Training corporate managers to adopt a more autonomy-supportive motivating style toward employees : an intervention atudy
By: HARDRÉ, Patricia L
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Contributor(s): REEVE, Johnmarshall.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Malden, MA : WILEY-BLACKWELL, September 2009International Journal of Training and Development 13, 3, p. 165-184Abstract: Management style is treated in a variety of ways across the training and development literature. Yet few studies have tested the training-based malleability of management style in a for-profit, authentic work context. The present research tested whether or not training intervention would help managers adopt a more autonomy-supportive motivating style toward employees and whether or not the employees of these managers would, in turn, show greater autonomous motivation and workplace engagement. Using an intervention-based experimental design, 25 managers from a Fortune 500 company received training consistent with self-determination theory on how to support the autonomy of the 169 employees they supervised. Five weeks after the managers in the experimental group participated in the training, they displayed a significantly more autonomy-supportive managerial style than did nontrained managers in a control group. Further, the employees they supervised showed, 5 weeks later, significantly more autonomous motivation and greater workplace engagement than did employees supervised by control-group managers. We discuss the malleability of managers' motivating styles, the benefits to employees when managers become more autonomy supportive, and recommendations for future training interventions and research.
Management style is treated in a variety of ways across the training and development literature. Yet few studies have tested the training-based malleability of management style in a for-profit, authentic work context. The present research tested whether or not training intervention would help managers adopt a more autonomy-supportive motivating style toward employees and whether or not the employees of these managers would, in turn, show greater autonomous motivation and workplace engagement. Using an intervention-based experimental design, 25 managers from a Fortune 500 company received training consistent with self-determination theory on how to support the autonomy of the 169 employees they supervised. Five weeks after the managers in the experimental group participated in the training, they displayed a significantly more autonomy-supportive managerial style than did nontrained managers in a control group. Further, the employees they supervised showed, 5 weeks later, significantly more autonomous motivation and greater workplace engagement than did employees supervised by control-group managers. We discuss the malleability of managers' motivating styles, the benefits to employees when managers become more autonomy supportive, and recommendations for future training interventions and research.
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