2024/05/09 by Nan Wang, Yuxiang Luan, Rui Ma · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior #Workaholism, burnout, and well-being #Employee Performance and Management
paper · pdf · doi:10.1057/s41599-024-03038-w
openalex publication_date 2024/05/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract Given that competing hypotheses about the causal relationship between work motivation and job performance exist, the current research utilized meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) methodology to detect the causal relationships between work motivation and job performance. In particular, completing hypotheses were checked by applying longitudinal data that include 84 correlations ( n = 4389) from 11 independent studies measuring both work motivation and job performance over two waves. We find that the effect of motivation (T1) on performance (T2), with performance (T1) controlled, was positive and significant ( β = 0.143). However, the effect of performance (T1) on motivation (T2), with motivation (T1) controlled, was not significant. These findings remain stable and robust across different measures of job performance (task performance versus organizational citizenship behavior), different measures of work motivation (engagement versus other motivations), and different time lags (1–6 months versus 7–12 months), suggesting that work motivation is more likely to cause job performance than vice versa. Practical and theoretical contributions are discussed.