Free e-book · 82 pages
Why do people do what they do at work? A clear and rigorous guide to the seven theories that founded the study of human motivation, from Maslow to Hackman.
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About the book
This book grew out of César França’s doctoral research on the motivation of software engineers. To understand what makes the people who write software give their best, he had to go back to the foundations: the theories that, since the 1940s, have tried to explain why people commit, feel satisfied or give up.
The result is a concise and accessible reference, useful for students, researchers, managers and people professionals.
“Believe me, it was hard to elect only seven theories, among hundreds of other extremely interesting works.”
Every chapter follows the same structure
Who the researcher was and the context they worked in.
What problem the theory tried to solve and where it came from.
The constructs, the propositions and how they relate to each other.
Empirical tests, limitations and what came next.
The seven theories
Pick a theory to see its central idea, its key concepts and what the critics said.
Chapter 1 · Abraham Maslow
Human needs are arranged in a hierarchy: the most basic ones must be reasonably met before the higher ones gain strength.
What the critics say Hugely popular, but with little empirical support: studies never consistently confirmed the hierarchy.
Chapter 2 · Douglas McGregor
The way managers see people shapes the way they manage them: with control and punishment, or with autonomy and commitment.
What the critics say It challenged the management paradigms of its time, but its propositions were never rigorously examined.
People avoid work and must be directed, controlled and punished.
Work is as natural as play; people seek responsibility when they are committed.
Chapter 3 · Frederick Herzberg
The opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction, but no satisfaction: what motivates is different from what merely prevents discontent.
What the critics say The critical-incident method and the supposed independence of the two factors were heavily questioned.
Achievement · Recognition · The work itself · Responsibility
Salary · Supervision · Company policies · Working conditions · Security
Chapter 4 · Victor Vroom
Motivation is a choice: it depends on believing that effort leads to performance, that performance brings rewards and that those rewards are worth it.
What the critics say Rigorous and widely tested, but ambiguous in concepts such as instrumentality and in its rationality assumption.
Chapter 5 · Edwin Locke
Specific and difficult goals, with commitment and feedback, lead to higher performance than vague “do your best” goals.
What the critics say It is the theory with the strongest empirical base in the book, with more than 500 studies, and it keeps evolving.
Chapter 6 · Edwin Locke
Satisfaction is an emotional reaction born from comparing what a person values at work with what they perceive the job offers.
What the critics say It became the consensus definition, but it blends evaluation and affective experience (Weiss, 2002).
Chapter 7 · J. Richard Hackman
Five job characteristics create three psychological states, and these are what lead to internal motivation.
What the critics say Widely cited, but Hackman himself called its index, the MPS, “a psychometric disaster”.
Who it is for
Of management, psychology, engineering and computing, who need a solid, well-referenced foundation.
Looking for a starting point in the literature, with references ordered by date in every chapter.
Who want to go beyond common sense about what motivates, and demotivates, their teams.
In HR and human development, who design jobs, goals, rewards and engagement programs.
Testimonials
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About the author
César França teaches Software Engineering in the Department of Computing at UFRPE and, for more than 10 years, in the professional master’s and doctoral programs at CESAR School. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from UFPE, with a sandwich doctorate at The Open University (UK) and a postdoc at the Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro (Italy), and leads the G.E.N.T.E. study group (People in Business and Technology).
He was Head of Knowledge at CESAR, one of Brazil’s largest innovation centers, and is an Associate Scientist at TDS.Company. An entrepreneur since college, he is the author of four books and more than 100 scientific papers on the human side of technology, and co-author of Transformação Digital – uma jornada possível (2021). He is known for making dense topics accessible to a broad audience, with good humor.
Other publications
There are four books on the human side of technology, all with a free PDF in Portuguese, English and Italian, plus more than 100 scientific papers, talks, interviews and podcasts.
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