EVENT: Psychology Colloquium: Julien Bureau and Joshua Howard: "Promoting identified motivation to reduce organizational deviance: The importance of autonomy" and "Profiles of Employee Motivation"

Presenter 1: Julien Bureau

Julien is a PhD student at Universite de Montreal in Montreal, Canada. He is a visiting research fellow at UWA supported by the Endeavour Research Fellowships programme from the Australian government. His research focuses on dishonesty and he is particularly interested in the reasons why employee engage in various dishonest behaviours.

Title: Promoting identified motivation to reduce organizational deviance: The importance of autonomy

ABSTRACT

In this presentation, I will present three studies showing a consistent link between work autonomy and counterproductive work behaviour. An explanative process of this relation will also be discussed. The three studies presented took place in a company in Canada, in different companies in Greece, and in a controlled environment at University of Montreal, respectively. Implications for organizations and employee autonomy are discussed.

Presenter 2: Joshua Howard

Joshua Howard is a second year PhD student in the School of Psychology, UWA, Researching in the field of Industrial/Organization Psychology. His main research interests include motivation in workplaces, employee commitment, organisational identification, and recent statistical advances which can be used to further our knowledge of how employees think and behave in workplaces.

Title: Profiles of Employee Motivation

ABSTRACT

This study demonstrates naturally occurring patterns of motivation interacting within individuals with the purpose of introducing a typology of SDT motivation profiles within the workplace domain. Latent Profile Analysis was applied to data from 1996 Canadian, French, Chinese and Belgian employees responding to the Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale ( Gagne et al., 2014). Five profiles were found to best represent employee motivation. Profile 1 (16%) was characterised by relatively high levels of amotivation and low levels of all other SDT regulations. Profile 2 (21%) scored moderately on all five regulations and relatively low on amotivation. The third profile (19%) was characterised by high scores on identified regulation and intrinsic motivation, and very low levels of both socially and materially focused external regulations. Profile 4 (n=407, 20%) consists of those employees who were very highly motivated across all regulations, excepting amotivation which was very low. Profile 5 (n=474, 24%) represents employees who report low levels of autonomous motivation (identified regulations and intrinsic motivation) and very high levels of external regulation. The results imply that employees endorse all types of motivation to some degree. As such, when using motivation to predict outcomes, a more holistic approach such as profile analysis will more accurately reflect employee's experiences than examining individual types of motivation. Specific profiles may more strongly predict outcomes of turnover and well-being, whereas others may favour productivity. No research to date has examined how multiple types of motivation are experienced simultaneously within individuals. The current study fills this gap by demonstrating the existence sub-populations distinguishable by motivation characteristics.