Work Motivation Research in the Past Decade: What Do We Know, and Where Do We Go?

DOI: 10.46988/IJIHRM.04.01.2023.003

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the status of literature on work motivation in industrial/organizational psychology (i/o) field. I apply a qualitative research technique- ‘co-occurrence of key words’ to analyze 503 peer-reviewed articles published between the years 2010 and 2019. Specific research themes are extracted. The themes indicate that work motivation is instrumental in achieving certain behavioral outcomes and human resource outcomes in organizations. Most significantly, work motivation is espoused through specific job characteristics. A study of these (job) characteristics has important implications for human resource practice. Recent research on the topic also found substantial interest in practices followed by public organizations. While these research directions by no means exhaust the possibilities for research on motivation. We hope it can inspire a dialog among industrial/organizational psychology theorists and practitioners.