The Sustainability of Motivation Driven by High Performance Expectations: A Self-Defeating Effect

Yi Li, Nana Li, Mengru Wu and Man Zhang
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Yi Li: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200000, China
Nana Li: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200000, China
Mengru Wu: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200000, China
Man Zhang: School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200000, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: It is generally believed that having high performance expectations is an effective means of motivating employees to pursue excellence and sustain the motivation driven by it, while ignoring the negative impact that hinders the incentive to sustain such expectations. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we constructed a moderated mediation model to examine the relationship between supervisor’s high performance expectations and the employee’s territoriality utilizing data from 291 supervisor–subordinate dyads from two companies in China. The results revealed that task autonomy moderated the indirect and positive effect of high performance expectations on employees’ territoriality through stress, such that this indirect effect was stronger when employees were assigned to higher levels of task autonomy. The theoretical of these findings, as well as future research directions, are discussed.

Keywords: high performance expectations; territoriality; stress; task autonomy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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