By: Robert Ashton and Michael Roberts Presenter: Sara Aliabadi September, 25

Motivation Effort increases Performance may improve

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

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

(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).

“Antecedents-and –consequences-of-knowledge” model; Experience Knowledge Performance Ability

Motivation Experience Knowledge Performance Ability

Two types of motivations: I. Situational II. Dispositional

We use the Five-factor model of personality which is based on five dimensions of: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Emotional stability.

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

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.

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.

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.

Focus on three variables: i. Motivation ii. Knowledge iii. 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).

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.

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.

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

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.