Nonprofit Managers’ Motivational Styles

Contemporary nonprofit management research generally assumes that nonprofit managers are intrinsically motivated and has disproportionally emphasized the importance of intrinsic motivation. This is misleading as individuals can be simultaneously propelled by both extrinsic and intrinsic factors. By testing variables from the NASP-III data set and employing self-determination theory (SDT), the author obtained the following findings. First, nonprofit managers’ motivational styles fall into five different categories as suggested in SDT. Second, their external motivation (e.g., a desire for pay and security), a type of extrinsic motivation, is not necessarily weaker than their intrinsic motivation. Finally, the five categories vary in their relationships with their job satisfaction, job involvement, and pride working for the current organization. The author urges scholars to pay more attention to nonprofit managers’ multidimensional motivational styles.