ABSTRACT
Industrial-organizational psychologists have been studying motivation and satisfaction in the workplace for some five decades. For at least three reasons, however, progress in understanding these phenomena has been slow. First, it turned out that the motivation to work (exert effort) and satisfaction are relatively independent outcomes; thus somewhat different theories are required to understand them (Locke, 1970). Connecting the two types of theories has proven to be especially difficult (Henne & Locke, 1985). Theories that have tried to explain both phenomena with the same set of concepts generally have been unsuccessful. Second, theories within each domain, especially motivation–performance theories, have focused only on a limited aspect of the domain such as needs (Maslow, 1970), perceived fairness (Adams, 1965), or managerial motives (Miner, 1973). Third, the phenomena themselves are highly complex; thus extensive research has been required to understand them irrespective of any attempts to connect them.
