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The purpose of this paper is to develop a motivation preferences scale and identify different groups' motivation preferences.

Song Lianke designed a motivation preferences scale in 2002. Authors developed this scale by factor analysis in 2006. Participants were a sample of employees from ten organizations in Jiangsu Province, Eastern China. This paper compared motivation preferences among different groups via multivariate analysis of variance.

Motivation preferences can be characterized by existence needs, relatedness needs and growth needs. Results indicated that motivation preferences were strongly related to needs with which individuals desire to be satisfied. There were significant differences in motivation preferences among groups that were categorized by gender or personality. Additionally, we found that Chinese culture influenced motivation preferences.

Authors collected all data from Jiangsu Province, but future investigation ought to collect data from more places. This paper did not analyze why and how motivation preferences related to needs. Relationship between motivation preference and performance was not discussed. This research did not distinguish motivation preferences between managers and non‐managers. Future research should do those works.

This research provided an instrument for scholars and managers who want to measure motivation preferences. Results suggested that there were differences among different groups on motivation preferences.