Discussion of the Findings

Chapter 5. Discussion and Conclusion

less needed, when projects are going well, and matters greatly, when a project is at a problematic stage or a team is becoming dysfunctional.

Implying that management is necessary in all types of teams - even in small teams that are self-organizing and flexible, someone leads in each stage, this observational study particularly suggests that highly autonomously motivated teams do not require their manager to perform leadership skills due to the high level of self-management and active involvement among the team members who take the initiative in the different stages of the project.

Conversely, in extrinsically motivated teams the leadership skills of the manager are crucial to sustain a rigorous workflow. Extrinsically motivated members aim to accomplish the task at the lowest cost because they have less interest in the activities which makes them more passive.

Such a team needs a leader, or a guide, who takes responsibility to distribute the task, makes decisions and pushes the project forward. The absence of leadership results in not using all available resources, last minute planning, scheduling issues and a laggard workflow.

The observed connection between motivation of the team members and their perception of the management behavior might be explained in this way: the high level of extrinsic types of stimuli (whose influence can be described with the idiom “carrots and sticks”) results in the perception of the task as externally imposed and, consequently, the management behavior as controlling which decreases the members’ interest to participate in the project and leads to passivity (Mossholder in Ryan & Deci, 2017d, p. 149). The passive behavior, in turn, instigates the manager to perform motivating actions and controlling behavior in order to move the project forward which interlocks the parties with each other in a mutually reinforcing cycle.

It is important to mention that, as it was suggested in the literature, the perception of the management behavior varies among the team members and depends on their regulatory style, or the set of motivation forces. Autonomously motivated participants get on smoothly and are focused on working through the ideas they have in mind, taking actions and making

decisions along the way. This results in a good climate in the team and active engagement in the activities and can be explained by Sheldon and Elliot (1999), who found that the achievements of self-concordant goals result in a more sustained effort that increases the propensity of successful outcomes.

In these circumstances, the motivation is the main driving force which is supported by the positive team chemistry and results in a smooth workflow. This finding broadly supports other studies (Gagne & Deci, 2005; Niemiec et al., 2008; Gillet et al., 2012; Ryan & Deci, 2017) in this area linking autonomy and full-functioning. As autonomy is considered as the major basic psychological need that facilitates the satisfaction of other two needs, relatedness and competence, this study proves that the autonomously motivated team members are more actively engaged in the tasks related to the project and fortify each other’s interest in the topic.

Additionally, as the study shows (case D), the low presence of identified type of motivation together with the dominance of external stimuli diminishes the level of intrinsic interest in the project and results in the passive behavior of the members as well as a reluctant workflow. This observation is also in agreement with those obtained by Dacker (2016) who highlights that both cognitive and social processes in the team assist the well-being and creativity of the members while the lack of communication as well as a bad team chemistry might have caused the increase in the extrinsic and introjected motivation.

On the other hand, the observed connection between individual motivation and team chemistry might be also explained by the type of regulatory style and the way the participants perceive the task. The teams, where members were highly intrinsically motivated and perceived the task as heuristic, shared the interest to explore and search for the solution so the intentions were consonant and the nature of the workflow was supported among the members. On the contrary, in the other team (case D) where the participants were extrinsically motivated and the task was perceived as algorithmic, the level of intrinsic motivation decreased by the end of the

project and the team members were reluctant to take responsibilities and innovate or explore the opportunities, as was noted by the facilitator #4. This hypothesis derives from Amabile’s (1999) study about the nature of heuristic and algorithmic tasks and the correlation between employees’ perception of the task and the type of their motivation.

The results also show the increase in the complexity of regulatory styles in every case by the end of the project which can be explained by the design of the research instruments which were applied to measure the initial motivation and the motivation during the project.

Another possible explanation is that the participants become more personally invested as the project proceeds: closer to the deadline the participants become more and more invested in its outcomes.

Additionally, the results of this study are consistent with the literature mentioned in this thesis which highlights the correlation between the “quality” of the motivation and the workflow (Deci, 2012; Amabile, 1996, 1997; Decy & Ryan, 2017) and, particularly, the idea of Koestner and Losier (2004, p. 114) who find the identified regulatory style as the most appropriate motivation type for the work environment because it is an equilibrium of external and internal forces (the “state” and the “trait” correspondingly) and which, in turn, is consistent with Amabile’s concept of motivational synergy (1993). The consistency of the dominant motivational forces supports the importance of choosing people with the right combination of impetus for the innovation projects and is congruent with findings by Gillet, Berjot, Vallerand and Amoura (2012).

This study also shows that the level of intrinsic motivation (case D) significantly decreased by the end of the project and external type of motivation took the dominant position.

This is consistent with that of Mossholder (in Ryan & Deci, 2017d, p. 149), who experimentally proved that external motivation dwindles the level of intrinsic interest in the task, and the

observation by Deci and Ryan (2017) and Amabile (1997) who noted that the intrinsic motivation is not sufficient in the long perspective.