Self-Determination Theory

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In management studies and among practitioners, employee motivation is considered as an important factor for organizations because of outcomes motivation produces (Deci & Ryan, 2000). A considerable number of studies, emphasizes that motivation is linked to several positive business outcomes such as increased employee productivity, employee well-being and thriving (Steers, Mowday, & Shapiro, 2004: cited by Van den Broeck et al., 2016), higher performance and retention of best employees (Whetten & Cameron, 2016). Furthermore, PWC (2015, p.4) highlighted that employees that are motivated do more quality work and are committed to staying at the organization over the long-term. Therefore, it can be argued that motivation is an essential concern…show more content…
Thus, within the discussion of employee motivation problem, self-determination theory (SDT) has offered a persuasive argument on what motivates employees. According to SDT, work effort is closely related to employee motivation. In short, employees putt effort in their job when they are motivated to do so. In contrast with self-determination assumptions, research evidence suggests that it is widely perceived that employee reward systems play a significant role in efforts to motivate and manage human resources better, which makes creating an efficient reward system one of the most important managerial tasks (Galetić, 2015). Furthermore, Sharot (2017) argues that in trying to motivate others usually, people promise rewards such as bonuses and promotion or punishments. Thus, Sharot (2017) concludes that in some studies rewards have a significant impact on employee…show more content…
The study noted that whereas cultures value transactional rewards, other cultures place greater emphasis on relational rewards. Consequently, in cross-cultural contexts there is no size fits all solution to motivate employees to perform higher. In summary, it can be implied that employee motivation depends on certain factors. Two main streams explain different factors that motivate employees. First, self-determination theory argument that basic psychological needs fulfilment is essential for employee motivation. Second, research findings that leadership style and the use of rewards can also encourage or diminish employee motivation. Therefore, within this theoretical background on employee motivation, the core problem this study attempts to address is what motivates employees across cultures. Is it basic psychological needs fulfilment, leadership style, rewards or are there other

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