Motivational Inducement Systems 

Inducement systems are those design aspects of an organization which act to energize, direct, or sustain behavior within the organization.  The most commonly studied inducement systems are the reward, task, managerial, and social inducement systems.  The reward system involves the design and implementation of formal reward systems in the organization, such as the compensation system and the promotional system.  The task inducement system is involved with the motivational aspects of job and task design.  The managerial inducement system derives its motivational properties from aspects of leadership style.  Finally, the motivational impact of the work group or the organization as a social system defines the social inducement system.
 
The Reward Inducement System
The impact of reward systems on motivation has been analyzed mainly from a cognitive/instrumental perspective.  The motivational properties of pay systems have thus been tied to the expectation that increased effort will lead to greater pay and the instrumental value of pay to the individual.  Thus, instrumental motivation is the primary source of motivation that the reward system attempts to induce.  From a self concept perspective, pay provides a very potent form of social feedback.  It tends to reinforce one’s perception of competencies and provides an important source of status.  Therefore, maintenance of the external self concept is an alternative source of motivation induced by the reward system.  For example, a pay raise may be a form of pure instrumental motivation, or it may provide the basis upon which the individual’s self perceptions are reinforced or enhanced.
 
Task Inducement System
The task design literature points to autonomy, task significance, feedback, task identity, and skill variety as attributes of the task that impact motivation.  These authors claim that work redesign provides a strategy for enhancing internal work motivation (i.e., the individual does the work because it interests or challenges him/her).  In terms of the self concept, the degree of autonomy would affect an individual’s opportunity to attribute outcomes to his/her traits, competencies and values.  The significance of a task, and one’s contribution to the success of the task, would determine how important the feedback (task for inner-directed and social for other-directed) is to traits, competencies and values that comprise a role-specific identity that may be crucial to an individual’s self concept.  Task feedback is a necessary ingredient in reinforcement or affirmation of self perception, and one’s ability to identify with a task would affect how important that feedback is to an individual’s self concept.  Skill variety would provide information regarding a number of traits, competencies and values that comprise different role specific identities.