Author
Listed:
- Ali B. Mahmoud
- Leonora Fuxman
- Iris Mohr
- William D. Reisel
- Nicholas Grigoriou
Abstract
Purpose - The primary purpose of this research is to examine generational differences in valuing the sources of employees' overall motivation in the workplace across Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z with a view of assisting managers in making employment decisions and maintaining multigenerational staff. Design/methodology/approach - The respondents in the study live and work in Canada and provided answers to self-administered online surveys between the fourth quarter of 2017 and the end of January 2020. To assess subjects' work motivation, the study employed Gagnéet al.'s (2014) multidimensional work motivation scale (MWMS) alongside a three-item measure of employees' overall motivation (designed for this study). The authors assessed measures of validity and reliability and tested the hypothesis about generational differences in work motivation using structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings - The six motivators regress differently to employees' overall motivation. Generation Z is more sensitive to amotivation than Generation X and Generation Y. Extrinsic regulation-material is a valid source of overall work motivation for Generation Z only. Only Generation X values extrinsic regulation-social as a source of employees' overall motivation. So is introjected regulation by Generation Y. Unlike Generation Z, both Generation X and Generation Y employees value identified regulation as a source of overall work motivation. Finally, intrinsic motivation contributes more to Generation Z employees' overall work motivation than it does for Generation X and Generation Y. Research limitations/implications - Further work needs to be done to establish whether variations in valuing the sources of motivation may also be spawned by age or status of the respective groups. Future investigations can expand the authors’ focal theme to include additional organisational outcomes, alternative geographical settings and/or include country's economic development as an additional variable. Moreover, further research can address the implications of national culture on shaping generational differences in employee's motivation as well as aiding companies to redesign work tasks considering today's uncertainty as well as increasingly competitive, global environment (e.g. the rise of artificial intelligence). Practical implications - It is vital to offer motivators that are valued by each of the three generations, i.e. X, Y and Z, before being able to attract the best candidates of each generation. Organisations should not only create an inclusive and understanding multigenerational working environment but also be able to communicate strong branding via new communication channels successfully (e.g. social media networks), which Generation Yers and Generation Zers utilise better than any other generation in employment. Finally, the authors suggest that service organisations with diverse generational composition should adopt new measures of workplace agility to survive interminable disruptions (e.g. the coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19] pandemic). Originality/value - This is the first study of its kind to examine generational differences between Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z in valuing workplace motivation from a western cultural perspective.
Suggested Citation
Ali B. Mahmoud & Leonora Fuxman & Iris Mohr & William D. Reisel & Nicholas Grigoriou, 2020.
"“We aren't your reincarnation!” workplace motivation across X, Y and Z generations,"
International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(1), pages 193-209, June.
Handle:
RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-09-2019-0448
DOI: 10.1108/IJM-09-2019-0448
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the
CitEc Project, subscribe to its
RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
- Eva Hovořáková & Daniela Pauknerová, 2024.
"Model and Specifics of Generation Z Entry onto the Czech Labour Market,"
Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2024(3), pages 1-29.
- Kinger Neha & Kumar Satinder, 2023.
"Generational Differences In Work Values In The Workplace,"
Folia Oeconomica Stetinensia, Sciendo, vol. 23(2), pages 204-221, December.
- Anna Pietruszka-Ortyl & Małgorzata Ćwiek & Bernard Ziębicki & Anna Wójcik-Karpacz, 2021.
"Organizational Culture as a Prerequisite for Knowledge Transfer among IT Professionals: The Case of Energy Companies,"
Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-32, December.
- José Romualdo Costa Filho & Renato Penha & Luciano Ferreira Silva & Flavio Santino Bizarrias, 2022.
"Competencies for Managing Activities in Agile Projects,"
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 23(4), pages 431-452, December.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:ijmpps:ijm-09-2019-0448. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.