Work Motivation Past, Present and Future

In 2004, the three co-editors began a series of spirited discussions about work motivation. Our different perspectives, histories, and experiences in the field soon led us to think that it was time for a new volume on the topic. Despite the existence of a number of excellent reviews, our rationale for an edited book on work motivation was threefold. First, we noted that basic formulations developed during the 20th century had begun to evolve in many new directions. In some instances, evolutionary advances have begun to generate new theories. Advances in the basic psychological sciences, including, for example, personality, affect, and cognitive neuroscience, have stimulated new paradigms, measurement methods, and questions about the intrapsychic determinants and processes involved in motivated behavior. Long-standing assumptions about the conscious nature of motivation are being challenged as evidence on the impact of nonconscious, affectively driven motives and information processes accumulates. Similarly, advances in the psychology of adult development and aging have led to new conceptualizations of the individual that have important implications for managing an increasingly diverse workforce. In the organizational and social sciences, investigations of the roles that sociocultural, environmental, and nonwork factors play in shaping work attitudes and behaviors suggest that previously neglected contextual factors play an important, but complex, role in work motivation. Taken together, we believed that it was important and timely to produce a book that would highlight these advances and how they are being incorporated into contemporary work motivation theory and research.