Testing portions of the Porter and Lawler model regarding the motivational role of pay

Abstract

Tested hypotheses regarding the motivational role of pay proposed by L. Porter and E. Lawler in Managerial Attitudes and Performance. Results of a questionnaire returned by 575 professional employees of a firm confirmed 2 key hypotheses: (a) the more employees believe that performance factors influence pay, the harder they will work to improve their performance; and (b) individuals who see pay as a satisfier will try to perform more satisfactorily. It is suggested that the strong pay-performance relationship in the organization studied may account for the finding that effort functioned differently than in the Porter and Lawler theoretical model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)