WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT MOTIVATION THEORY? SIX RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT MOTIVATIONTHEORY? SIX RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

EDWIN A. LOCKEUniversity of Maryland

GARY P. LATHAMUniversity of Toronto

We present six recommendations for building theories of work motivation that aremore valid, more complete, broader in scope, and more useful to practitioners thanexisting theories. (1) Integrate extant theories by using existing meta-analyses tobuild a megatheory of work motivation. (2) Create a boundaryless science of workmotivation. (3) Study the various types of relationships that could hold betweengeneral (trait) and situationally specific motivation. (4) Study subconscious as well asconscious motivation. (5) Use introspection explicitly in theory building. (6) Acknowl-edge the role of volition in human action when formulating theories.

The concept of motivation refers to internalfactors that impel action and to external factorsthat can act as inducements to action. The threeaspects of action that motivation can affect aredirection (choice), intensity (effort), and duration(persistence). Motivation can affect not only theacquisition of people’s skills and abilities butalso how and to what extent they utilize theirskills and abilities.

Work motivation has been of interest toindustrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists atleast since the 1930s, stimulated in large part bythe famous Hawthorne studies (Roethlisberger &Dickson, 1939), which focused mainly on the ef-fects of supervision, incentives, and workingconditions. However, it was not until 1964 thatVroom made the first attempt to formulate anoverarching theory—namely, a hedonistic cal-culus called the “valence-instrumentality-expectancy model.” Theory building in the fieldof work motivation, however, has typically beenmore specialized than Vroom’s overarchingmodel.

Argyris (1957), for example, focused on thecongruence between the individual’s needs andorganizational demands. Herzberg and col-leagues (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959)focused primarily on sources of work satisfac-tion and, within that domain, mainly on ways inwhich the job could be designed to make thework itself enriching and challenging. Later,Hackman and Oldham (1980) extended Herz-

berg’s work by developing a model suggestingthe specific work characteristics and psycholog-ical processes that increase employee satisfac-tion and the motivation to excel. All these theo-ries center on the issue of the organization’seffect on the individual employee’s “cognitivegrowth.”

Other theories and approaches have focusedon specific psychological processes, as doesVroom’s theory. Organizational behavior (OB)modification (Luthans & Kreitner, 1975), which isnot influential today, was derived from Skin-ner’s behavioristic philosophy that denied theimportance of consciousness. This approachstresses the automatic role of rewards and feed-back on work motivation; however, these effectsare mediated by psychological processes suchas goals and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986; Locke,1977). Goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 2002)and control theory—a mechanistic combinationof cybernetics and goal theory (Lord & Hanges,1987)—focus on the effects of conscious goals asmotivators of task performance. Attribution the-ory’s (Weiner, 1986) emphasis is on ways that theattributions one makes about one’s own or oth-ers’ performance affect one’s subsequentchoices and actions. Social-cognitive theory(Bandura, 1986) is very broad in scope—its do-main is much wider than that of work motiva-tion—but Bandura’s core concept of self-efficacyhas been found to have powerful motivationaleffects on task performance (Bandura, 1997).

� Academy of Management Review2004, Vol. 29, No. 3, 388–403.

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Two work motivation theories have a socialemphasis (although Bandura [1986] stresses themotivational effects of role modeling). Adams’(1963) theory focuses on the motivational effectsof distributive justice, which is based on com-parisons between the inputs and outcomes ofoneself versus those of comparison others. Morerecently, scholars have extensively researchedprocedural justice (Greenberg, 2000), stressingthe important effect on employee satisfaction ofthe methods or processes by which organiza-tional decisions affecting employees are made.

Personality-based approaches to motivation,although in and out of fashion over the pastseveral decades, have always had some strongsupporters. McClelland and his colleagues (e.g.,McClelland & Winter, 1969) stressed the effect ofsubconscious motivation—specifically, need forachievement—on economic growth. In recentyears the study of conscious, self-reported traitshas become popular, especially traits such asconscientiousness, which is fairly consistentlyrelated to effective job performance (Barrick &Mount, 2000).

All of the above theories have limitations.None of them are above criticism, and somehave dropped by the wayside in recent years,yet most provide some useful insights into em-ployee motivation. Thus, it is clear that the fieldof work motivation has not only progressed buthas progressed in multiple directions over thelast several decades. Nevertheless, our knowl-edge of the subject of work motivation is far fromcomplete. The issue, then, is where should we gofrom here?

Our goal in this article is not to offer yet an-other theory of work motivation. Rather, our fo-cus is on metatheory—the process or processesthrough which we can build more valid, morecomplete, and more practical theories. This pa-per provides rationales for six categories of rec-ommendations for advancing knowledge andunderstanding of employee motivation in thetwenty-first century. We provide examples ofspecific types of studies that might be carriedout relevant to each recommendation.

SIX RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 1: Use the results ofexisting meta-analyses to integratevalid aspects of extant theories.

When beginning to study the plethora of ex-isting work motivation theories, one’s reaction issometimes bewilderment at the enormous vari-ety of concepts and approaches. But, if one looksclosely, it is evident that, for the most part, thesetheories, though flawed and/or limited in vari-ous respects (see Miner, 2002), do not so muchcontradict one another as focus on different as-pects of the motivation process. Therefore, thereis now an urgent need to tie these theories andprocesses together into an overall model, inso-far as this is possible.

