Work motivation is a topic of crucial importance to the success of organizations and societies and the well-being of individuals. We organize the work motivation literature over the last century using a meta-framework that clusters theories, findings, and advances in the field according to their primary focus on (a) motives, traits, and motivation orientations (content); (b) features of the job, work role, and broader environment (context); or (c) the mechanisms and processes involved in choice and striving (process). Our integrative review reveals major achievements in the field, including more precise mapping of the psychological inputs and operations involved in motivation and broadened conceptions of the work environment. Cross-cutting trends over the last century include the primacy of goals, the importance of goal striving processes, and a more nuanced conceptualization of work motivation as a dynamic, goal-directed, resource allocation process that unfolds over the related variables of time, experience, and place. Across the field, advances in methodology and measurement have improved the match between theory and research. Ten promising directions for future research are described and field experiments are suggested as a useful means of bridging the research-practice gap. (PsycINFO Database Record

Motivation related to work: A century of progress.

The workforce in most industrialized countries is aging and becoming more age-diverse, and this trend is expected to continue throughout the twenty-first century. Although there has been an increased interest in research on age differences at work, few studies have examined actual interventions designed to support workers at different points across the life span. In this article, we review the literature related to aging at work, including physical, cognitive, personality, and motivational changes; life-span development theories; age stereotyping; age diversity; and work–life balance. Based on this review, we propose a number of avenues for intervention research to address age differences at work. We conclude by identifying critical challenges specific to studying age at work that should be addressed to advance research on interventions.

Supporting the Aging Workforce: A Review and Recommendations for Workplace Intervention Research

The portrayal of racial diversity in corporate recruitment advertisements has become increasingly common. Despite widespread sentiment that ad diversity attracts a broader scope of applicants, empirical research on this topic is sparse. Consequently, the present study manipulated ad diversity at 2 hierarchical levels to assess its impact on organizational attractiveness for 273 Black and White university students. In contrast to the predictions of relational demography, White viewers exhibited no effect for ad diversity. Black viewers were attracted by ad diversity but only when it extended to supervisory level positions. More importantly, the effect of race on reactions to ad diversity was contingent on the viewer's openness to racial diversity (other-group orientation).

Reactions to Diversity in Recruitment Advertising: Are Differences Black and White?

Based on an integration of job design and lifespan developmental theories, Truxillo et al. (2012) proposed that job characteristics interact with employee age in predicting important work outcomes. Using an experimental policy-capturing design, we investigated age-differential effects of four core job characteristics (i.e., job autonomy, task variety, task significance, and feedback from the job) on job attraction (i.e., individuals' rating of job attractiveness). Eighty-two employees between 19 and 65 years (Mage = 41, SD = 14) indicated their job attraction for each of 40 hypothetical job descriptions in which the four job characteristics were systematically manipulated (in total, participants provided 3,280 ratings). Results of multilevel analyses showed that the positive effects of task variety, task significance, and feedback from the job were stronger for younger compared to older employees, whereas we did not find significant age-differential effects of job autonomy on job attraction. These findings are only partially consistent with propositions of Truxillo et al.'s (2012) lifespan perspective on job design.

/pdf/age-differential-effects-of-job-characteristics-on-job-4ogtujwikv.pdf

Age-Differential Effects of Job Characteristics on Job Attraction: A Policy-Capturing Study

This article surveys 100 years of research on career management and retirement, with a primary focus on work published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Research on career management took off in the 1920s, with most attention devoted to the development and validation of career interest inventories. Over time, research expanded to attend to broader issues such as the predictors and outcomes of career interests and choice; the nature of career success and who achieves it; career transitions and adaptability to change; retirement decision making and adjustment; and bridge employment. In this article, we provide a timeline for the evolution of the career management and retirement literature, review major theoretical perspectives and findings on career management and retirement, and discuss important future research directions. (PsycINFO Database Record

100 years of applied psychology research on individual careers: From career management to retirement.

Organizations worldwide are currently experiencing shifts in the age composition of their workforces. The workforce is aging and becoming increasingly age-diverse, suggesting that organizational researchers and practitioners need to better understand how age differences may manifest in the workplace and the implications for human resource practice. Integrating socioemotional selectivity theory with the performance feedback literature and using a time-lagged design, the current study examined age differences in moderating the relationships between the characteristics of performance feedback and employee reactions to the feedback event. The results suggest that older workers had higher levels of feedback orientation on social awareness, but lower levels of feedback orientation on utility than younger workers. Furthermore, the positive associations between favorability of feedback and feedback delivery and feedback reactions were stronger for older workers than for younger workers, whereas the positive association between feedback quality and feedback reactions was stronger for younger workers than for older workers. Finally, the current study revealed that age-related differences in employee feedback orientation could explain the different patterns of relationships between feedback characteristics and feedback reactions across older and younger workers. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications for building theory about workplace aging and improving ways that performance feedback is managed across employees from diverse age groups.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2632368_code2181894.pdf?abstractid=2632368&mirid=1&type=2

Gabriela Burlacu

Papers

Age Differences in Feedback Reactions: The Roles of Employee Feedback Orientation on Social Awareness and Utility

Age differences in feedback reactions: The roles of employee feedback orientation on social awareness and utility.

Does Age Matter to LMX and its Outcomes? A Review and Future Research Directions

Employee Age Differences in Using Internet‐Based Tools at Work