What a lively thread !
Kim Boal wrote:
> While they could not always articulate what their own theory of motivation
> was,
> as I observed their behavior, it seemed to me that I could recognize ....
That's the problem with purist behaviorist theory and practice - I so agree
with Dr. Boal that the different approaches to the subject provide a gestalt,
if you will, of understandings on person-centred motivation - but if we can't
interpret specific artifacts or acts (behavior) within frames that we
understand, according to prima facie behaviorist terms of reference, we can be
left wanting.
Consider attempting to understand the problem of the drop in performance
(motivation?) found in employees who have achieved a long-sought pay raise,
for example. Content and process theories might explain the phenomena, but
there are contextual issues (Pinder, 1984) like justice (Kanfer, 1990,
Hodgkinson, 1997), not to mention social (Vygotsky, 1982) and moral reasoning
contextual issues involving both cognitive and affective (attitude - Bagottzi,
1992) reasoning. Even power differences between members and leaders have been
studied as contextual analyses on the issue (Mitchell, 1991).
I wonder if anyone out there thinks that Argyris and subsequent fellows (Shon,
Schein, 199X) may add another dimension to the motivation issue. They claimed,
early on (1982) that basic incongruencies between the principles of the formal
organization and the individual tend to 'move' employees along that continuum
from not-motivated to motivated. Does the psychological contract concept add
anything to motivation thinking both in the field and in academe?
Great thread !
Gene.
__________________________________________________________________
Eugene G. Kowch, Ph.D. Candidate
SSHRC Doctoral Fellow, Educational Administration
Research Area: University Education Technology Leadership Architectures:
Policy Networks and Communities.
http://www.usask.ca/edadmin/genehome.html
"The world is richer than it is possible to express in any single language".
(Ilya Prigogine,1942)