Locke (1997) made a preliminary attempt atintegrating theories of motivation in the work-place. The model, shown in Figure 1, beginswith an employee’s needs, moves to acquiredvalues and motives (including personality), thento goal choice, and thence to goals and self-efficacy. The latter two variables constitute a“motivation hub” in that they are often the mostdirect, conscious, motivational determinants ofperformance. Performance is followed by out-comes, and outcomes by emotional appraisals,such as employee satisfaction and involvement,that lead to a variety of possible subsequentactions. (Job satisfaction, of course, may alsoaffect performance; the precise causal relation-ship between them is not fully known [see Judge,Thoreson, Bono, & Patton, 2001].) Job character-istics are shown as affecting satisfaction. Theplace where a specific theory applies is shownby the dotted boxes. This is not a speculativemodel. Every connection but one—namely, thelink from needs to values—is based on empiri-cal research.

A useful next step would entail identifying thesize or strength of the various relationshipsshown in Figure 1. This could be done by com-bining the results of all known meta-analysesrelevant to each path in the model and wouldinclude calculating known mediation effects, aswell as known moderator effects. It would alsoentail adding pathways based on theories forwhich there is some empirical evidence butwhich are not, as yet, included in the model (e.g.,Kanfer & Ackerman’s [1989] resource allocationtheory and Weiner’s [1986] attribution theory).The result could be the first motivation mega-theory in the behavioral sciences derived fromcombining different meta-analyses.

Using meta-analyses to build theory, which iscalled “mega-analysis,” was originally sug-gested by Schmidt (1992). He and his colleagues

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used it on a small scale in the field of humanresources management by tying together empir-ical studies of the relationships among job ex-perience, ability, knowledge, and performanceon work samples, as well as in the workplace(Schmidt, Hunter, & Outerbridge, 1986). However,a mega-analysis of extant work motivation the-ories would be on a much wider scale andwould integrate an enormous amount of datainto a comprehensible framework that would beuseful to both theorists and practitioners. Themodel could be expanded, of course, as newdiscoveries were made.

Recommendation 2: Create a bound-aryless science of work motivation.

Jack Welch coined the term boundaryless or-ganization when he was CEO of General Elec-tric (GE), as a result of his frustration overknowledge that was being ignored rather thanshared and embraced among the myriad divi-sions of GE. Similar dysfunctional behavior hadbeen referred to within the Weyerhaeuser Com-pany as the “not invented here” mindset—amindset that prevented managers within oneregion of the company from building on theknowledge gained by managers in other re-gions.

This implies two things. First, work motivationtheory needs to be extended into and furtherdeveloped within areas other than isolated taskperformance settings. Second, motivation theo-rists should consider using concepts developedin fields outside OB and I/O psychology.

For example, motivation could be studied fur-ther in the realm of team effectiveness. Thereare processes affecting teams that do not arisewhen the focus is on the individual’s motivation,such as the specific ways in which team mem-bers motivate and demotivate one another. Forinstance, team members might encourage oneanother through building efficacy by means ofpersuasion or the offering of useful ideas. Theymight undermine one another through belittle-ment and insults. Extending motivation re-search into the realm of teams would lead to theexploration of such issues as conflicts amongpersonalities, values, and/or goals that are notyet a part of extant work motivation theories.Although team cohesion has been studied, lessattention has been paid to the sources, content,and effects of team conflict and how these spe-cifically influence team motivation (but see

Weingart & Jehn, 2000, for some preliminaryfindings). Social loafing is another potent groupmotivation phenomenon that is not part of ex-tant work motivation theories (Karau & Wil-liams, 2001). A separate megamodel might haveto be constructed to explain team motivation.

Motivation also should be studied within therealm of decision making. For example, Schnei-der and Lopes (1986) have argued that level ofaspiration (i.e., goals) needs to be incorporatedinto prospect theory. Along this line, Knight,Durham, and Locke (2001) have found that goalsaffect the degree of risk people take when mak-ing decisions. Personality theory has implica-tions for prospect theory as well. For example,those high in extroversion may assess risk quitedifferently from those high in neuroticism.

Within the field of personality, an issue thatneeds to be addressed is the extent to whichcertain traits are stable aspects of the personversus readily manipulable motivational states.For example, Dweck and her colleagues (e.g.,Dweck & Elliott, 1983) have argued that goalorientation is a relatively stable disposition. Yetthere is a paucity of studies that have assessedits test-retest reliability (e.g., VandeWalle, Cron,& Slocum, 2001). Moreover, the empirical re-search suggests that goal orientation is readilymalleable. Dweck herself has even acknowl-edged this in the field of educational psychol-ogy (e.g., Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Mueller & Dweck,1998). In the OB field, Seijts, Latham, Tasa, andLatham (in press) found that when people weregiven do-your-best instructions, Dweck’s (1986)predictions regarding the goal orientation traitwere supported. But when a specific difficultlearning goal was set, it masked the effect ofthis trait. A learning goal, as is the case with anoutcome goal (Adler & Weiss, 1988), was shownto be a strong variable that mitigates the effectsof this individual-difference variable (trait). Re-search is needed to see under what conditionssituationally induced motives negate traiteffects.

