1. The Role of Motivational
and Affective Aspects:
Empirical Results
and Future Directions
Christine Kunzmann
Andreas Schmidt
Professional Training Facts 2011
FZI Research Center for
Information Technologies, Karlsruhe

2. Motivation is key for knowledge work
“Knowledge workers are those people who
have taken responsibility for their work lives.
They continually strive to understand the
world around them and modify their work
practices and behaviors to better meet their
personal and organizational objectives. No
one tells them what to do. They do not take
No for an answer. They are self motivated.”
David Gurteen
2
2

3. Emotions and affective aspects, too.
Anxiety
Joy
Stress
Frustration
3
3

4. But so far, the perspective has been limited
e.g., incentive systems
4
4

5. And what about emotions…
… they should not
be part of
professional
life,
… should they?
5
5

6. Research has been fragmented.
Knowledge Management CSCW
HR Development
Psychology
HCI
Economics
Sensor engineering
Each with different ideas of
man, research methodologies, … 6 6

7. But there are promising approaches …
7
7

8. Management & HR: Dan Pink - Drive
▪ Motivation 1.0
• largely based on our biological drive
• We eat to sate our hunger, we drink to slake our thirst.
▪ Motivation 2.0
• rewards & punishments, carrots & sticks
▪ Motivation 2.1
• flexible schedules, a little bit more autonomy, socially
responsible businesses
▪ Motivation 3.0
• Autonomy - desire to be self-directed
• Mastery – desire to get better
• Purpose – a reason for existing
8
8

9. Enterprise 2.0
▪ Collaboration behavior and effects of social
dynamics
▪ Identifying different personality types
▪ Web 2.0 and basic needs, e.g., Deci & Ryan:
• experiencing autonomy
• experiencing competence
• experiencing social relatedness
9
9

10. Leveraging bio-sensors
▪ Capture activity-level and stress level
▪ Reflect on emotional reactions
▪ Learn about decision behavior
• physio-economics
10
10

11. Motivation in knowledge maturing processes
Research on Motivation in the MATURE IP
http://mature-ip.eu

12. Why is motivation so difficult to address?
▪ There are plenty of models for human motivation in
different fields
▪ They help to describe a given situation, but they are
of little use for deciding what to do
in a (socio-technical) learning support systems.
• Frequently only focussed on the individual (psychology)
• Or too narrow in their understanding of human needs
▪ Problem: motivation is a generic phenomenon, but can
only be addressed in a context-specific way.
12
12

13. ▪ Learn about the
context
▪ empirical studies
▪ analysis framework
▪ Develop context-
specific solutions
▪ participatory
development
approach

14. Analysis framework
14
14

15. Interview study: Motivational barriers
70
60 Fear of Disgrace
Loss of Power
50
number of mentions
Lack of Usability
40
No Interest
30
Low Awareness
20
Lack of Time
10
0
unrelated Ia Ib II III IV V
expressing appropriating distributing in formalising ad‐hoc standardising
ideas ideas communities training
phases of KMM 15
15

16. Conclusions – what we‘ve learnt so far
▪ Addressing motivational aspects is challenging
• multiple factors, individual differences
• challenges of interdisciplinary work
▪ Understanding real-world contextes and target persons
is most important
• Either through immersion in workplace reality
• Or captured in narratives
▪ Individual motivation deeply interlinked with team and
organizational culture
16
16

17. How can we make
technology more aware
of motivational aspects?

18. Development methodology
18
18

19. ▪ Don‘t design for average users!
▪ Leave room to users for finding their
own way
19
19

20. Challenges 20
20

21. Challenges
▪ Incorporating motivational and affective aspects in
(socio-technical) system design is currently more an art
than an systematical engineering approach
▪ We need to move towards design patterns.
▪ This requires more investigation into existing systems,
successes and failures.
21
21

22. Outlook & Contact
MATURE IP – http://mature-ip.eu
Identifying and overcoming barriers to knowledge
maturing in organizations
http://mature-ip.eu/files/2009-11_Motivation.pdf
http://mature-ip.eu/results/representative-study
Andreas Schmidt
Department Manager / Scientific Coordinator MATURE
FZI Research Center for Information Technologies,
Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14 Karlsruhe, GERMANY (http://fzi.de/ipe)
andreas.schmidt@fzi.de, http://andreas.schmidt.name
Christine Kunzmann
FZI & Kompetenzorientierte Personalentwicklung
Ankerstr. 47, 75203 Königsbach-Stein, GERMANY,
http://kompetenzen-gestalten.de
contact@christine-kunzmann.de
22
22

23. Acknowledgements:
▪ Picture: poisson rouge sautant d'un aquarium
© Simon Coste #543847 – fotolia.com
▪ Others from http://sxc.hu
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/319939_6613
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/143622_4281
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1156284_39977081
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1169790_27775290
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1275937_97948668
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/462280_61402643
• http://www.sxc.hu/photo/61022_7814