Les individus motivés sont-ils plus performants? : examen des liens entre la quantité et la qualité de la motivation au travail et la performance individuelle au travail
The topic of motivation at work in relation to employee performance has captivated the interest of theorists, researchers, practitioners and managers for close to a century. Keen interest in the study of these concepts has led to significant scientific advances that clarify practices. However, one notes that the popularity of this topic also presents certain challenges. In particular, the multitude of theories in this area is almost dizzying with their scattered knowledge and ambiguous results.  This thesis will first present a multi-theory meta-analysis conducted from field studies that examined the relationship between motivation at work and the performance of workers between 1985 and 2010. The results of this review indicate that, regardless of the motivational theory used, the strength and direction of the motivation-performance relationship are similar rather than different. Of the moderating variables examined, only the source of the measures was significant in indicating that the relationship between the variables of interest is stronger when the measures come from the same source – in our study they all proved to be self-reported – versus when collected from different sources.   Second, a laboratory study observed that motivation may change over a short period of time, less than 90 minutes, as per 3 measures of motivation used throughout the experiment. More specifically, the study of motivation by type and quantity, considering the time factor, indicates that intrinsic motivation increased while extrinsic motivation and amotivation decreased. This study, employing a multi-dimensional and dynamic perspective of motivation, as proposed by the framework of the theory of self-determination, shows that the evolution of all study participants’ motivation was similar regardless of their performance.  In addition to the advancement of knowledge in the field of motivation and performance at work, this thesis distinguishes itself in several respects. On one hand, it is the first multi-theory meta-analysis of motivation to be conducted. On the other hand, the laboratory study simultaneously examined the type and quantity of motivation using a repeated measures design while most studies focus on either the quantity or the type and often neglect to consider the time variable. In addition, this laboratory study was conducted from a high-potential activity with ecological validity, similar to a human resource candidate selection task. In summary, this thesis brings an interesting light both in terms of knowledge about the determining moderating variables involved in motivation-performance relationships, in terms of the rhythm of changes in types of motivation, and in terms of the optimal and complementary use of sophisticated research techniques. All recommendations for research and intervention ensuing from these two studies are presented in the conclusion.
motivation at work performance at work meta-analysis theory of self-determination