Motivation theory can be better incorporatedinto macrotheories, particularly organizationtheory. For example, there is little doubt thatdegree of centralization and decentralizationhas motivational consequences, as appears tobe the case with span of control (Donaldson,2000). Firms that have subsidiaries in differentcountries inevitably run into the issue of valuedifferences (Erez, 2000). Hence, more knowledge


is needed about how value differences actuallyoperate. For example, are goal setting, partici-pation in decision making, performance ap-praisal, and so forth differentially effective as aconsequence of value differences, or are theysimply used in a different form—or both?

Motivational issues are also important forstrategic management. For example, strategicmanagement frequently involves change, andthe phenomenon of resistance to change is wellknown (Beer, 2000). When firms decide that theywill employ a certain strategy (e.g., low cost),they may differ radically in how well they im-plement it (e.g., Wal-Mart versus K-Mart). In part,this is an issue of knowledge and skill, but it isalso related to motivation. Resistance to changeis discussed routinely within the field of organ-izational development, but the motivational is-sues involved are not directly included in tradi-tional motivation theories. At best, they areaddressed by implication; for example, resis-tance to change may imply refusal to commit tocertain goals and may be motivated by low self-efficacy, low instrumentality, and/or negativevalences. This issue needs to be studied explic-itly. Of course, there are other aspects of strate-gic management that entail motivation—for ex-ample, decision choice and competitiveness—requiring further study as well.

Finally, motivation theory in the realm of workneeds to draw on findings from other fields. Boththe science and practice of OB have alreadybenefited from theory in social (e.g., Bandura,1986) and educational psychology (e.g., Dweck,1986). In the study of motivation, findings bynon-I/O scholars in clinical psychology must notbe overlooked (Latham & Heslin, 2003). Two ex-amples include research by Beck and by Selig-man (and their respective colleagues).

Beck and his colleagues (Beck, 1967; Beck,Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979) focused on the rela-tionship between depression and “automaticthoughts,” by which they mean thoughts held inthe subconscious that affect emotional re-sponses. These researchers examined what theycall “dysfunctional thinking” with respect toboth content and process. Examples includeovergeneralization (e.g., “If I do something bad,it means that I am a totally bad person”), (irra-tional) perfectionism (e.g., “If I am any good atall, I should be able to excel at everything I try”),and dependence on others (e.g., “I do things toplease other people rather than please myself”).

Dysfunctional thoughts lead people to evalu-ate information inappropriately, thus leading tonegative emotional states. Beck and his col-leagues developed methods of consciously cor-recting dysfunctional thought processes. Clientsreport their automatic thoughts through intro-spection (an issue to be dealt with at lengthbelow), and then the psychologists discuss withthe clients the rationality of such beliefs. Forexample, a depressed client might claim, “Pathas left me; therefore, I am worthless.” The psy-chologist might then ask, “Is that really true?What do you base that on?” Gradually, clientscome to see that their implicit conclusions or“automatic thoughts” are not rational and that adifferent perspective is more in line with reality.By challenging dysfunctional thoughts as theyarise and correcting them consciously, the cli-ents’ automatic or subconscious processingchanges and, thus, their negative emotions aremitigated (Haaga, Dyck, & Ernst, 1991).

Such clinical methods have practical utility inthe realm of work motivation. Millman andLatham (2001) found that they were able to trainunemployed individuals to engage in functionalthinking—that is, positive self-talk—and thatsuch training significantly improved theirchances of finding a new, well-paying job.

Cognitive methods could be used to teach em-ployees the principle of reframing dysfunctionalthoughts in work settings. For example, whenindividuals encounter difficulties during train-ing, they can reframe a self-demeaning state-ment like “I can’t stand always being so stupid”as “It is normal to make mistakes when I am firstlearning to perform a task.” Reframing self-deprecating statements in constructive wayscan have a positive effect on motivation and cansustain a person’s self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997).

Similarly, employees might be taught to dealwith stress through thought retraining. Stress isa response to the appraisal that one is beingpsychologically or physically threatened. Butthreat appraisals are not always rational, andeven when they are, employees can be trainedto engage in problem-focused thinking so as todevelop methods that enable them to mitigatethe threats they confront (Lazarus & Folkman,1984). For example, employees faced with thepossibility of layoffs could be trained to identifythe exact nature of the perceived threats (e.g.,financial and/or psychological) and to generateplans to cope with them.


Irrational beliefs may adversely interact withfeedback provided by others. Rational beliefscan mediate the effect on performance feedbackfrom authority figures (e.g., a supervisor). Train-ing in ways to replace irrational with rationalbeliefs would also appear to be applicable toemployees whose desire for inappropriate per-fectionism is preventing them from completingjob assignments in a timely fashion.

Managers and business leaders can engagein dysfunctional thinking, not only when thebusiness is doing badly but also when it is do-ing well (e.g., “We are growing at 40 percent peryear and will always grow at that rate; thus,there is no need to change our strategy”). Over-confidence leads managers to engage in poordecision making (Audia, Locke, & Smith, 2000).Training in metaprinciples of how to think ra-tionally should be beneficial to people at allorganizational levels.

Based on over twenty-five years of program-matic research in the laboratory and in theclinic, Seligman (1968, 1998a,b) established acausal relationship between a person’s pessi-mistic explanatory style and subsequent de-pression, on the one hand, versus an optimisticexplanatory style and a person’s creativity, pro-ductivity, and overall sense of well-being, on theother. Drawing on attribution theory, Seligmanand his colleagues (Peterson et al., 1982) devel-oped the Attribution Style Questionnaire (ASQ),which assesses a person’s explanatory stylewith regard to the locus, stability, and globalityof attributions. Locus refers to the extent towhich a noncontingency between one’s actionsand the consequences experienced is attributedprimarily to either oneself or to factors in theenvironment. Stability is the extent to which thelack of a response outcome is temporary or islikely to persist into the future. Globality is theextent to which noncontingent outcomes areperceived as either domain specific or likely toundermine many areas of one’s life.

