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Motivation in software engineering has a great
impact on productivity and quality.
There are eight classic motivation theories
developed to keep the employee motivated in
an organization.
Software engineering is immature and needs to
build a stronger conceptual framework on
motivating software engineering.
This article aims to investigate how these eight
theories are exploited in the previous studies of
motivating software engineering and provide the
current landscape in this area so that the future
researchers can build a reliable body of
knowledge in motivating software engineers.
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Searching for studies:
Searched eight popular
academic databases and
reading abstract and titles.
Including and excluding
studies :The study must also
be published in a journal
article, conference
proceedings, or
conference experience
report
Data validation:
› Interrater reliability test: Is
the degree of agreement
among raters .
› Independent expert:
Experts score.
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Analysis: Analysis was
done in terms of use of
classic theories and other
theories of human behavior
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Stage 1: Identifying the
Scale of Theory Use
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Stage 2: Detailed Use of
Each Theory.
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Stage 3: Use of Other
Theories.
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Equity Theory : About a fair balance
and job satisfaction to be struck
between an employee’s inputs (Effort
,Loyalty ,Hard Work ,Commitment
,Skill) and an employee’s outputs
(Recognition Reputation ,
Responsibility , Sense of Achievement
, Praise, Stimulus)
If input > output = de-motivation
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Conclusion:
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Important underlying motivator.
And well built in studies.
Latitude theory is permitting
personal planning and decision
making
Pay rule is fairness of ones pay
with respect to co-worker
Monetary compensation,
assigned work and recognition
are important factors to
determine perception of
inequality among individuals
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Stimulus-Response Theory: Relates
to events (stimuli) that modifies the
behavior of an individual.
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Punitive stimuli: performance
related pay, orchestrated
competition. Responses are short
term.
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Rewarding stimuli : verbal praise
long term response.
Conclusion
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not wildly used.
Punitive motivator was not used
by any articles
OSS (open source software)
developers are motivated to
improve skills and require active
management by criticism,
corrections and feedback these
are the stimuli to keep project
on track.
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Job Characteristics Theory : This
concept talks about how to design
a job so that it is motivating for a
person. Motivation is related to three
psychological states
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Meaningfulness of work: That
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Responsibility: That you have
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Knowledge of outcomes: Gives
knowledge of how successful
they are at work.
labor has meaning. Work itself is
a motivator.
been given the opportunity to be a
success or failure at your job.
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learn from mistakes
further purpose of work
Conclusion
 JCT is the dominant method
used because of Job
Diagnostics Survey embedded
into JCT
 11 articles were related to
Couger hence it could be bias.
 Growth needs of computer
personnel were higher and
social interaction needs were
lower.
 JCT with other theories and
models were used to describe
task design.
 Extend the JCT to include roles
and leadership.
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Goal Setting Theory : In order to direct
ourselves we set ourselves goals that are:
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Clear (not vague) and understandable,
so we know what to do and what not to
do.
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Challenging, so we will be stimulated and
not be bored.
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Achievable, so we are unlikely to fail.
Conclusion:
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Not explicitly used.
The focus is on clear goals, a
personal interest in the task,
knowing the purpose of task, how
the task fits in with the whole, and
producing identifiable pieces of
quality work.
Traditional software development
emphasizes the need to provide
goals to the employees and track
them
Open-Source Developer motivation
theory says motivation is
proportional to his/hers subjective
evaluation of team goals
Expectancy Theory:
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Performance-Outcome
Expectancy: Expectations of
outcomes from activities
Valence: People will value
outcomes differently
Effort-Performance Expectancy:
Behavior has a probability of
success.
Conclusion :
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Fairly low use.
Trust dimension is added to the
expectancy theory “the
expectancy of team members that
their efforts will be reciprocated
and not exploited by other team
members(interpersonal trust) and
that the electronic support system
works reliably (trust in the system)”.
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Maslow’s Needs Theory: Is
on a belief that motivation is
driven by some unsatisfied needs
When a need is mostly satisfied it
no longer motivates and the next
higher need takes its place
 Physical comfort: breathing,
food , water .
 Security: personal security,
financial reserves, job security
 Social acceptance: friends,
family
 Esteem: Achievements,
confidence, recognition
 Self actualization: truth,
meaning ,wisdom ,justice.
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Conclusion:
 Model is known but not
explored significantly.
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SW engineers new to job are
less motivated by the task
factor and more pay.
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Needs change depending on
what stage of career they are.
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Unstable environment, pay
and benefits can be viewed
as motivation factor.
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McClelland’s Needs Theory:
Individuals specific needs are acquired
over time and are shaped by ones life experience. Most of these needs can
be classed as either
 Achievement: These people challenge themselves and then need
feedback on their achievements. Prefer to work alone.
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Affiliation: These people need harmonious relationship and need to feel
accepted by others. Prefer to work in areas that provide personal
interaction.
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Power: There are two types
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Personal power: They want to direct others.
Institutional power: They want to organize the effort of others to further the
goals of the organization
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Conclusion:
 Used fairly superficially
 An unmet need has the
potential to motivate
career drive.
 Positive management
force is necessary to
formulate goals and
give employees
motivation to achieve it.
 Higher achievers like to
take up challenging
jobs which give higher
opportunity of
promotions.
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Motivation-Hygiene Theory:
Factors causing satisfaction
are different those causing
job dissatisfaction.
 motivators (Intrinsic
Factors): By themselves
provide satisfaction.
 Hygiene(Extrinsic
factors): Factors
necessary to avoid
dissatisfaction but by
themselves they do not
provide satisfaction.
They are maintenance
factors
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Conclusion:
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Overall the use of this theory is
relatively widespread and it is
used relatively substantively in
the studies.
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Salary is not long term
motivation of work but good
work is.
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“So if you want people
motivated to do a good job ,
then give them a good job to
do”
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hygiene factors are connected
to satisfaction and not
excitement. But internal
resources like talent ,skills are
connected to excitement.
Results imply that there is no
systematic selection of
alternative theories
 Popular ones are career
anchors theory which is
individual’s self-concept of
who he/she is and what
he/she seeks from a career.
 Jung’s personality theory and
Theory Z are second best used
and it is concerned with the
productivity of the employee
by maintaining right culture.
 no particular alternative to the
classic theories of motivation
being used
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Several theories are seldom used while
others are more commonly used.
 Understanding of the basic concepts
and underlying frameworks for
motivation in software engineering
remain immature.
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Interesting eight classic theories
Selection process was very interesting in terms of efforts given to search
of the right kind of paper. Categorization is devised very well
In the conclusions there is no clear explanation of how the theories
related with the papers and what extensions are provided to the existing
ones
More detail discussion about why these theories are so important to
software engineering field in general.
Some of the concepts of the theories are overlapped for example goal
setting theory says that the goals should not be very easy and they
should be of interest of the person doing it the same concept can be
applied to intrinsic factor like the work itself . The authors have not taken
this fact into consideration
There could be more new variations or interpretations of these theories
and the authors are still driven by the older version of it.
Study related to other theories is relatively less and they could explore in
external theories direction.
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Not normalized to account for the
overall number of articles published
during this time period, nor normalized
against any trend in articles published
dealing with theory.