Evaluating the Framework of the Integrative Model of Work Attitudes, Motivation and Performance

Evaluating the framework of the Integrative Model of Work Attitudes, Motivation and Performance, by Raymond A. Katzell, Donna E. Thompson, 1990


Motivation is Psychology drive to achieve goals.

There are many theories of motivation that can be combined then the capacity of each theory will predict the reality of people's behaviour in work environment.

Katzell and Thompson developed in 1990 a comprehensive theoretical model of work attitudes, motivation, and performance based on a key constructs prevalent in more limited theories. The constructs were selected on the basis of their importance as shown by past researches and because of their complementarities. The framework connects the constructs causally on the basis of both logic and empirical evidence. It is expressed in the form of a path diagram suitable for empirical test. It is expected that such an integrative framework will provide a better basis for understanding and improving work attitudes, motivation, and performance than do the more limited approaches

Katzell and Thompson organize the different variables from many theories of motivation in to one single framework and link them. This integrative model of motivation provides a good level of representation of an organisation's structure and the advantage of this framework is that it can be used as an instrument to evaluate the motivation level in an organization



Before analyzing the linkage between these variables, I will describe each of them;

Personal dispositions: It is what each individual bring with him/her in a work environment, such as motivation, needs, values/interest ( Maslow's theory)

Work environment: all the characteristic of the work, in particular in the work place, which can react positively or negatively, for example: management practices, material resources, work condition, method to fix objectives, method to supervise and identify/design the task.

Incentive or reward; it can be rewards (monetary or non-monetary) and punishment.

Attitude: is a psychological tendency by evaluating an entity with some degree of favour or disfavour. Behaviour is attitude and also willingness. Behaviour is not producing value, belief and personality. As Personality is directly giving a value and bringing the belief of individual and that will create the Attitude of individual. Attitude is a psychological mind of favourable and disfavourable towards certain things. Positive attitude can only be behaviour if there is willingness. For example; satisfaction, the importance to give the object and to the implications.

Goals or intentions; is the objective of what you are aiming at, and the intention is the representation of the objective, means the intention of the individual toward an objective. A goal is "something that the person wants to achieve"1

Norms is a standard behaviour or something we have inside and the other people consider is correct. For example: if we are in the work environment, the fact that we have older colleagues then we respect them more amongst the other colleagues.

Means the rule that we respect in our environment is consider correct by the others, and automatically you obey the rule.

Effort is energy and time that we invested when we want to reach our objective

Expectancy is a level of expectation to get to an objective while you give the effort. What you are expecting to reach, in term of goal according to the effort you given. Expectancy is also level of belief that effort will leads to performance.

Resources are the internal or external factors which are directly affecting to the attitude of the people. This includes personal knowledge or social factor (such as receive help from other people), some characteristic from the company/organization (such as internal communication) or material means (such as technology). These resources have an impact on the performance because it has the indirect effect to the ability, which also give a good effect to motivate people. In other words, the lack of resources can create negative affect to people's motivation.

Performance is the different of behaviour that we have at our work. It can be the achievement of the objective, for example; the quantity, quality, innovation of production, or effect indirectly performance; for example: people who are leaving the company or people who prefer to stay home. In other word, performance is also a result of your effort.

Reinforcement is the attempt to develop or strengthen desirable behaviour by either bestowing positive consequences or withholding negative consequences2. Positive reinforcement induce behaviours of a pleasant consequence and Negative reinforcement increases the frequency of behaviour through the contingent removal of an unpleasant consequence. It is normal that Reinforcement works well to a new task.

Instrumentality is the probability of certain level of performance that can bring a certain result or it is referring to the individual perceptions if one really gets the desired reward.

Equity is the individual which compare the other individual in the organization of what the other do. Employees determine what their equitable return should be after comparing their inputs and outcomes with those of their co-workers. This concept is referred to as "social comparison". (Adams J.S, 1965).

Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to manage prospective situations3.

Working smart and working hard increase the level of Performance

The evaluations of this diagram are;

Goals and Intensions is the central element receiving direct impact from Attitudes, Norms, Personal Dispositions and Expectancy - The Intentions/Goals combined with the Effort from the individual and the Resources