Learned helplessness results from setbacksthat are considered long lasting (stable), under-mining the attainment of most if not all of one’sgoals (global), and caused by personal deficien-cies (internal) rather than situational con-straints. The resulting low outcome expectancycauses deficits in future learning, as well asmotivational disturbances such as procrastina-tion and depression (Seligman, 1998a).

Optimists attribute their failures to causesthat are temporary rather than stable, specific tothe attainment of a particular goal rather thanall their goals, and see the problem as a result ofthe environment or setting they are in, ratherthan inherent in themselves. Setbacks and ob-stacles are seen as challenges (Seligman &Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Thus, optimists are usu-ally resilient in the face of failure.

Seligman (1998b) found that optimism can belearned, using a method similar to that em-ployed by Beck. Step 1 requires the clinician tohelp clients identify self-defeating beliefs theymay be unaware of. Step 2 involves gatheringinformation to evaluate and dispute the accu-racy and implications of these self-defeating be-liefs that are triggered by environmental events.Step 3 involves replacing maladaptive beliefswith constructive, accurate ones based on thedata collected in the second step.

The ASQ may prove useful for identifying peo-ple in organizations who suffer from learnedhelplessness. Seligman and Schulman (1986)have provided evidence suggesting the value ofASQ for OB. They found that salespeople withan optimistic explanatory style sold 35 percentmore insurance than did those whose explana-tory style was pessimistic. Moreover, peoplewith a pessimistic style were twice as likely toquit their job in the first year than those with anoptimistic style. Similarly, Schulman (1999)found that those who scored high on optimismoutsold those who scored as pessimists by 20 to40 percent across a range of organizations (e.g.,auto sales, telecommunications, real estate, andbanking). Strutton and Lumpkin (1992) found thatthe mediator of the two attribution styles onemployee performance is strategy. Salespeoplewho scored high on optimism used problem-solving techniques, whereas those who scoredhigh on pessimism focused on ways of seekingsocial support.

Seligman’s training technique may provide aframework for mentors, coaches, and trainers topredict, understand, and influence a person orteam who has given up trying to attain goalsbecause of repeated failures. No one as yet hasshown whether the ASQ has general applica-tions to the workforce. We also need to deter-mine whether learned optimism is basicallyequivalent to trait-level self-efficacy andwhether optimism effects are mediated by situ-ationally specific self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997).


Recommendation 3: Identify how gen-eral variables such as personality getapplied to and are mediated by task-and situationally specific variables,how they are moderated by situations,and how they affect situational choiceand structuring.

A problem that must be overcome in combin-ing motivation theories is how to integrate thegeneral with the specific. For example, a BigFive personality trait such as conscientiousnessis, by definition, general. It reflects action pat-terns that cross tasks and situations. Typically,trait measures correlate about 0.20 with actionin specific settings. This mean correlation is bet-ter than chance, but it does not answer suchquestions as: How do traits actually operate?How can we make better predictions?

A partial answer to these questions becomesevident when we recognize that there is no suchthing as action in general; every action is taskand situationally specific. Specific measures, ifchosen properly, virtually always predict actionbetter than general measures. However, generalmeasures predict more widely than do specificones (Judge et al., 2002).

A general value or motive must presumablybe “applied,” consciously or subconsciously, toeach specific task and situation. It follows thatsituationally and task-specific knowledge, as-sessments, and intentions should be affected bysuch motives and that these assessments, inturn, should affect actions taken in the situation.A person’s goals, as well as self-efficacy, havebeen found to partly or wholly mediate the ef-fects of some personality traits, as well as theeffects of various incentives (Locke, 2001). Thesetraits include conscientiousness, competitive-ness, Type A personality, general (trait) efficacy,need for mastery, and self-esteem. VandeWalleet al. (2001) found that goals and efficacy medi-ate the effects of the trait of goal orientation onperformance. The mediation hypothesis is im-plicit in Figure 1, in that values and personalityare shown to work through goals and efficacy.Nevertheless, it is possible that some trait ef-fects are direct and, thus, not mediated at all. Ifso, it will be necessary to discover when andwhy this occurs.

The identification of personality trait media-tors does not preclude the study of person-situation interactions. In “strong” or constrained

situations, people may feel less free to act asthey want or “really are” as compared to whenthey are in “weak” situations. However, thislikely occurs because people appraise situa-tions partly in terms of what they can andshould do in them. Furthermore, what has yet tobe studied is the other side of the strong versusweak situation coin—namely, the possibility of“strong” versus “weak” personalities. Strongpersonalities should be less constrained by sit-uations than weak ones. For example, hyper-competitive people might look for ways to com-pete everywhere—not only in sports or businessbut also in social and personal relationships.Thus, they would construe every situation as anopportunity to demonstrate their superiority.

