Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in the workplace

 


Motivated employees tend to take initiative, solve problems by developing creative solutions and even inspire coworkers to give best performance (Manzoor, 2011). However, Mat et al (2016) highlights that not everyone is driven by goals, thus organizations create strategies to keep employees on track to achieve organizational goals. Motivation is driven by two types; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Oudeyer and Kaplan (2007) explains that, Intrinsic motivation is an activity that is carried out for its own intrinsic enjoyment rather than for a separate benefit. Intrinsic motivation gives employees a sense of accomplishment when performing an activity (Legault, 2016) and it is also defined as motivation by work (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).

Intrinsic motivation comes from within an individual (Chukwuma and Okafor, 2014), when employees engage in a behavior which find rewarding from their work-related activities (Shkoler and Kimura, 2020).

For an example, if an employee is more passionate on doing things what loved or admired and passionate about the career. Similarly, when employee finally complete a project on reducing plastic waste or producing clean fuel and reflect on their hard work and commitment given to the organization.

On the other hand, Extrinsic motivation is coming from external sources when employee’s behavior is essentially dependent upon achieving a result that is independent of the activity itself (Legault, 2016). Mat et al (2016) shows that, extrinsic motivation can be delivered by organizations either by reward and recognition or punishment.

For instance, if employees staying late at work to get overtime pay or earning a professional qualification in order to get a promotion and advance in the career ladder. Moreover, employee participating in an annual intercompany cricket tournament or any other sports event held by company to win cash prizes and awards.

Rynes et al (2004) explains that, extrinsic motivation is taken by management on rewards and recognition factors which are short term, whilst Intrinsic motivation leads to more effective on long-term to achieve goals in a way that feels accomplished in the workplace (Shkoler and Kimura, 2020).


Video 1: Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation Explained
Source: (Learn my test, 2019)

Wrong execution of extrinsic motivation can demotivate the employee, ultimately employees will not be committed to work for the organization. Nevertheless, Rynes et al (2004) and Manzoor (2011) explains the inverse conclusion where employees will be only work for exemption basis which is pay and rewards.

Therefore, it is vigilant to keep the balance between both motivation types propositional in order to attain employee commitment to achieve organizational goals and objectives.     

 

Reference List

 

Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan Page.

Chukwuma, E. and Okafor, O., 2014. Effect of Motivation on Employee Productivity: A Study of Manufacturing Companies in Nnewi. International Journal of Managerial Studies and Research, [online] Vol.2, No.7, pp.137-147. Available at: <https://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijmsr/v2-i7/14.pdf> [Accessed 30 July 2022].

Learn my test, 2019. Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation Explained. [Online Video]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyr7wg9s7gM&t=69s. [Accessed: 4 August 2022].

Legault, L., 2016. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, [online] pp.1-4. Available at: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311692691_Intrinsic_and_Extrinsic_Motivation> [Accessed 4 August 2022].

Manzoor, Q., 2011. Impact of Employees Motivation on Organizational Effectiveness. European Journal of Business and Management, [online] Vol.3, No.3, pp.36-44. Available at: <https://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/EJBM/article/view/265/150> [Accessed 30 July 2022].

Mat, S., Case, K., Mohomaddan, S. and Goh, Y., 2016. Motivation and learning in manufacturing industries. Advances in Manufacturing Technology XXX, [online] Vol.3, pp.225 - 230. Available at: <https://ebooks.iospress.nl/publication/44350> [Accessed 30 July 2022].

Oudeyer, P. and Kaplan, F., 2007. What is intrinsic motivation? A typology of computational approaches. Frontiers in Neurorobotics, [online] Vol.1, No.6, pp.1-4. Available at: <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/neuro.12.006.2007/full> [Accessed 4 August 2022].

Rynes, S., Gerhart, B. and Minette, K., 2004. The importance of pay in employee motivation: Discrepancies between what people say and what they do. Human Resource Management, [online] Vol.43, No.4, pp.381-394. Available at: <https://download.clib.psu.ac.th/datawebclib/e_resource/trial_database/WileyInterScienceCD/pdf/HRM/HRM_2.pdf> [Accessed 3 August 2022].

Shkoler, O. and Kimura, T., 2020. How Does Work Motivation Impact Employees’ Investment at Work and Their Job Engagement? A Moderated-Moderation Perspective Through an International Lens. Frontiers in Psychology, [online] Vol.11, pp.1-3. Available at: <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00038/full> [Accessed 4 August 2022].

 

 


Comments

  1. As noted by Mc Cornick and Tiffin (2007), who also noted that motivation can be either extrinsic or intrinsic, providing esteem needs for the employees by the organization is one of the intrinsic motivations related to Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1987, p. 69), and providing appropriate recognition, rewards, training programs, and carrying out self-motivation programs like leadership training programs can increase the levels of intrinsic motivation, employee productivity, and organizational performance more than expected.

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    1. I totally agree with your statement. Development of Intrinsic motivation of the employees plays an important role for an organization in terms of keep up with the industrial competition (Chukwuma and Okafor, 2014).

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. It has mentioned that, not every employees are fully engaged, thus extrinsic motivation is needed to keep up employees (Mat et al, 2016). However, extrinsic motivation are short term beneficial in nature (Rynes et al , 2004). Intrinsically motivated employees are more likely to perform well within an organization and effective for the company in the long run (Shkoler and Kimura, 2020).

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  3. According to the current psychological studies, it is stated that extrinsic motivation subverts intrinsic motivation and certain types of extrinsic motivation can combine with intrinsic motivation, particularly when initial levels of intrinsic motivation are high. When there is good synergy between these levels of motivation it affects employee satisfaction and performance positively which directly affects the organisational growth (Teresa M,2022).

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    1. Agree on the fact that has brought up. it is vigilant to keep the balance between both motivation types propositional in order to attain employee commitment in achieving organizational goals and objectives.(Legault, 2016)

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  4. Organizations can implement both Intrinsic and extrinsic reward systems. Intrinsic rewards actually motivates the employee towards work, while Extrinsic rewards fulfills employees desires such as pay rises, bonuses, paid leaves which could reduce the employee retention. (Munir,2016)

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    1. Mat et al (2016), express that not everyone is driven by goals, thus organizations create strategies to keep employees on track to achieve organizational goals. Therefore, it is important keep up a balance between both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards (Legault ,2016),

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  5. I agree with your explanation of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation at work. At the same time, your statement about extrinsic motivation in the workplace. At the same time, your statement, "Wrong execution of extrinsic motivation can demotivate the employee; eventually, employees will not be committed to working for the organization," is correct. Nonetheless, Rynes et al. (2004) and Manzoor (2011) explain the inverse conclusion, in which employees will only work for an exemption basis, i.e. pay and rewards. As a result, as you stated, it is prudent to maintain a balance between both types of motivation in order to achieve employee commitment to achieving organizational goals and objectives in a proper manner.

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    1. Thank you for the comment Kalpani. Fisher et al (2016), explained that the greater the perceived possibility of earning relational incentives and the stronger the intrinsic desire, the more beneficial the influence on creative/innovative results.

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