In order to understand intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, we need to first understand what motivation is. Motivation comes from a Latin word ‘movere’ which means ‘to move’. Therefore, motivation is to move oneself toward a goal. Motivation is a means and not an end by itself.
Extrinsic Motivation is promoted by factors that are external to an individual. Individuals extrinsically motivated work on their jobs because of some external factors which bring reward and punishment.
Extrinsic Motivation via reward and punishment means that people lose interest in the activities they perform; they begin to see the activities merely as instruments for attainment of (monetary or non-monetary) rewards. They get alienated from the task or activity and
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In case of extrinsic motivation, there should be always an external stimulus present to motivate the concerned person. Unfortunately, the source of stimuli is also not permanent and changes after each small or big achievement. Moreover, it is not so much important how motivated a person is as is the source and nature of that motivation (Ryan and Stiller 1991: 124). For instance, too much extrinsic motivation may actually interfere with achievement. On the other hand, motivation is not necessarily jumping for joy all day, excitement, enthusiasm, and the like. Nor does motivation imply seriousness, tension, and stress. The old puritanical notion that anything important must be unpleasant is unacceptable, especially in relation to motivation. Good old days when work was simple, routine, repetitive, and discrete units, then you could work piecemeal and paid accordingly, and money could be your motivator. In the 21st century much of this routine work is disappearing, and much of it is outsourced to the Bricks countries as BPO. Currently, most white collar jobs are heuristic, right-brain, artistic, creative, imaginative, intuitive, innovative and designful – all of which can never be outsourced nor done through algorithms. While extrinsic motivators like money, bonuses, and promotions could incentivize algorithmic jobs, heuristic jobs need more and more intrinsic motivators such as sheer joy and ecstasy of working and performance results. Intrinsic motivation is Harlow’s third drive, or what Teresa Amabile of the Harvard Business School calls intrinsic motivation. “Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity” (Amabile 1996: 119). Since modern work has become more creative and less mechanistic, it has also become more enjoyable, even