Finally, we must not overlook the fact thatpeople are not merely the passive victims ofsituations. For example, employees choose thejobs they apply for and quit those they dislike.They may restructure jobs to make a better fitwith their own talents and proclivities. Theymay also work with others to change situationsthey dislike. They can choose what new skills todevelop and what careers to pursue. Going fur-ther afield, they can also choose (in most freecountries) whom they marry, where they live,how many children they have, how they spendtheir money, whom they want as their friends,and what off-the-job activities they engage in.As Bandura (1986, 1997) has noted, people are notsimply dropped into situations; they themselvescreate, choose, and change situations. We needto study how traits affect these processes.

Recommendation 4: Study subcon-scious as well as conscious motivationand the relationship between them.

The concept of the subconscious is not a “hy-pothetical construct” but a fully objective one. Itrefers to information that is “in consciousness”but not, at a given time, in focal awareness.Psychologists have shown that people can onlyhold about seven separate (disconnected) ele-ments in focal awareness at the same time(Miller, 1956). The rest of one’s knowledge, to usethe usual computer analogy, is “stored in mem-ory.” We validate the concept of the subcon-scious by observing that we can draw knowl-edge out of memory without any additionallearning. Typically needed information is pulledout automatically, based on our conscious pur-pose (e.g., when we read a book, the meanings


of the words and our knowledge of spelling andgrammar are automatically engaged). We canalso observe that certain events and experi-ences (e.g., early childhood memories) areharder to recall than others.

It is undeniable that people can act withoutbeing aware of the motives and values underly-ing their behavior. This assertion does not re-quire the positing of an unconscious that ismade up of primitive instincts devoid of anyaccess to, or contact with, the conscious mind, asFreud asserted. Nor does acknowledging thesubconscious require a leap to the unwarrantedconclusion that all actions are governed by un-conscious forces (Wegner & Wheatley, 1999).Such a claim would clearly be arbitrary. Thisassertion only requires acknowledgment thatthe subconscious is a storehouse of knowledgeand values beyond what is in focal awarenessat any given point in time (Murphy, 2001) andthat accessibility to this stored information dif-fers within and between people.

McClelland, Atkinson, Clark, and Lowell(1953) claimed that the achievement motive,which they asserted to be related to entrepre-neurship, was a subconscious motive. Thus,they argued, it had to be measured with a pro-jective test—namely, the TAT—which involvespeople telling stories in response to pictures.This claim may be true, but to the present au-thors’ knowledge, no self-report measure ofachievement motivation has been designedwith items that match exactly the type of TATstory content that is indicative of high need forachievement. Thus, TAT-measured achievementmotivation may or may not be assessing a con-cept different from self-reported achievementmotivation measures.

Self-report measures of achievement motiva-tion are typically uncorrelated with projectivemeasures, even though both types of measuresare significantly associated with entrepreneur-ial action (Collins, Hanges, & Locke, in press).Need for achievement, measured projectively,also appears to be unrelated to conscious per-formance goals (e.g., Tracy, Locke, & Renard,1999). Similarly, A. Howard (personal communi-cation) found that, in a reanalysis of her twenty-five-year AT&T study with Bray, conscious goalsfor promotion had no relationship with a set ofprojective measures that had been designed byMcClelland to predict managerial progress (seeLocke & Latham, 2002). McClelland (e.g., McClel-

land & Winter, 1969) believed that subconsciousmotives are differentially aroused by differentsituations and operate differently than con-scious motivation.

Failure to specify the effect of the subcon-scious on action is a limitation of goal-settingtheory (Locke & Latham, 2002)—not to mentionother motivation theories. Yet, over a centuryago, the Wurzburg school in Germany showedthat goals that are assigned to people can affecttheir subsequent behavior, without their beingaware of it. In this century, Wegge and Dibblett(2000) have shown that high goals automaticallyincrease the speed with which information iscognitively processed. Locke (2000b) has arguedthat goals may arouse task-relevant knowledgeautomatically, but almost nothing is knownabout how and when this occurs.

Studying the subconscious is difficult pre-cisely because people, including laboratory par-ticipants and employees, cannot always directlyprovide the needed information stored there.Thus, indirect measures are required. Projectivemeasures may be useful (see Lilienfeld, Wood, &Garb, 2000), but they are riddled with such diffi-culties as low internal reliability and the effectof choice of pictures (in the case of the TAT). Inthe realm of achievement motivation, a 2 (high/low projective measure) � 2 (high/low consciousself-report) factorial design might revealwhether responses to these two measurementtechniques—subconscious and conscious—assuming they are actually referring to thesame concept, interact or work additively. Thesame type of study could be conducted in rela-tion to other traits. The Big Five, for example,might be measured projectively as well asthrough self-reports.

Projective tests do not have to be confined tothe TAT. Other projective measures may beequally if not more useful. An example is theincomplete sentence blank (ISB), used exten-sively by Miner (e.g., Miner, Smith, & Bracker,1994). Different projective methods should becompared for agreement, when the same al-leged concepts or motives are measured, as wellas for predictive validity.

Another way to examine subconscious effectsis through “priming.” Priming involves givingpeople information that is apparently unrelatedto the task at hand but that can affect an indi-vidual’s subsequent responses, without beingaware of the effect. In two experiments Earley


and Perry (1987) used priming to influence thetask strategies that subjects used to attaingoals. Priming could be used in many othertypes of motivation studies. Bargh, Gollwitzer,Lee-Chai, Barndollar, and Troetschel (2001)found that primed goals for performance andcooperation had significant effects on these twooutcomes. Research should be conducted com-paring the effect sizes of, and possible interac-tions between, consciously assigned versus sub-consciously primed goals.

