Ability, Motivation and Opportunity theory: a formula for employee performance?

Ashlea Kellner, Kenneth Cafferkey and Keith Townsend

Chapter 21 in Elgar Introduction to Theories of Human Resources and Employment Relations, 2019, pp 311-323 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Ability, Motivation and Opportunity (AMO) theory has been adopted extensively to potentially explain the complex relationship between how people are managed and subsequent performance outcomes. Specifically, the theory suggests some combination of an individual’s ability (A), motivation (M) and opportunities (O) can give us a measure of an individual’s performance (P) (expressed as AMO = P). AMO theory is concerned with individual characteristics as independent variables, however, in its application in the HRM field, researchers have supplemented these independent variables for HR practices and policies, resulting in at least two different incarnations of the AMO model. Further compounding this issue, AMO theory has seldom seen empirical testing, and there is significant lack of consistency in definition and selection of variables. In this chapter, the authors develop an argument that AMO theory is poorly defined and tested, and its appeal is that it can be adapted to suit almost any HRM study.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Social Policy and Sociology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/9781786439000/9781786439000.00029.xml (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:17759_21

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().