Publications

Educators

2015
Chapter

How Leaders Use Values-based Guidance Systems to Create Dynamic Capabilities

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Matthew Bird, Ethan Bernstein and Ryan Raffaelli

How do strategic leaders create change-adept organizations? Based on qualitative field research, this chapter argues that well-defined institutionalized purpose, values, and principles act as an organizational guidance system that integrates and strengthens the... View Details

Keywords: Dynamic Capabilities; Field Research; Intrinsic Motivation; Organizational Identity; Ecosystem; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Motivation and Incentives; Research; Management Systems; Change

fall 1997
Article

Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do

By: T. M. Amabile

Creativity in all fields, including business, flourishes under intrinsic motivation- the drive to do something because it is interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging. This article presents the Componential Theory of Organizational... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Situation or Environment; Organizational Culture

26 Feb 2019
Blog Post

Forget Cash. Here Are Better Ways to Motivate Employees

productivity levels. But money is less meaningful as a motivator in the complex creative jobs that make up most work in our modern knowledge-based society. “With most of today’s employees, you’re trying to help instill View Details

Keywords: All Industries

28 Jan 2019
Research & Ideas

Forget Cash. Here Are Better Ways to Motivate Employees

productivity levels. But money is less meaningful as a motivator in the complex creative jobs that make up most work in our modern knowledge-based society. “With most of today’s employees, you’re trying to help instill View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

1995
Article

The Positive Impact of Creative Activity: Effects of Creative Task Engagement and Motivational Focus on College Student's Learning

By: R. Conti, T. M. Amabile and S. Pollack

This study assessed the effectiveness of engaging students in a creative activity on a topic as a means of encouraging an active cognitive set toward learning that topic area. This technique was examined in three motivational contexts. Before reading a short... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Cognition and Thinking; Behavior; Performance; Motivation and Incentives; Training

March 2020 (Revised October 2020)
Module Note

Sales Force Compensation

By: Doug J. Chung

The author developed this note for scholars, educators, and practitioners that are interested in sales force compensation. It is based on the author’s investigations across a variety of organizations in multiple industries and provides a conceptual framework for the... View Details

Keywords: Sales Strategy; Sales Force Management; Sales Compensation; Salary; Commissions; Bonuses; Quota Setting/updating; Quota Frequency; Extrinsic Vs Intrinsic Motivation; Salesforce Management; Compensation and Benefits; Strategy

June 2018
Article

The Power of Workplace Rewards: Using Self-Determination Theory to Understand Why Reward Satisfaction Matters for Workers Around the World

By: Anais Thibault Landry and A.V. Whillans

How can workplace rewards promote employee well-being and engagement? To answer these questions, we utilized self-determination theory to examine whether reward satisfaction predicted employee well-being, job satisfaction, intrinsic motivation, and affective... View Details

Keywords: Workplace; Rewards; Motivation; Employees; Satisfaction; Motivation and Incentives; Welfare

Research Summary

Overview

I am interested in the individual experience of learning in organizational settings, particularly how employees learn to learn from the challenging work they do. I am currently researching the role of reflection for raising awareness of learning opportunities that... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Learning And Development; Learning Organizations; Intrinsic Motivation; Reflection; Goal Setting; Performance Measurement; Innovation; Job Design; Biotechnology Industry; Consulting Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

July 1989
Article

Immunizing Children Against the Negative Effects of Reward

By: B. A. Hennessey, T. M. Amabile and M. Martinage

Two studies were conducted to examine the effect of intrinsic motivation training on children's subsequent motivational orientation and creativity in an expected reward situation. Past research has demonstrated the overjustification effect: Children who work on an... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Training; Early Childhood Education; Learning; Teaching

2006
Working Paper

Too Motivated?