Recommendation 5: Use introspectionexplicitly as a method of studying andunderstanding motivation.

Few methodologies in the history of the be-havioral sciences have been more controversialthan introspection. Introspection was used ex-tensively by Titchner, an influential psycholo-gist in the early twentieth century, but it wassubsequently rejected by his followers becausethey found his view of psychology to be undulynarrow. Freud and his followers also rejectedintrospection because they believed that moti-vational dynamics were in the unconscious, notthe subconscious—or, as they called it, the “pre-conscious”—and, thus, inaccessible to directawareness or observation. Drive reductionists,such as Hull and Spence, agreed with this inac-cessibility argument because they believed thatmotivation was strictly physiological. The be-haviorists, especially Watson and Skinner, re-jected introspection because they believed thesubject matter—consciousness—was irrelevantto understanding human behavior. Neverthe-less, it is self-evident that motivational statesexist in consciousness; thus, introspection mustbe used to study it. Psychological concepts (e.g.,desire, self-efficacy, purpose, satisfaction, be-lief) could not even be formulated or graspedwithout introspection. Furthermore, question-naire studies in OB have always relied on intro-spection by the respondents, even though allpeople are not equally good at it. The use ofintrospection, as an accepted methodology inOB, will provide at least six important benefitsfor advancing our understanding of employeemotivation. These are as follows.

(1) Understanding traits and motives. In thefield of personality, it is often unclear whetherresearchers are describing behavior or an un-derlying motive that causes the behavior. Pre-dicting behavior from behavior may be helpful

practically, but it is psychologically trivial if thebasis for the behavior is not explained. If traitsare more than just behavioral regularity, theymust be caused by underlying motives. We canonly learn about the nature of these motives byhaving people with varying levels of trait scoresengage in introspection. With regard to theabove discussion of projective versus self-reportmeasures of traits, such as need for achieve-ment, people who are highly effective versusineffective at introspection could be studied tosee if the two types of measures predict differ-ently within each type of person. In addition,people can be trained in introspection(Schweiger, Anderson, & Locke, 1985). Researchis needed to determine whether training wouldproduce greater convergence between con-scious and subconscious measures of the sameconcept. Motive “constructs” (i.e., concepts) inOB are often defined statistically, as a conglom-eration of measures or of items. They are seldomdefined experientially. This is especially true ofso-called high-order constructs, which may havelittle or no psychological reality. For example,the Big Five personality dimensions are statis-tical conglomerations of a number of relatedsubdimensions. But little is known about howpeople with high scores on traits such as extra-version actually experience themselves and theworld. Such an understanding should enableresearchers to develop better measures.

(2) Increasing accuracy. The conditions underwhich self-reports of psychological states aremore versus less accurate need to be identified.Ericcson and Simon (1980) have described theconditions under which introspective reports aremost reliable. The evidence suggests that themore immediate and specific the informationrequested, the more accurately the respondentis able to introspect and, thus, to report the in-formation accurately. It is usually difficult forrespondents to formulate broad abstractionsabout themselves, especially personality traitsor broad values. It is even harder for them toformulate accurate and comprehensive state-ments about the causes of their own and others’actions. A major reason Herzberg used his men-tor Flanagan’s (1954) critical incident techniqueto collect data was to avoid the problems asso-ciated with asking people to introspect in orderto answer such abstract questions. Rather, heused very specific questions, such as the follow-ing: “Tell me a time when you were very satis-


fied with your job.” “What were the events andconditions that led up to it?” What is still neededis the discovery of how to get from such specificquestions to accurate, broad abstractions suchas overall job satisfaction ratings.

Developing structured interviews might yieldmore accurate data than using questionnaires.The investigator could check with the respon-dents as to how they are interpreting the ques-tions and could help them to introspect and,therefore, increase the accuracy of the answers.Studies are also needed to compare the validityof measurements conducted by well-designedinterviews versus those obtained by question-naires.

(3) Understanding the effects of attitudes. Howdo people act when they like or dislike theirjobs? Through introspection, we can see at oncethat there are many different things that we doand can do when we experience these feelings.Through introspection, we know that high or lowproductivity is far from a fixed response to suchattitudes. This leads to asking ourselves addi-tional questions: How do we decide what to do?How do we choose from among alternatives?Through introspection, many factors that influ-ence choices, including internal values and or-ganizational circumstances, can be identified.Once we have these answers as starting points,other people can be questioned to see if theygive similar answers to the same questions.Such a process might have enabled us to avoiddecades of torturous efforts to resolve the satis-faction-performance issue solely by means ofstatistical techniques. Rather than continue tolook for correlations between satisfaction andproductivity, we might use introspection to pointto a variety of decision-making processes in-volved in getting from satisfaction to perfor-mance, and vice versa, that then could be studiedsystematically. This would enable researchers tolook at the psychological processes that mediatesuch effects, as well as the various causal pathsand the directions of causal influence. Relevantmeasurements of the key variables could then bedeveloped.

