Work Motivation: Past, Present and Future

Ruth Kanfer received her Ph.D. in 1981 from Arizona State University. She was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Quantitative Psychology at the University of Illinois (1981-1983) and served on the faculty at the University of Minnesota (1984-1997). Since 1997, she has served as a Professor of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests are in motivation and self-regulation in the context of complex skill training, job performance, team performance, employee development, and job search and reemployment. She is author of over 60 articles and chapters on these topics, and is co-editor of Emotions in the Workplace (2002) and Learning, Motivation, and Methodology (1989). She has received several research awards for her work on motivation, including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (2007) and the William R. Owens Scholarly Achievement Award (2006) from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology ), the Organizational Psychology Division Outstanding Publication of the Year from the Academy of Management (1989), and the Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution in Applied Research (1989) from the American Psychological Association. She served on the Academy of Management Board of Governors (2004-2007), and served or has served on nine journal editorial boards, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Applied Psychology: An International Review, and Journal of Management.. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Institutes of Health, the Spencer Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Georgia Department of Labor, and private organizations. She is a Fellow in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.

Gilad Chen is an Associate Professor of Management & Organization in the Robert H. Smith School of Business, at the University of Maryland. He received his doctoral degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from George Mason University in 2001. His research on work motivation, teams and leadership, and multilevel phenomena has appeared in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Research in Organizational Behavior, and has been funded by U.S. Army Research Institute. He is a recipient of several research awards, including the 2007 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award. He either serves or has served on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Management, and is currently serving as Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Psychology.







Robert D. Pritchard received his Ph.D. in 1969 from the University of Minnesota. He is currently a Professor of Psychology and Management at the University of Central Florida. His primary interest is in motivation and in measuring and improving organizational performance. He has given workshops, symposia, and other presentations on his work in the US, Canada, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Russia. He has received several research awards including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 2002 for his work on motivation and performance. He is a Fellow in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.



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