Abstract
Abstract: We examine the volitional, non-rational nature of motivation and its impact on symbolic production at work. Based on a ethnographic study on a Brazilian special police force we argue that institutional stability and stable symbolic frames of references have long been taken for granted in studies of motivation, thus leaving aside the role of aesthetical demand in producing active symbolic elaboration at work. Unstable institutional frames of reference are relevant to understand the efforts of internal integration, identity building and relations of alterity at work. In this sense, this article has the main objective of contributing to the studies on intrinsic motivation within organizations.
Highlights
Motivation is an enduring and challenging research topic in organizational studies
: “the captive has no one else to count on. We are their last resort.”; “Because if we give up, the city will fall”; “because if we dont do it, soon we will all be on our knees to crime”. What produces this sense of duty and its acceptance? We are conscious of the fact that this is an extremely complex issue that does not fit the limits of one academic article, so that with this article we propose to examine one specific element that has been puzzling us since the beginning of the longitudinal study, back in 2011: an exceptional motivation and the observable effort to continuously enhance operational discipline through individual and organizational development, especially making use of an active symbolic production
Controlled and stopped for the chaos and violence they produced, but somehow saved, from the wrong choice for “the other side” and their position in society, from their double position of producer and victim of violence and exclusion. This duality, present both in the need for the use of force and the need to control aggressiveness, is expressed in the symbol of the Critical Action Organization (CAO), the knife on the skull, that differentiates the members of a police special troop from an army, the first dealing with a member of their own society, who should be brought to justice and to the domain of law, and the second trained to deal with the complete “other”, the enemy, who demand other energy, has other relation of identity and alterity
Summary
Motivation is an enduring and challenging research topic in organizational studies. Recent changes in the nature of work and workforce has increased the need for new knowledge on the subject (KANFER, FRESE and JOHNSON, 2017). This duality, present both in the need for the use of force and the need to control aggressiveness, is expressed in the symbol of the CAO, the knife on the skull, that differentiates the members of a police special troop from an army, the first dealing with a member of their own society, who should be brought to justice and to the domain of law, and the second trained to deal with the complete “other”, the enemy, who demand other energy, has other relation of identity and alterity This duality of the police work, dealing with members of ones own society, which needs to be both controlled and protected, a unit created for law enforcement dealing with the expansion of violent crime, explains much of the challenges and effort of symbolic production observed in this study. An idea present in Aristoteles (2001), who describes man as a political being, inclined to belong to the polis, and to participate in its institutions, unconsciously reflecting the survival of ancient understanding of the nature of civil society in today’s world (BELLAH and JOAS, 2012)
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