Self-Determination in a Work Organization

1 Journal of Applied Psychology1989, Vol. 74, No. 4, 580-590 Copyright 1989 by the American Psychological Association, in a work OrganizationEdward L. Deci, James P. Connell, and Richard M. RyanUniversity of RochesterResearch testing Self-Determination theory was discussed in terms of recent work on intrinsic moti-vation, participative management, and leadership. On three occasions, managers' interpersonal ori-entations toward supporting subordinates' Self-Determination versus controlling their behavior were related to perceptions, affects, and satisfactions of the subordinates.

2 Data from 23 managersand their subordinates in a major corporation showed that managers' orientations did correlate withthe subordinate variables, although the magnitude of the relation varied, seemingly as a function offactors in the corporate climate. An organizational development intervention, focused on the conceptof supporting subordinates' Self-Determination , was provided for the managers. Evaluation of theprogram showed a clearly positive impact on managers' orientations, though a less conclusive radia-tion to be self -determining means to experience a sense of choicein initiating and regulating one's own actions.

3 Recent researchlinking Self-Determination to, enhanced creativity (Amabile,1983), conceptual learning (Benware & Deci, 1984), self -es-teem (Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, & Ryan, 1981), and generalwell-being (Langer & Rodin, 1976) has stimulated psychologiststo clarify the antecedent conditions that promote self -determi-nation and to detail the relevance of Self-Determination to vari-ous applied related to Self-Determination have been vigorouslyresearched and discussed in the organizational literature forover a quarter century.

4 Argyris (1957) and McGregor (1960),for example, stressed that organizational contexts providingworkers the opportunity to satisfy their higher order needs(Maslow, 1943) promote effective performance. Furthermore,management styles ( , Likert, 1967; Marrow, Bowers, & Sea-shore, 1967) and organizational designs ( , Hackman & Old-ham, 1980; Herzberg, 1966) that permit greater participationin decision making and greater flexibility in doing one's jobhave been found to be positively associated with employee satis-faction, quality of work life, and organizational effectiveness( , Lawler, 1986), although these positive effects have emergedmore clearly for some employees than for others (Hackman &Lawler, 1971).

5 Our research tested Self-Determination theory (Deci & Ryan,1985) by exploring the interpersonal work climate created bymanagers for their subordinates. More specifically, it focused onthe degree to which managers' interpersonal orientations tendto support subordinates' Self-Determination , that is, their senseThis research was supported by a grant from the Xerox Corporationto the Human Motivation Program at the University of would like to thank John W. Robinson and Robert W. Mann, bothof Xerox, for facilitating the project.

6 In addition, we would like to thankRobert E. Driver, Christina M. Frederick, Wendy S. Grolnick, John , and Paul F. Tero for their help with various aspects of concerning this article should be addressed to Ed-ward L. Deci, Human Motivation Program, Department of Psychology,University of Rochester, Rochester, New "York choice and personal initiative. The idea of managers' sup-porting Self-Determination is conceptually and philosophicallyconsistent with participative management and vertical job en-largement, although it differs from them by focusing on the in-terpersonal orientation of managers rather than on the decision-making process or the job variables in the organizational literature that are perhapsclosest to that of a manager's support for self -determinationhave been systematized in Bowers and Seashore's (1966) theoryof leadership.

7 These authors defined the management functionof support as managers' behaviors that enhance subordinates'feelings of personal worth, and they aligned this concept to Hal-pin and Winer's (1957) idea of consideration and Likert's (1961)principle of supportive relationships. Our concept of supportingself- determination is also related to Bowers and Seashore's ideaof support, although it extends their idea by specifying the fac-tors that are likely to lead to subordinates' feelings of personalworth. These factors, which comprise the concept of managers'support for Self-Determination , have emerged from recent moti-vation research.

8 Thus, elaboration of the point requires a briefreview of that motivation ResearchIn a recent literature review, Deci and Ryan (1985) arguedthat the functional significance ( , the psychological meaning)of any input affecting the initiation and regulation of inten-tional behavior can be usefully classified as either informational( , as supporting autonomy and promoting competence) orcontrolling ( , as pressuring one to think, feel, or behave inspecified ways). Experiencing an input as informational fostersself- determination , whereas experiencing it as controlling di-minishes studies on the contextual factors that affect self -deter-mination were laboratory experiments involving external ma-nipulations from which inferences could be drawn aboutwhether specific events ( , reward structures, deadlines, orpositive feedback) tend to be experienced as informational ( ,as supporting Self-Determination ) or controlling ( , as thwart-ing Self-Determination ).

9 These studies indicated, for example,580 Self-Determination AT WORK581that choice (Zuckerman, Porac, Lathin, Smith, & Deci, 1978)and positive feedback (Blanck, Reis, & Jackson, 1984; Deci,1971) tend to be experienced as informational, whereas task-contingent rewards ( , Ryan, Mims, & Koestner, 1983), dead-lines (Amabile, DeJong, & Lepper, 1976), threats of punish-ment (Deci & Cascio, 1972), surveillance (Lepper & Greene,1975), and evaluations (Smith, 1974) tend to be experienced recent studies have shown, however, that although aspecific event ( , positive feedback)

10 Tends, on average, to havea particular functional significance, the interpersonal contextwithin which the event is administered has an important influ-ence on the functional significance of the event. Thus, for exam-ple, Ryan (1982) reported that positive feedback could be expe-rienced as either informational or controlling, depending on theexperimenter's style of communication. Similarly, Ryan, Mims,and Koestner (1983) concluded that performance-contingentrewards could be either informational or controlling, andKoestner, Ryan, Bernieri, and Holt (1984)