Managers Allocate Additional Tasks to Intrinsically Motivated Employees: Exploring Mechanisms, Consequences, and Solutions

Intrinsic motivation is highly valued in the workplace with employees encouraged to express the meaning and enjoyment they derive from their work. However, the current research identifies a cost of intrinsic motivation: managers allocate additional tasks to employees they perceive as more (versus less) intrinsically motivated. We establish this effect across task allocation paradigms using managers’ actual employees, profiles of real workers randomly assigned to managers, and a laboratory experiment with a salient financial downside for the chosen employee (Studies 1a, 1b, and 2). Managers’ preference to allocate additional tasks to intrinsically motivated employees is serially mediated by the naïve belief that these employees will enjoy the additional task (i.e., motive oversimplification), which, in turn, reduces perceived risk of burnout from the additional work (Study 2, Supplemental Studies 2 and 3). Notably, this preference persists in a six-day longitudinal study with repeated allocation decisions (Study 3) and can negatively affect organizations (Study 3 posttest). Two theory-driven interventions attenuate this preference by intervening on managers’ decision environment (Study 4) and beliefs (Study 5). This research advances theory on motivation, person perception, and task allocation decisions and offers insights and solutions for the paradoxical burnout experienced by individuals who derive joy from their work.

Funding: This research was supported by the Cornell ILR School, the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, and a grant from the Cornell Center for Social Sciences awarded to both authors.

Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data and materials on all experiments is available at: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.18332 and also available at: http://osf.io/heuwm/.