Dissertation
Self-determination theory of motivation and performance management systems
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
12/2007
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005720
Abstract
According to self-determination theory (SDT, Ryan and Deci 2000) of
motivation, in order to create and maintain an innovative, proactive and happy workforce,
businesses ought to adopt organizational designs that cultivate employees’ autonomous
(vs. controlled) work motivation. This is because numerous SDT-based studies have
found that autonomous (controlled) motivation is associated with higher (lower) levels of
creativity, cognitive flexibility, persistence and psychological well-being.
The current research applies SDT to management control systems. Specifically, it
proposes and partially tests a motivational model where one aspect of organizational
design (i.e., performance management systems, PMS) is hypothesized to influence
autonomous and controlled work motivation, and in turn influences their job related
cognition, behaviors and affective experience. In particular, this model predicts that
characteristics of PMS (e.g., whether reward systems are aligned with performance
measurement systems, and the degree to which employees participate in the process of
target setting and performance appraisal) will impact employees’ autonomous and
controlled work motivation. It further predicts that autonomous and controlled work
motivation will affect various outcome variables such as employees’ willingness to
acquire new knowledge and skills, their attributional tendency for their performance, and
their proactivity at work.
The hypotheses derived from the proposed motivational model were tested using
two studies. Study 1 consists of structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses of survey
data available from a separate research project. The survey data were obtained from 135
lower-level managers and non-management employees in different organizations. Study 2
was a case-based experiment, where 74 experiment participants assumed the role of a
lower-level manager. The results from the two studies in general support the abovementioned
hypotheses. Implications for both PMS and SDT literatures are discussed.
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Details
- Title
- Self-determination theory of motivation and performance management systems
- Creators
- Lan Guo
- Contributors
- Bernard Wong-On-Wing (Chair) - Washington State University, Department of AccountingJohn T. Sweeney (Committee Member)Jeffrey Joireman (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of Marketing and International Business
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Carson College of Business
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 228
- Identifiers
- 99901054757201842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation