Understanding and Managing Public Organizations, 6th Edition

CHAPTER TENUNDERSTANDING PEOPLE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS: VALUES, INCENTIVES, AND WORK-RELATED ATTITUDES

The internal and external impetuses that arouse and direct effort – the needs, motives, and values that push us and the incentives, goals, and objectives that pull us – obviously play major roles in motivation. Every theory of work motivation discussed in Chapter Nine includes such factors in some way. Classic debates have raged, however, over what to call them; what the most important needs, values, goals, and incentives are; and what roles they play. These debates raise serious challenges for both managers and researchers. This chapter discusses these topics and also describes important work-related attitudes, such as job satisfaction, that OB researchers have developed. These work attitudes provide valuable insights that help us to analyze and understand the experiences that people have in their work. All these topics are related to work motivation but differ from it in important ways. They are covered here separately not only because they are distinct from motivation and motivation theory, but also because discussing all these topics together would make for a very long chapter!

For a long time, the concepts of values, motives, and incentives have been prominent in the theory and practice of management, including public management. If anything, they have become even more prominent in recent years. Studies of leadership, change, and organizational culture – topics covered ...