Motivationsteori avser att förklara hur individer motiveras på sin arbetsplats. I den omfattande forskningen på området delas motivation ofta in i yttre och inre motivation. Yttre motivation förklarar beteenden som drivs av yttre faktorer såsom lön eller befordran, medan inre motivation förklarar beteenden som styrs av en individs egen vilja eller driv. I denna studie har vi valt att undersöka om det finns skillnader i upplevd motivation mellan individer på två olika hierarkiska nivåer inom en organisation. Inre och yttre motivationsfaktorer användes för att kartlägga individernas upplevda motivation. Undersökningen genomfördes genom intervjuer med chefer och anställda på Uppsala Vatten och Avfall. Resultatet är att man på en lägre hierarkisk nivå blir mer motiverad av lön och att man på en högre hierarkisk nivå motiverades mer av att nå en maktställning. Några skillnader baserat på inre motivationsfaktorer mellan grupperna kunde inte påvisas i denna studie.

Despite the vast research on the productive aspect of rewards, little is known on how the changes in employees’ behaviour, made to enhance their chances of achieving a reward, influence employee well-being. Previous work has failed to address the process of reward-seeking behaviour from an employee’s point of view as the focus was on the motivational aspect of rewards. This thesis uses the case of Malta’s financial institutions to examine the relationship between reward-seeking behaviour from bonuses and promotions and employee well-being by drawing on expectancy theory and self-determination theory. To achieve its aims, this study adopts a qualitative approach, wherein 42 semi-structured interviews with employees and four interviews with human resources managers are conducted at financial institutions in Malta – two of which are small and medium-sized enterprises and one is a large-sized institution. Memos and diary notes are also used to complement the data collected from the semi-structured interviews. Overall, the results strongly support the idea that while almost everyone values rewards, employees differ in their willingness to engage in reward-seeking behaviour and its influence on well-being. This thesis contributes to knowledge through the development of a theoretical model – the four quadrant reward-seeking behaviour – well-being model. This typology based model classifies employees into four main categories, namely, highly motivated, apathetic, work-life balanced and work-life imbalanced. This two by two matrix also led to another model that depicts reward-seeking behaviour and well-being as a non-sequential process. The findings have practical implications for human resources practitioners as they now have the capacity to visualise the actual employee mix according to the categories of the model and act on any significant gaps.

In today’s changing environment, creation of projects by organizations has become more common. The problem is, though, that the knowledge of the subject is still limited which causes many projects to fail. This has made it extra important to have a good project manager whocanlead the project in the right direction. While doing this both the project method and the project manager’s motivation are contributing sources. That is why this studywill take a deeper look into the project methodand the motivation of the project manager and also the relationship between these two. To do this, this study is based on a theory of motivation, the Vroom’s expectancy theory. The purpose with this study is to create a greater understanding for the project methodand how it is affected by the motivation. This is a qualitative study in which interviews with four project managers has been done. The results showed that there is a connection both between the different variables in the Expectancy theory, but also connected to how these are affecting the project method. / I dagens ombytliga samhälle har det blivit allt vanligare att företag skapar projekt. Kunskapen kring området har dock inte hunnit med i utvecklingstakten vilket har gjort att många projekt misslyckas. En viktig faktor är projektledaren som påverkar projektet på många plan vilket gör att både projektledarens arbetssätt samt motivation spelar in. Det är just dessa två eller närmare bestämt projektmetoden och projektledarens motivation samt relationen mellan dem som den här studien kommer atttitta närmare på. För att göra det såhar studien utgått från en teori om motivation som heter Vrooms förväntansteorin. Syftet med studien är att skapa en ökad förståelse för projektmetodenoch hur den kan påverkas av motivationen. En kvalitativ studie där intervjuer med fyra projektledare har gjorts vilka resulterade i att samband mellan både de olika variablerna i förväntansteorin kunde hittas och samband i hur dessa påverkar projektmetoden. Utifrån resultaten drar studien slutsatsen att motivationen kanpåverka hur projektledaren använder projektmetoden via de olika variablerna i förväntansteorin.

“Who says what to whom and of what consequence?” is a fundamentally communicative question. This dissertation provides answers to this question by examining receivers’ expectations about, perceptions of, and responses to, requests for compliance. This dissertation asks: What impact does source credibility have on responses to and evaluations of request for compliance? Do people who receive requests for compliance have different language expectations for high and low credibility sources? If receivers perceive self-benefit from complying with a request, will that affect their responses to or evaluations of the message or message source? To answer these questions, this dissertation responds to the call for studies to extend language expectancy theory by focusing on interpersonal influence attempts; the results herein provide researchers with the opportunity to offer refined specifications when making predictions about social influence outcomes. In addition, this dissertation is novel in that it examines the intersection between language expectancy theory and predicted outcome value theory. / text

