Talking about motivation is to launch into an endless debate on theories, experiments, human nature, philosophy, and many other more or less hermetic subjects.

As far back as 1976, Toulouse and Poupart spoke of the jungle of work motivation theories, while in 1981, Kleinginna A.M. and Kleinginna P.R. listed 140 definitions of the concept.[1]

Above all, understanding motivation mechanics is useless when implementing a strategy. Most of them have been studied in university laboratories, with students as guinea pigs, and under highly controlled conditions, "all things being equal" ("ceteris paribus sic stantibus").

This last characteristic alone shows that there are too many conditions to be met before they can be transposed to the reality of the corporate world.

And, without unconditionally questioning all these theories, it should be noted that many of them have been defined based on a flawed methodology that is difficult to reproduce or does not meet scientific research requirements.

However, it's worth retaining one or two of them as a basis for reflection on the mechanisms of systemic motivation. To choose them, we need to find those that have stood the test of time, have been taken up in subsequent studies, and have given rise to empirical experiments or models that are now being applied in the field.

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[1] LA MOTIVATION AU TRAVAIL - CONCEPT ET THÉORIES par Patrice ROUSSEL (1) note n° 326 Octobre 2000 http://alain.battandier.free.fr/IMG/pdf/lirhe_note_326-00.pdf