(4) Learning how managers formulate and ap-ply principles. The first author has argued thatmanagement should be taught in terms of prin-ciples (general truths) rather than specific theo-ries (Locke, 2002) and has asked various expertsin the field to identify core principles in OB andHR (Latham, 2000; Locke, 2000a). There is evi-

dence that organizational leaders actually man-age using principles (Locke, 2002). But we knowvery little about how managers formulate,adapt, apply, and orchestrate principles in agiven organizational context. To study this, weneed to gain knowledge about how managersactually think. In organizational settings, manydecisions must be dealt with quickly, and mostprinciples have to be adapted by managers to aspecific context, since each organization is, insome way, unique. Management strategy, sys-tems, and procedures have to be orchestrated sothat they work in harmony. Introspection withhighly effective and ineffective leaders mightreveal (1) what principles they use, (2) how theydiscovered them, (3) how they orchestrate them,(4) and how they implement what they advo-cate—that is, “practice what they preach.”

(5) Understanding self-motivation. We know agood deal about what organizations and theirleaders do to motivate people, but we know lessabout what people do to motivate themselves atwork. Discovery of what people do to regulatetheir own actions may be discovered throughhaving them introspect. Since motivation meansthe motivation to do something, introspectioncan be used to ascertain how people energizethemselves to undertake and persist working atspecific tasks, especially tasks in which (1) theyexperience various types of conflict both withinthemselves and between themselves and others,(2) they experience initial failure or goal frustra-tion, and (3) there are both short- and long-termgoals that require consideration. Introspectioncan also shed light on what people do to getthemselves committed to tasks. Functional self-talk (Meichenbaum, 1977; Millman & Latham,2001), self-induced optimism, and efficacy build-ing may be critical factors. New discoveriesabout how people motivate themselves may beused by organizations, including trainers, to mo-tivate employees, in the same way that studiesin clinical psychology have been used to helppeople motivate themselves at work (e.g., seeFrayne & Latham, 1987, and Latham & Frayne,1989).

(6) Understanding the relationship betweenmotivation and knowledge. In most studies ofmotivation, researchers attempt to hold cogni-tion (knowledge) constant so as not to confoundtheir separate effects on performance. But, inreality, they always go together. Thus, we needto learn about how each affects the other.


Through the use of introspection by leaders andemployees, one aspect of the knowledge issue inorganizations can be broken down into whatmotivates (1) knowledge discovery, (2) knowl-edge sharing, and (3) knowledge utilizationwhen making decisions or taking action. It maybe that somewhat different motivational princi-ples govern each. To give an oversimplified ex-ample, knowledge discovery may be motivatedmainly by love of discovery and personal pas-sion for one’s work (Amabile, 2000), knowledgesharing may be affected by team- or organiza-tional-level incentives and leadership (as wasdone by Jack Welch at GE), and knowledge uti-lization may be affected by assigning goals thatcan best (or only) be attained by using theknowledge that is provided (Earley & Perry,1987).

On the other side of this coin, we need todiscover how knowledge affects motivation. Weknow that knowledge of one’s personal capabil-ities (self-efficacy) has potent effects on task mo-tivation (Bandura, 1997). But what about othertypes of knowledge? There is a long history ofthe study of the effects of participation in deci-sion making—that is, consulting subordinatesabout their ideas—on employee motivation, butthe effects have been shown not to be as pow-erful as was originally believed (Locke, Alavi, &Wagner, 1997). However, there are many otherways in which knowledge could have motiva-tional effects. Answers to questions such as thefollowing are needed: Are leaders more stronglyself-motivated after they have formulated aclear vision of what their organization should beand what strategies will make it successful? Arefollowers more motivated when they hear such avision explained and consider it sound? Howdoes the discovery by employees that a leader islacking in moral character, or the discovery thatthe leader is lacking in key task knowledge,affect their motivation? How does the discoverythat one’s company is doing badly financiallyaffect motivation?

Recommendation 6: Acknowledge therole of volition on human action whenformulating theories.

Everyone can validate by introspection thatthey have the power to make choices not prede-termined by antecedent conditions (Binswanger,1991). The concept of psychological determin-ism—the doctrine that all one’s thoughts and

actions are controlled solely by antecedent fac-tors—is self-contradictory in that it makes aclaim of knowledge based on a theory thatmakes knowledge, as distinguished from arbi-trary word sounds, impossible. Free will is anaxiom; it consists of the choice to think or not tothink, to raise one’s level of focus to the concep-tual level or let it drift passively at the level ofsensory perception (Binswanger, 1991).

Thus, it is important not to view the causes ofaction as fully determined by circumstances orby predetermined ways of processing. In his ex-pectancy theory, Vroom (1964), for example, ar-gued that people will multiply expectancy byinstrumentality by valence (Force � ExIxV)when choosing among alternatives. This theoryimplies determinism, since it is argued that peo-ple are constructed to be satisfaction maximiz-ers, yet, in fact, people are usually not maximiz-ers of anything (Simon, 1976), nor do they have tomultiply ExIxV when deciding what to do. E, I,and V are only factors that they may choose toconsider, and they may choose to weight thethree components in different ways, or even toignore one or more of them. Furthermore, peoplemay treat negative and positive outcomes dif-ferently and, thus, may consider a variety ofdifferent time spans and outcomes when consid-ering their choices. Many people make choicesevery day with little or no thought—based onthe emotions of the moment, for example.

Similarly, Beach’s (1990) image theory statesthat people make decisions using a specific pro-cess (e.g., value images, trajectory images, stra-tegic images, etc.). However, people do not haveto use this process; there are many processesthey can use, including mindlessly followingwhat others say or, as noted above, followingtheir emotions.

