Successful Management by Motivation

Balancing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Incentives

Bruno S. Frey, Margit Osterloh

Motivated employees play a crucial role in creating a companys sustainable competitive advantage. Successful Management by Motivation shows that in a knowledge-based society, this goal cannot be achieved by extrinsic motivation alone. Pay for performance often even hurts because it crowds out intrinsic motivation. To succeed, companies have to find ways of fostering and sustaining intrinsic motivation. With the help of in-depth case studies, representative surveys, and analysis based on a large number of firms and employees, this work identifies the various aspects of motivation in companies and shows how the right combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be achieved.