Introduction
Intrinsic motivation plays an important role for individuals’ work performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine how intrinsic motivation is important for careers. The author will discuss about the conceptualization of intrinsic motivation, discuss why it is important and discuss the difference with extrinsic motivation. Besides that, the author will discuss the consequence of the concept of intrinsic motivation and discuss the factors that could influence intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation refers to individuals’ conduct that is driven by internal rewards (Cherry, 2016). Individuals are intrinsically motivated when they perform an activity for no apparent reward except the activity itself (Deci, 1972). The motivation to engage in an action arises from the individuals themselves because it is intrinsically rewarding and it gives a sense of enjoyment. In contrasts with extrinsic motivation, that involves engaging in a behavior to gain external rewards or to avoid sanctions. These rewards are important because it creates positive emotions within the individual. It gives individuals a sense of meaning, progress or competence. Experts argued that individuals are more creative when they are intrinsically motivated. They argued that productivity can be improved using extrinsic rewards (bonuses), but the actual quality of work performed is driven by intrinsic factors. Individuals that find the work performed rewarding, challenging and interesting, individuals are more likely to come up with new ideas and creative solutions (Ryan & Delci, 2000). When extrinsic motivation rises, intrinsic motivation fall as individuals start to look for external rewards rather than working for personal satisfaction. As a result, there should be a combination of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, individuals should be able to motivate from within to achieve the feeling of self-accomplishment from a task or goal. However, some people are not intrinsically motivated for some activities and not everyone is intrinsically motivated for certain task (Ryan et al., 2000). Moreover, rewards such as awards, pay, bonuses, prices weaken intrinsic motivation (Deci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999). Deci et al claimed that rewards lessen perceived autonomy, resulting to reduced in intrinsic motivation. Any events that decrease perceived competence or self-determination lessen intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, they argued that rewards for intrinsically motivating activities, weakens intrinsic motivation. However, according to Eisenberger, Pierce and Cameron (1999), rewards help to increase intrinsic motivation when they convey tasks performance that help them to satisfy their needs and wants. On the other hand, reward lessen intrinsic motivation when they communicate the tasks being irrelevant to their needs and wants. They argued that rewards would influence intrinsic motivation primarily by their symbolic function, relying on how a task must be done to obtain a reward. Reward then would increase or decrease the importance and perception of being competent and the identification with the judgment of the task giver’s regarding the importance of the task (Jovanovic & Matejevic, 2014).
Four key rewards to increase intrinsic motivation
1) Sense of choice: Individuals feel free to choose how to complete their work. They will choose the best way to accomplish their work and perform them effectively. Individuals feel the ownership of their work and believe in the way to accomplish tasks, therefore they feel more responsible for making it work and increase motivation.
2) Sense of competence: Individuals feel that they are handling their tasks well and that their performance meets or exceeds their personal standards, and believe that they’re doing a high quality work. Individuals feel a sense of pride and satisfaction, thus increase motivation.
3) Sense of meaningfulness: Individuals feel that they have the opportunity to accomplish something that matters in the long run. They feel that they’re on the path that is worth their time and energy, and this will give individuals a strong sense of direction or purpose and keep them motivated.
4) Sense of progress: Individuals believe that their efforts are really achieving something. Individuals feel that their work is on track and moving in a right path. Individuals see convincing result that things are working out. This gives confidence to individuals in choices that they’ve made and confidence in the future (Thomas, 2009)
Intrinsic Motivation and Career
Spreitzer (1995) stated that intrinsic motivation is the main motivational or psychological element of employees’ empowerment. Moreover, Manz (1991) argued that intrinsic motivation allows employees to result in self-leading or self-managing. According to Hall and Moss (1998), development is self directed, they claimed that pursuing a career involves personal responsibility, self awareness and high level of self knowledge. Individuals should be self-correcting in order to adapt to changing demands from their environment without waiting for development and training from the organization. King (2004) stated that self-management can result in career success. He argued that individuals will benefit from being intrinsically motivated in managing their own career. Individuals are motivated by career identity, insight and resilience. While extrinsic motivation provided by the organization is useful to influence individuals’ behavior, individuals are primarily responsible themselves to reach career success. According to Schein’s (1978,1990) career motivation is directed by individuals personal understanding of its own abilities, values and needs and that making consistent choices with this understanding will help individuals to a more fulfilling and satisfying career.
Intrinsic motivation refers to positive valued experiences that an individual gets directly from doing their tasks (Thomas and Tymon, 1997). This will result in individual excitement, they will feel involved, committed and energized about their work. Intrinsic motivation gives passion and positive feelings from their work and these feelings energize and boost employees’ self management efforts, and making work personally satisfying. In other words, individuals feel a sense of meaningfulness that occur when individuals are progressing on a path that they think is worth their energy and time (Quigley & Tymon, 2006). The feeling progress includes an individual’s sense that the task is moving forward and the activities are accomplishing something. Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, may work to trigger intrinsic motivation and guide individuals to self manage their own careers. For example, gain higher salaries and promotions serve as extrinsic motivation and this will encourage individuals to self-manage their own careers.
People that have more positive global assessments and interpretive styles will be more likely to believe that taking individual initiative will have positive results (Quigley et al., 2006). They’ll be more likely to feel positive and confident about their interactions with others, which would result to interpersonal facilitation. Global assessments and interpretive styles will influence intrinsic motivation in regards to career self-management through their impact on individual initiative and interpersonal facilitation. Both individual initiative and interpersonal facilitation influence intrinsic motivation in respect to career self management in several ways. For example, individual initiative might facilitate and understanding of one’s career anchors, which would be in line with an increased understanding of one’s own passion and values and would guide career choices.
When people experience choice, meaningfulness, competence and progress in their work, they believe that work as being intrinsically rewarding as well as motivating (Thomas et al., 1997). In this sense, the work itself is its own reward, contributing to a sense of personal growth and fulfillment. When individuals are empowered, they will benefit from being intrinsically motivated to organize their own career. Intrinsic motivation is not the only form of motivation, but it is a pervasive and important one. Humans in their healthiest states, are inquisitive, active, curious, and playful creatures, displaying a sense of readiness to explore and explore, and they do not necessitate extraneous incentives to do so. This natural motivational propensity is a critical element in cognitive, social, and physical development because it’s through acting on one’s inherent interests that grows in skills and knowledge (Ryan et al., 2000). Therefore, it is important to be intrinsically motivated in regards to guide individuals’ career.
Conclusion
To conclude, intrinsic motivation is an important aspect in regards to career. Individuals have to be motivated within to produce high quality performance. Extrinsic motivation could motivate individuals to do a certain task, but the quality itself of performing those tasks are based on their intrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated individuals would result in personal creativity.