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

I show that an agent's motivation to do well (objectively) may be unambiguously bad in a world with differing priors, i.e., when people openly disagree on the optimal course of action. The reason is that an agent who is strongly motivated is more likely to follow... View Details

Keywords: Governance Controls; Employees; Wages; Measurement and Metrics; Outcome or Result; Performance; Agency Theory; Motivation and Incentives

SSRN

November 2016 (Revised December 2016)
Module Note

Strategy Execution Module 12: Aligning Performance Goals and Incentives

By: Robert Simons

This module reading explains how managers use performance goals and incentives to ensure that employee actions align with the overall business strategy of the organization. The module begins by discussing how managers use goals to communicate business strategy, the... View Details

Keywords: Management Control Systems; Implementing Strategy; Execution; Performance Goals; Performance Measures; Incentives; Benchmarks; Motivation; Compensation; Bonuses; Strategy

22 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Componential Theory of Creativity

Keywords: by Teresa M. Amabile

1998
Article

Looking Inside the Fishbowl of Creativity: Verbal and Behavioral Predictors of Creative Performance

By: J. Ruscio, D. M. Whitney and T. M. Amabile

This study set out to identify specific task behaviors that predict observable product creativity in three domains and to identify which of those behaviors mediate the well-established link between intrinsic motivation and creativity. One-hundred fifty-one... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Cognition and Thinking; Behavior

April 2005 (Revised May 2005)
Case

New England Patriots, The: Making the Team

Examines the organizational strategy of a professional football team that contributed to the team's sustained success. Considers several aspects of the team's "blueprint" with respect to players: recruitment, retention, task structure, training, culture, and... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Groups and Teams; Sports; Compensation and Benefits; Sports Industry; New England

Educators

Article

Valuing Time Over Money Predicts Happiness After a Major Life Transition: A Preregistered Longitudinal Study of Graduating Students

By: A.V. Whillans, Lucia Macchia and Elizabeth Dunn

How does prioritizing time or money shape major life decisions and subsequent well-being? In a preregistered longitudinal study of approximately 1000 graduating university students, respondents who valued time over money chose more intrinsically rewarding activities... View Details

Keywords: Time Use; Trade-offs; Career Decisions; Time Management; Money; Happiness; Values and Beliefs; Personal Development and Career

2025
Working Paper

Better Keep the Twenty Dollars: Incentivizing Innovation in Open Source

By: Annamaria Conti, Vansh Gupta, Jorge Guzman and Maria P. Roche

Open source is key to innovation yet is assumed to be done largely through intrinsic motivation. How can we incentivize it? In this paper, we examine the impact of a program providing monetary incentives to motivate innovators to contribute to open source. The Sponsors... View Details

Keywords: Open Source; Innovation; Incentives; Financial Rewards; Crowding Out; Open Source Distribution; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives; Technology Industry

December 2017
Article

Discordant vs. Harmonious Selves: The Effects of Identity Conflict and Enhancement on Sales Performance in Employee-Customer Interactions

By: Lakshmi Ramarajan, Nancy Rothbard and Steffanie Wilk

Across multiple studies, we examine how identity conflict and enhancement within people affect performance in tasks that involve interactions between people through two mechanisms: role-immersion, operationalized as intrinsic motivation, and role-taking,... View Details

Keywords: Identity; Interpersonal Communication; Sales; Performance

September 2004
Article

Trust in Agency

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell

Existing models of the principal-agent relationship assume the agent works only under extrinsic incentives. However, many observed agency contracts take the form of a fixed payment. For such contracts to succeed, the principal must trust the agent to work in the... View Details

Keywords: Trust; Agency Theory; Relationships; Behavior; Motivation and Incentives; Contracts; Business Model; Emotions; Forecasting and Prediction; Ethics; Standards; Risk and Uncertainty

May 2009
Article

Authority versus Persuasion

By: Eric J. Van den Steen

This paper studies a manager's trade-off between using persuasion and using interpersonal authority to get an employee to 'do the right thing' from the manager's perspective (when the manager and employee disagree on the right course of action). It... View Details

Keywords: Employee Relationship Management; Managerial Roles; Projects; Motivation and Incentives; Power and Influence