Why do people work?

Why do people work?

By: Leontes Dorzilme

I was reflecting on many theories developed on individual’s motivation, from the need aspect leading to the expectancy that may boost our self-efficacy in order to reach attainable goals that we may established or owned because of our role in the organization; and also because of the way leadership may interact with us making us feeling important or capable of something bigger than us (Hahn, 2009). I was also asking to myself why do we work? Would you choose to keep doing what we are doing if, from a different perspective beyond capitalism and socialism systems, there was a third way giving us the opportunity to do what we want to do of our talent, knowledge, skills and time, while we will be choosing our salary in a specific range either higher or same as our actual wage? I was freely thinking of what we could call the ideal world that may exist for now only from my imagination. Indeed, this question brought me to key “why do people work” in the GCU library search engine. I was surprised to discover Lopez answering to my question, but from the two classical economics mainstreams: Capitalism (Marshall, 1890; Adam Smith, 1776) and socialism (Karl Max, 1887; Spencer 2009). Even though the paper is very interesting, I do feel she did not bring in sufficient literature to explain the middle ground between the two economics’ schools of thoughts. 

Lopez (2011) has done a good job explaining why people do people work. Beyond the reward aspect of work, such as wage (Rosen, 1987), the human being has the intrinsic need to contribute to something greater than him in relation to the perpetuation of the “universal kingdom” in a cross-generational perspective (Kant, 1993). In the same vein, Brief and Motowidlo (1986) argued the prosocial organizational behavior as motivational factor for people to seek a cause greater than them. Conversely, Borman and Motowidlo (1993) argued the contextual performance attributes when it comes to motivation in relation to performance at work. 

Therefore, Lopez (2011) pinpointed the concept of relational and moral goods which strongly underlies the decision to work and to behavior at work as background for her to sustain in her data review study that people work because of the relational “goods” or the intangible attributes of work over the human being. The social dynamic that we are part at work gives us the sense of self-realization, relatedness, and meaningful life. Therefore our corporate citizenship linked to the organizational social responsibility (OSR) (Hahn, 2009) affects our perception of the society, from the social comparison theory (Leon Festinger, 1954) perspective, makes the connection using the interaction as a way of a self-enhancement, affecting our hygiene factors (Herzberg, 1959). He we are, working to find a greater us.

References

Borman, W. C. & Motowidlo, S. J. (1997). Organizational citizenship behavior and contextual performance. HUMAN PERFORMANCE, vol10(2):67-70. Retrieved from https://ehis.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=39282541-ae0d-4f4f-9e30-475ea446d725@sessionmgr113&hid=110 

Brief, A. P., & Motowidlo, S. J. (1986). Prosocial organizational behaviors. Academy of Management Review, 11, 710–725. 

Hahn, R. (2009).The Ethical Rational of Business for the Poor – Integrating the Concepts Bottom of the Pyramid, Sustainable Development, and Corporate Citizenship. Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 84 (3), 313-324. Retrieved from

https://ehis.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=0935b0b6-735f-4cec-8136-9817112e533b%40sessionmgr14&hid=6 

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. 1959. The motivation to work. New York: Wiley.

Kant, I. (1993). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals – With on a Supposed Rights to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns, 3rd Edition (translated by J. W. Ellington) (Hackett, Indianapolis, IN).

Lopez, H. (2011). Why do people work? Individual wants versus common goals. Journal of economic issues, vol 45(1), 57-73. Retrieved from https://ehis.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11&sid=8abafb0f-73fb-4594-90a1-32cebc465843%40sessionmgr4002&hid=4208

Manton, E. et al. (2013). Karl Marx vs. Adam Smith revisited. Education, Summer, vol. 133(4), p451-455. Retrieved from https://ehis.ebscohost.com.library.gcu.edu:2048/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=39282541-ae0d-4f4f-9e30-475ea446d725%40sessionmgr113&hid=4111 

Marshall, Alfred. Principles of Economics. London: Macmillan, [1890] 1966 

Rosen, Sherwin. “The Theory of Equalizing Differences” In Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 1, edited by Orly Ashenfelter and Richard Layard, pp. 641-692. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1987.