Motivation and emotion/Book/2020/Work and passion

Work and passionː
What is the relationship between work and passion?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Working is important to life as it gives individuals the capacity to afford the lifestyle they want and live comfortably. Some individuals work just so they can make ends meet and afford to survive, while others work through their drive and passion and thrive off their work. We have all heard the saying "if you love what you do you will never work a day in your life" loving what you do for work is important as it creates a sense of passion and furthermore increases an individuals drive to work harder without feeling overly strained and stressed.

This chapter will explore what drives a person to do well in their job, the benefits of having passion where you work, the theories based around this particular concept and what different types of motivation affect your way of working

Focus questions: What is the relationship between passion and work? What are the benefits of having passion for your job? What are the theories on how a person finds passion in their workplace?

Definition of passion

Passion is an emotion of tremendous excitement for someone or something.

Passion is a word that is used to describe a feeling that makes an individual show strong emotion that relates to an external desire. There are certain factors that are influenced when finding what drives a person to have passion at their workplace. these factors include;

1. Contentedness of the individuals job
2. Job satisfaction
3. Well-being
4. Nature of the job

Each of these factors work off each other to having a fulfilling job and keeping motivated to performing to the best of your ability. These factors also play a role in discovering how we find passion in work and how they correlate.

Core concepts of passion and work

Figure 1. job satisfaction, smiling worker

Well-being and work

It has been researched that the well-being at work influences the passion that is driven from day to day throughout work. a study conducted by Mcallister looked into the relationship of well-being and passion through work. The findings included important key aspects

1. How happiness in your work places helps motivates you
2. Positive outcomes when perceived available produced benefits
3. Greater work passion was associated with positive outcomes

Mcallister (2017) states that work passion is both emotional and persistent state of desire concluding that the liking of an activity forms into an emotional attachment interlining the activity into themselves continuing to achieve more at their workplace. His study showed that there was a positive relationship between passion and practice indicating that passion was led from a long term liking for the activity the individual was doing manifesting an improved performance over time. This shows that there is a motivational drive.

Job satisfaction and motivational drive

Possessing motivational drive comes within the individual self to behave in a certain way that satisfies the goals they wanted to achieve such as within their workplace. Motivational drive is primarily driven by social and psychological mechanisms which shows benefits to the success and contribution at work (Ho, 2011). Allowing oneself to continue to achieve maximum effort shows positive links to having passion for what people do for their job. This strongly includes having job satisfaction, as working in a job that you love empowers a stronger motivational drive to do better.

Contentedness to job

When individuals are happy and have a good well-being within their job it creates a type of contentedness within them that they themselves know they are performing at an excellent level that they are happy with, always striving to do better.

Nature of the job

How a person performs in their workplace is dependent on the nature of their job. Some work for the money others work because of the passion they instil and they love what they do for work. One key factor that links to the performance of your work is the cognitive engagement and employee has that is shown true the passion they possess at work (Violet, 2011).

Theories

Appraisal theory

Appraisal theory in psychology looks at the emotions that are extracted from our evaluations. When using this theory in a work passion situation it looks at how an individual will achieve and perform better from receiving appraisal whether it's verbal or recognised through the employees credibility of how hard they work. Employees may work better knowing from another worker that they are doing their job correctly and with satisfaction.

Locus of control

The locus of control theory was developed by Julian B. Rotter in order to explain the control an individual is perceived to have over the outcomes of events in their life. This relates to work and passion by further explaining that individuals have the capacity to control the outcomes in their life and can control how passionate they feel about the workplace. One study focused on the concept of locus of control and how this theory related to individuals productiveness within the workplace (Jones, J,2019). The study focused on the behaviours and attributes of two different types of people; those who believed they had personal control over life events and those who believed that outcomes were out of their control. The findings presented that there are several factors that contribute to an individuals self control and the people who strongly believed they controlled most factors in their life performed better overall. This suggests that the individuals who are passionate about work within their locus of control will be more likely to achieve higher goals within the work place.

Relationship between passion and work

The concepts and theories mentioned all link together in obtaining passion in the workplace. Different abilities and mindsets through emotion and motivation change the way people work and why they work, it separates people who have passion and those who don't. Passion comes from the willingness of a person to strive for their goals in relation to work.

These concepts go into depth about how these different elements are connected between the two and why there is a positive relationship between passion and work and how having passion for work benefits careers and over all well-being of the individual. One study conducted by Houlfort (2014) examined if there were long term and short term influences of passion for workers satisfaction and if passion for work were independent from those of work motivation. This study dove into depth on how a type of motivation can effect your passion for work, the findings showed that passion was highly elated to positive individual outcomes on higher work satisfaction and that passion for work was found to be a distinct concept from work motivation (Houlfort,2014). This shows that there is a link between passion and work and how one achieves their goals with a heavily influence of the motivation that the person has. Passion can not come on its own it needs a form of motivation in order to find that drive to work harder in a workplace environment.

Conclusion

There are people who work for money and people who work with passion. People who show passion within their workplace utilise the concepts that make up passion through finding a motivational drive that allows them to keep performing and achieve their goals. These concepts that consist of contentedness of the individuals job, job satisfaction well-being, and nature of the job all play a huge part in possessing passion for work. Passion is an emotion that makes someone have an external desire and helps build on a motivation that continuously drives that person to work better and harder. If someone cannot find passion for their work they will not strive to achieve their goals and show less job satisfaction and well-being.

See also

• Passion (emotion) (Wikipedia)
• Passion (philosophy) (Wikipedia)

References

Astakhova, M., & Porter, G. (2015). Understanding the work passion–performance relationship: The mediating role of organizational identification and moderating role of fit at work. Human Relations, 68(8), 1315-1346. doi: 10.1177/0018726714555204

Houlfort, N., L. Philippe, F., J. Vallerand, R. and Ménard, J. (2014), "On passion and heavy work investment: personal and organizational outcomes", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 25-45. https://doi-org.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/10.1108/JMP-06-2013-0155

Ho, V. T., Sze-Sze Wong, & Chay Hoon Lee. (2011). A Tale of Passion: Linking Job Passion and Cognitive Engagement to Employee Work Performance. Journal of Management Studies (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), 48(1), 26–47. https://doi-org.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00878.x

Jones, J. S., Murray, S. R., & Outlaw, T. (2019). The effect of generational differences on locus of control in the workplace. Academy of Business Research Journal, 1, 7-21. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/docview/2442630450?accountid=28889

Mcallister, C. P., Harris, J. N., Hochwarter, W. A., Perrewé, P.,L., & Ferris, G. R. (2017). Got resources? A multi-sample constructive replication of perceived resource availability's role in work passion-job outcomes relationships. Journal of Business and Psychology, 32(2), 147-164. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/10.1007/s10869-016-9441-1

Zigarmi, D., Galloway, F. J., & Taylor, P. R. (2018). Work locus of control, motivational regulation, employee work passion, and work intentions: An empirical investigation of an appraisal model. Journal of Happiness Studies, 19(1), 231-256. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.canberra.edu.au/10.1007/s10902-016-9813-2

External links

• How to find work you love (TED Talk)