Autonomous motivation : a structured literature review and research implication for the business environment

Show simple item record

dc.contributor.advisor Mbokota, Gloria
dc.contributor.postgraduate Shara, Tafadzwa
dc.date.accessioned 2023-05-28T16:59:39Z
dc.date.available 2023-05-28T16:59:39Z
dc.date.created 19-04-2023
dc.date.issued 2022
dc.description Mini Dissertation (MPhil (Evidence-Based Management))--University of Pretoria, 2022.
dc.description.abstract Autonomous motivation is a psychological factor that is important to employee performance and creativity. Although existent literature delves on this construct, there are limited studies that have revealed the drivers of autonomous motivation. In this explorative research a structured literature review is conducted to synthesize and interpret different scholarly views about this multi-disciplinary autonomous motivation phenomenon. In this framing, self-determination theory anchored the study with particular focus on the autonomy element. Importantly, this study was aimed at understanding what drives autonomous motivation. As such, a journal driven approach was applied to gather relevant articles to support the study. In addition, purposive sampling over the 18 months period of this qualitative study led to the identification of 55 articles forming the sample. An inductive thematic analysis was performed to interpret the data. Interestingly, findings revealed that autonomous motivation was driven by intrapersonal factors. There were four enablers (i.e., task factors, organisational factors, social factors and team factors)that stimulated the intrapersonal factors leading to autonomous motivation. Although these enablers were identified as themes in the study, they were enablers in triggering autonomous motivation. Importantly, the environment was embedded in all the enablers and subsequently led to the intrapersonal factors driving autonomous motivation. This study contributes to self-determination theory and practice by highlighting the role of intrapersonal factors in driving autonomous motivation. Importantly, the key proposition from this study is that autonomous motivation is driven by intrapersonal factors that are induced by social and organisational enablers. As such, determining these enablers assists in understanding employee motivation, performance and creativity. In this view, this study expands the self-determination theory by emphasising the intrapersonal factors that support the autonomy component.
dc.description.availability Unrestricted
dc.description.degree MPhil (Evidence-Based Management)
dc.description.department Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
dc.description.librarian pt23
dc.identifier.citation *
dc.identifier.other A2023
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/90840
dc.language.iso en
dc.publisher University of Pretoria
dc.rights © 2023 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.
dc.subject UCTD
dc.title Autonomous motivation : a structured literature review and research implication for the business environment
dc.type Mini Dissertation


Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record