Descriptive studies based on introspectionwould doubtless uncover an enormous varietyin how people make decisions about numerousissues. Normative theories should be built byfirst discovering what people actually do andthen seeing what types of processes lead to theoptimum outcomes. The optimal processes mayvery well be task or domain specific.

Theories of employee motivation should becontingent—namely, if the person chooses to fol-low processes a and b, then the outcomes willroutinely be better than if the person choosesprocesses c or d. Similarly, if people reach con-clusion “a” from “b,” then they are most likely to


do “c,” but if they reach conclusion “d,” they aremost likely to do “e.” Consistent with this idea,goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990, 2002)states that if people try for specific, hard goals,then they will, given certain moderating condi-tions such as feedback, knowledge, and commit-ment, perform better than when they have vagueand/or easy goals. Similarly contingent predic-tions can be found in social-cognitive theory(Bandura, 1986).

This is not to deny that people can be influ-enced by external factors, but the connectionsare not mechanical. Thus, predictions should bemade conditionally. In other words, the effects ofthe environment depend on what people attendto and what conclusions they draw from theexperiences they have and the situations theyencounter (Bandura, 1986). Recall that, in thefield of organization theory, it was initially hy-pothesized that technology determines organi-zational structure. Programmatic research test-ing this hypothesis was not very successful,however, because human choice and imagina-tion were not taken into account (Miner, 2002).

The same caveat applies to internal factors.For example, the best known psychological pre-dictor of quitting a job is the intention to quit,but often this intention is not carried out—thereasons for which have not been studied. Peoplewho have an intent must still choose to act on it,and for many reasons they may not do so. Sim-ilarly, people who claim to be committed to theirgoals may not act to achieve them. Additionalstudies are needed to understand the choicespeople make after formulating intentions orcommitting themselves to a goal. Volition doesnot destroy the possibility of a psychologicalscience, but it does mean that predictions mustbe conditional (Binswanger, 1991). The relevantconditions pertain to the individual’s psychol-ogy, both conscious and subconscious.

CONCLUSION

The purpose of this article has been to arguethat, in order to progress further, work motiva-tion needs to be studied from new perspectives.Many topics have yet to be sufficiently studied,and certain methods have been underutilized.The six recommendations in this paper by nomeans exhaust the possibilities for new direc-tions for research on motivation.

For example, we also need to study topicssuch as time perspective— how employees,managers, and leaders consider and integrateshort- versus long-term considerations or out-comes—a topic not addressed in the AMR (Oc-tober 2001) special issue on time. The issue oftime perspective is important at both the indi-vidual and organizational levels. Individualsand organizations have to survive in the shortterm; otherwise, there is no long term. But focus-ing only on “today,” without regard for long-termconsequences—whether these consequencesare the result of failing to upgrade one’s jobskills or failing to fund R&D—can be disastrous.We need to know much more about how peoplebalance short- and long-term considerationswhen making decisions.

A second issue, related to time perspective, isthat of how people and organizational leadersprioritize their goals and values and the conse-quences of different types of priorities. Everydecision one makes is a choice between alter-natives; the decision to do x today may mean theneed to postpone y until another time. We knowvery little about how employees and organiza-tional leaders actually do this, and even lessabout what makes some people better at it, interms of positive decision outcomes, than others.

A third issue that needs to be addressed in thefield of work motivation is that of definitions.Locke (2003) has noted elsewhere that research-ers tend to be careless about how—and wheth-er—they define their terms. Even the term moti-vation is not always used clearly. For example,in the OB literature and I/O psychology litera-ture, the term may refer to either job satisfactionor the motivation to perform, even though satis-faction versus choice, effort, and persistence arenot the same phenomena, do not necessarilyhave the same causes or effects, and may notaffect one another. At other times, key conceptsare not defined at all. Whole books or chaptershave been written on the subjects of emotions orjustice or stress, without these terms being de-fined. When definitions are provided, they maybe riddled with excess verbiage or nonessen-tials. Sometimes definitions are not justifiable,as when inanimate objects such as work equip-ment are claimed to possess efficacy, which is apsychological experience. The failure to defineterms in a clear and valid way stifles cognitiveclarity and, therefore, progress in the field ofwork motivation. A good project for someone


would be to develop a glossary of valid defini-tions of motivational concepts.

The use of clinical approaches and introspec-tion could be very useful in identifying the fac-tors that make for effective balancing of short-and long-term considerations and effectiveprioritizing and in enabling investigators to for-mulate valid definitions. Of course, many addi-tional topics in work motivation can be studied.There is no limit to the number of new ideas thatcan be explored. New discoveries are simply amatter of the researcher’s creative imaginationand passionate love of the work (Amabile, 2000).

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Edwin A. Locke is Dean’s Professor of Leadership and Motivation (Emeritus) at the R. H.Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a fellow ofAPA, APS, and the Academy of Management. He is internationally known for hisresearch and writings on work motivation, leadership, and related topics, includingthe application of objectivism to psychology and management. He is a senior writerfor the Ayn Rand Institute.

Gary P. Latham is the Secretary of State Professor of Organizational Effectiveness atthe Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto; a past presidentof the Canadian Psychological Association; and a fellow of the Academy of Manage-ment, APA, APS, CPA, and the Royal Society of Canada. His research interests includeemployee motivation, performance management, self-management, training, andselection.


WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT MOTIVATION THEORY? SIX RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

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