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Classical definitions of motivation typically involve two main components: direction and activation. Motivated behavior is directed toward or away from particular stimuli (i.e., appetitive and aversive motivation). Furthermore, activational aspects of motivation refer to the observation that motivated behavior is characterized by substantial activity, vigor, persistence, and exertion of effort in both the initiation and maintenance of behavior. Although separate neural systems direct organisms toward distinct motivational stimuli (e.g., food, water, sex), there appears to be a common circuitry regulating behavioral activation and the exertion of effort. Mesolimbic dopamine is one of the brain systems mediating activational aspects of motivation and exertion of effort. This system integrates aspects of motivation and motor control functions involved in the instigation of action. Research on the neurobiology of effort has contributed to our understanding of the pathophysiology of neurological and psychiatric disorders that are characterized by motivational dysfunction.

This study aims to investigate a startup accelerator’s decisions toward exerting effort in an information acquisition process and selecting an information disclosure strategy. In particular, the authors are interested in examining which factors may cause the accelerator to report more or less accurate information, which will subsequently affect the investment decision and the outcome of the ventures. This study examines the impact of the equity share taken by the accelerator on the effort level being exerted in the information acquisition process, as well as the accelerator’s decision on the information disclosure regime.

The authors use mathematical models built upon well-established theoretical and practical concepts to analyze the research problems and derive the findings.

The authors show that when the accelerator takes a sufficiently large equity share from the entrepreneur in exchange for admitting the entrepreneur’s venture into the acceleration program, the accelerator is motivated to exert a significant level of effort to observe an accurate signal for the quality of the venture, and then disclose the information about the venture’s quality consistently with the observed signal (informative disclosure regime). On the other hand, if the accelerator takes a small equity share, it is optimal for her to exert no effort in the information acquisition process and simply adopt the basic disclosure regime, where the accelerator reports the quality of the venture based solely on the ex ante expected payoff of the venture, regardless of the observed signal.

The results indicate that an equity sharing scheme, which awards a sufficient amount of equity to the accelerator, can be an effective tool to help obtain accurate information about the quality of a startup venture and make a well-informed investment decision.

This research illustrates that the ownership stake of the accelerator can potentially indicate the accuracy of the information about the venture provided by the accelerator to outside investors. That is, when the stake held by the accelerator is large, the investors can conjecture that the information about the venture reported by the accelerator may be highly accurate and reliable. In contrast, if the accelerator holds a small stake, then it is likely that the information provided by the accelerator may not add any value to the publicly available information. These insights can guide investors (e.g. angle investors, venture capitalists, etc.) in making well-informed startup investment decisions.

Temporary and circular migration programs have been devised by many destination countries and supported by the European Commission as a policy to reduce welfare and social costs of immigration in destination countries. In this chapter, we present an additional reason for proposing temporary migration policies based on the characteristics of the foreign labor-effort supply. The level of effort exerted by migrants, which decreases over their duration in the host country, positively affects production, real wages, and capital owners' profits. We show that the acceptance of job offers by migrants results in the displacement in employment of national workers. However, it increases the workers' exertion, decreases prices, and thus can counter anti-immigrant voter sentiment. Therefore, the favorable sentiment of the capital owners and the local population toward migrants may rise when temporary migration policies are adopted.

Pursuit of meaning is at the heart of much of organizational life. It has implications for how different organizational stakeholders associate value to various organizational initiatives. Research on meaning has generally shown that effort increases meaning and favorable valuation of and willingness to pay for economic activities by organizational stakeholders. The authors build on and advance this research by offering theory and experimental evidence showing that effort, particularly at high levels, results in enhanced meaning and favorable valuation when effort does not threaten the focal stakeholders' resources through expectation disconfirmation.

Three experimental studies are designed and conducted in this research. In one study, the authors replicate prior research findings that establish labor generally increases meaning and favorable valuation. In the two subsequent studies, the authors test the proposed hypothesis in this research and check for robustness of the empirical analysis.

The authors find that any internalized threat to the focal stakeholder's resources coupled with a high exertion of effort decreases, rather than increases, meaning and favorable valuation of and willingness to pay for economic activities.

The theory and empirical evidence in this research advance the understanding of how organizational stakeholders may associate effort-induced meaning with various economic activities in counter-intuitive ways. The findings also highlight the importance of recognizing and shaping the expectations of organizational stakeholders in influencing willingness to pay in organizational settings.

Questions regarding what motivates people to perform their best and feel good about their jobs are of enduring interest to managers and researchers. Understanding the motives that impel top performance and make work satisfying can facilitate superior organisational performance and development of a healthy and productive organisational culture. Developing accurate models of the role of work‐related effort in generating performance and attitudinal outcomes is central to such an understanding and is the focus of our research. In particular, we have studied how effort affects work performance and job satisfaction in personal selling contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine psychological attachment styles (secure, anxious, and avoidant) as antecedents to leader-member exchange (LMX) quality both directly and through their impact on employees’ efforts to build high quality LMX relationships. Employees with secure attachment styles are proposed to be successful at building high quality LMX relationships while employees with anxious and avoidant styles are proposed to display the opposite effect.