Research has shown alcohol expectancies to be critically important in understanding maladaptive drinking patterns within alcohol use disorders. Alcohol expectancies, thought to be automatically elicited in the presence of environmental alcohol-related cues, represent both cognitive and affective associations with drinking behavior. However, the automatic and affective properties of alcohol expectancies have not yet been thoroughly measured in the literature. Psychophysiological measures, including skin conductance, heart rate, and the acoustic startle response in particular, offer a uniquely powerful set of indices for the automatic affective processing of alcohol-related cues. Therefore, the present study was designed to examine how alcohol expectancies moderate affective processing of alcohol cues and how they relate to other known risk variables for alcohol use disorders.Fifty-eight college-aged participants viewed pictures from three categories (neutral, alcohol-nonsocial, and alcohol-social) and gave subjective ratings of valence, arousal, dominance, and craving for each cue. Skin conductance, heart rate and startle responses were obtained during picture viewing. The startle eyeblink reflex was probed early in the picture viewing sequence to assess arousing and attentional cue properties and late in order to address affective and motivational cue properties.Analyses indicated that participants reporting more positive, arousing, and social alcohol expectancies rated alcohol cues as more pleasant, arousing and craving-inducing. Individuals with greater positive/arousing alcohol expectancies displayed blunted cardiac deceleration during alcohol-related cues, indicating that they processed these cues as less aversive than other participants. In addition, individuals with greater social alcohol expectancies displayed greater skin conductance response to alcohol-related cues, indicating increased arousal during alcohol pictures. Startle response patterns indicated that individuals at greater risk for alcohol use disorders (i.e. family history positive, greater positive/arousing alcohol expectancies) displayed blunted processing of alcohol-related cues, while individuals at lower risk processed alcohol-related cues as more pleasing and attention-grabbing. Ultimately, alcohol-related cues were processed as more pleasing and appetitive among lower-risk individuals, lending support to affective and automatic processing component of alcohol expectancy theory. This study also lends further evidence to support blunted affective processing of alcohol-related stimuli among high risk individuals.

Belöningssystem är något som många organisationer använder sig av för att bland annat skapa arbetsmotivation. Inom banksektorn används mestadels den monetära belöningen allmän bonus. Den allmänna bonusen är en kollektiv belöning som nästan alla i hela banken kan ta del av. I och med detta blir det intressant att studera om denna belöningen skapar arbetsmotivation för de anställda. Förväntningsteorin är en teori som beskriver hur individer skapar motivation. Den fokuserar på motivation i allmänhet, men har även använts som grund av forskare för att analysera arbetsmotivationen. Studiens syfte är att förklara bankpersonalens arbetsmotivation i relation till personalens egna förväntningar och deras upplevelse om värdet av den allmänna bonusen. Detta studeras genom en positivistisk forskningsfilosofi med en deduktiv forskningsansats, vilket grundas i att forskningen är hypotesprövande. Empiriska data mäts utifrån en kvantitativ metod i form av webbenkäter. Undersökningens resultat indikerar att den anställdes individuella upplevda värde av den allmänna bonusen samt personens upplevda nåbarhet av bonusen har en positiv inverkan på dennes arbetsmotivation. Med värde menas hur värdefull individen upplever att bonusen är. En begränsning som har gjorts i arbetet är att den endast studerar respondenter inom en svensk bankkoncern som använder sig av den allmänna bonusen. Detta för att vi förutsätter att bankerna kan ha olika krav, storlekar och regler avseende sådana belöningar. Forskning kring hur vidare banksektorns användande av ett allmänt bonussystem bidrar till ökad arbetsmotivation är nästintill ostuderat. Därför anses denna uppsats ha ett värde för att belysa motivationseffekten av att använda sig av sådana belöningssystem.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / This study examines the implementation of the Performance Management System (PMS) in local government, with specific reference to municipalities in the Chris Hani District in the Eastern Cape. The research is premised on the assumption that even though a PMS has been adopted in municipalities with the aim of assisting them to function effectively, municipalities in the Eastern Cape, particularly in Christ Hani District, continue to experience performance challenges. The study presupposes that the implementation of the performance management system at the municipality, whether effective or ineffective, has a direct relationship with the performance of the municipality. The study includes a historical overview of local government with the aim of understanding government reforms introduced to assist municipalities to build their capacity to enable them to perform well. It utilises purposive sampling to identify the most appropriate participants based on the research objectives. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews and a review of relevant documents. As part of the analysis, summaries of the responses of interviewees were written in a meaningful way in line with the thematic areas determined in accordance with the research objectives. The municipality uses the Balances Scorecard as a performance management tool to determine the performance level of individuals and to detect areas that need corrective measures across the local municipalities. There are inconsistencies in the implementation, depending on how well the particular local municipality is resourced. In any municipality, the effective implementation of the PMS requires the municipality to reward excellent performers, which requires increases in the personnel budget to cater for monitory rewards.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the formation of music preference in an effort to identify specific ages when preferred music is likely to be discovered. One hundred one individuals participated in an online survey, answering questions about their listening habits, music preferences, and the social elements that contributed most to those preferences. Participants were asked to identify their current, second, and third favorite music at the time of the study and whether their preferences had changed over time. According to findings, males were likely to discover their current favorite music at the age of 12.46 years, and females were likely to discover their current favorite music at the age of 13.23 years. Parents, friends, and the radio were shown to be the most common influences towards preference discovery. Of those surveyed, 69.3 % of participants acknowledged that their preferences had changed over time. However, the current methodology lacked the specificity to determine the scope of that change, leaving room for future study. The results hold implications for not only the field of music therapy, but also for any other fields utilizing preferred music to achieve a specific result.

Major League Baseball (MLB) organizations spend millions of dollars each year on athletes with the end goal of winning a World Series title. However when an organization signs a player to a long term contract are they actually receiving the production that they paid for? Under the MLB's current form of player compensation players may not be properly motivated or at least not motivated to perform at their highest level. The intent of this thesis was to apply expectancy theory in assessing Major League Baseball's current form of player compensation. It evaluates how well players are currently motivated to perform on the field, and if any improvements can be made. This is done through the statistical analysis of MLB organizations yearly salary data, yearly win-loss record, and the performance of 65 players two years prior to, one year prior to, and during their first contract term directly following or extending past arbitration eligibility. Evidence shows that player motivation, especially for position players, can be increased and several suggestions are made as to how this can be improved and how MLB organizations can increase the odds of player production matching compensation.

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