Effect of Dispositional Motivation on Knowledge and Performance in Accounting

By: Robert Ashton and Michael Roberts Presenter: Sara AliabadiSeptember, 25

What are the effects of dispositional motivation on knowledge and performance?

Motivation

Effort increases Performance may improve

Prior research on motivation, effort and performance

Awashi and Pratt (1990) Libby and Lipe (1992), Sprinkle (2000), Kennedy (93, 95)

What is the main idea in this paper?

Our study is on motivation induced by the individual trait of conscientiousness.

What drives performance?

(Einhorn and Hogarth 1981) suggest that performance is determined by ability, knowledge, motivation, and environment.

( Maier 1955 ; Heider 1958) suggest that performance is a function of ability and motivation or P = f(A x M).

Drivers of Performance

“Antecedents-and –consequences-of-knowledge” model;

Experience Knowledge Performance

Ability

Driver of Performance

Motivation

Experience Knowledge Performance

Ability

Situational and Dispositional Source of Motivation

Two types of motivations:I. SituationalII. Dispositional

How do we test personality?

We use the Five-factor model of personality which is based on five dimensions of:

Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Emotional stability.

Knowledge and Performance in Problem Recognition and Information Search

We investigate two judgment tasks that would appear to be differentially sensitive to motivational influences. Our focus is on dispositional variables:

Conscientiousness Achievement striving

Hypotheses

H1: Motivation will be positively related to knowledge in the problem recognition task.

H2: Motivation will be positively related to knowledge in the information search task.

Hypotheses

H3: Motivation will not be related to tax issue identification performance in the problem recognition task.

H4: Motivation will be positively related to business issue identification performance in the problem recognition task.

Hypotheses

H5: Motivation will be positively related to performance effectiveness in the information search task.

H6: Motivation will be positively related to performance efficiency in the information search task.

Method

Focus on three variables:i. Motivationii. Knowledgeiii. Performance

Nine-item conscientiousness scale of the Big Five Personality Inventory (John et al. 1994), The Seven-item achievement striving scale derived from the Jenkins Activity Survey (Jenkins et al. 1971).

Tasks

In problem recognition task: i. For knowledge portion participants had to answer 100

True/False tax related questions.

ii. For performance portion participants were required to read a case.

Tasks Continued

In information search task:i. To measure knowledge, we used the 20-items

Code Structure Inventory used by Robert and Ashton(2003).

ii. To measure performance, subjects were required to search some electronic database to find relevant code section for 10 short cases.

Participants and Procedure

102 first year tax consultants, Both authors supervised the administration of the problem recognition in on sitting.

Result

Both H1 and H2 are supported for achievement measure, but not for conscientiousness.

H3 is supported: neither conscientiousness nor achievement is related to tax issue.

H4 is supported for achievement but not for conscientiousness. Both H5 and H6 are supported for achievement

measure, but not for conscientiousness.