Data were collected through a survey of 213 employees nested in 37 work groups. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel modeling within MPlus.

Results indicated that secure and anxious attachment styles were associated with LMX only by impacting the exertion of effort specifically aimed at relationship development with the manager. Alternatively, the avoidant style was directly and negatively linked to LMX but not associated with effort undertaken to build a high quality relationship.

The effects of attachment style on effort to develop high quality LMX relationships reveal that subordinate attachment style may impact those subordinates’ ability and interest in developing positive LMX relationships. Therefore, managers may need to purposively deviate from typical LMX development processes in order to create a more conducive environment for developing high quality relationships with subordinates of differing attachment styles.

This study is one of the first to examine the mediating impact of effort to build high quality LMX relationships given personal propensities (attachment style) to form relationships in the workplace.

We demonstrate in a laboratory experiment that the effectiveness of performance-contingent incentives is inversely related to risk-aversion levels. For about 16.5% of participants, performance fails to improve under performance-pay, and the probability of such failure increases with risk-aversion. This phenomenon works in part through the reduced effort level of more risk-averse individuals when effort level is positively correlated with risk exposure. It is also associated with higher self-reported levels of stress by more risk-averse people working under performance-contingent pay. We find no evidence of such stress causing decrements in the quality of effort affecting performance after controlling for effort level. However, controlling for effort, more risk-averse participants perform better under a fixed salary, leaving less room for improvement under performance-pay.

This paper aims to build a moderate mediation model to delineate when and how employee with perceived overqualification will exert extra effort and therefore engage in more altruistic helping behavior.

The research hypotheses were empirically tested using multitime and multisource survey data. Given the nested nature of data (i.e. 52 immediate supervisors rated 143 subordinates), multilevel structural equation modeling analyses within Mplus were conducted to test the proposed model.

The results support the proposed moderated mediation effect and indicate that perceived overqualification is positively related to extra effort on a condition that there is either strong desire for higher workplace status or more developmental job opportunities. The extra effort will subsequently lead to more altruistic helping behavior.

Based on the findings of this paper, human resource managers should consider the job applicant’s desire for workplace status and the organizational context the employer can provide when hiring overqualified employees. Second, organizations should carefully conduct job design to improve overqualified employees’ on-the-job developmental experiences. Third, training programs should be conducted to help satisfy needs and improve workplace status of overqualified employees, so that they can exert extra job effort and engage in pro-organizational behaviors.

Drawing on motivation–opportunity–ability theory, this paper extends the limited understanding of important boundary conditions under which perceived overqualification can be beneficial. The findings add to the knowledge on extant literature by identifying altruistic helping behavior as a new outcome of perceived overqualification.

Considers the effect of effort on sales performance and job satisfaction in the context of Turkish industrial salespeople. Proposes a conceptual model in which competitiveness, instrumentality, role conflict, and role ambiguity are direct antecedents to effort and indirect antecedents to satisfaction and performance. Tests the proposed model with LISREL VII. Claims the results suggest that: competitiveness, instrumentality, role ambiguity, and role conflict have direct effects on salesperson effort: that role ambiguity, role conflict, and effort have direct effects on job satisfaction; that competitiveness and effort have direct effects on salesperson performance; that salesperson performance has a direct effect on job satisfaction, and that competitiveness, instrumentality, role conflict, and role ambiguity have indirect effects on a salesperson’s performance and/or job satisfaction.

This paper aims to present a design methodology to enable product design for ease of assembly. It is corroborated by means of a case study. The methodology is based on standard time data. This enables quick computation of assembly time as well as comparing different design options for ease of assembly.

Component design that is easy to assemble is likely to take less time and vice versa. Assembly time is a function of product design attributes such as geometric shape, weight, center of gravity, type of material, number of fasteners and types of fasteners. The methodology uses standard data to achieve its objective. Numeric scores are developed for each design feature based on the aforementioned design attributes. This enables not only computation of assembly time for a brand new product but also comparison of two or more alternative design configurations from the point of view of ease of assembly.

The value of the system is corroborated by means of case studies of actual product designs. It is demonstrated that changing any of the underlying design attributes (such as type of fastener used, number of fasteners used, material of the component and component shape) is likely to result in changing the amount of time taken to assemble the product. The scoring system facilitates the quick computation of assembly time

The amount of time to assemble a product before the product is ever designed is facilitated by this system. Assembly time is a direct function of product design attributes. Process time is calculated using standard data, specifically, the Methods Time Measurement (MTM) system. This is accomplished by converting design features into time measurement units (TMUs). Assembly cost can then be easily computed by using assembly time as the basis. The computation of assembly time and cost is important inasmuch as its role in influencing productivity. This is of obvious value not only to the designer but the company as a whole.