capabilities within people that allow for their selfregulation of behavior. The science of SDT takes seriously our capacities as persons, including our abilities to be aware of ourselves, to actively learn and master our worlds, to strive to internalize cultural norms, to reflectively consider our own attitudes and values, and to make informed choices concerning them. These capacities also afford us an ability to care for the selves of others. At the same time SDT recognizes and researches the "dark sides" of human motivation, and our vulnerabilities to being passive, controlled, defensive, dysregulated and antisocial (Ryan, Deci, & Vansteenkiste, 2016; Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013). These human capacities for autonomy and integrity and vulnerabilities for defensiveness and psychopathology are neither mystical nor merely subjective; they are indeed rooted in our biology and adaptive histories. At the same time, they work by