Organizational construction of intrinsic motivation

Abstract

Some psychological theorists claim that the worker's level of intrinsic motivation or alienation stems from the meeting between universal drives and personality characteristics and the material attributes of job tasks. Social theorists—focusing on organizational socialization and cultural practices—emphasize the firm's capacity to manipulate the meaning of a task independent of its material qualities. This social construction of a task's meaning may shape the intrinsic rewards a worker associates with it. Little empirical evidence exists that clarifies the conditions under which the psychological or the social model holds, particularly the conditions under which socialization practices within the firm can shape the worker's level of intrinsic motivation associated with specific tasks. We argue that the intrinsic value associated with a task is determined by its centrality to and fit with the organization's normative social and technical structure. Based on a study of eighty-four staff members within a bureaucratic organization we found that workers perceived high levels of intrinsic value for tightly controlled and routine tasks when the firm's rationalized methods of organizing were seen as legitimate. This interaction operated independently of the direct (usually negative) influence of task control on intrinsic value. A contingency model of intrinsic motivation is proposed, taking into account both the material structure of a work task and its fit with the firm's social and technical structure. Here the perceived legitimacy of the organization's structure conditions whether tightly controlled and routine tasks are viewed as alienating or as intrinsically motivating.