Achievement motive: A reconceptualization and new instrument

Abstract

A questionnaire based on a facet definition of achievement motive was devised to assess achievement tendencies amongst managers. The facet definition provided guidelines for the creation of items and the formulation of hypotheses concerning the structural relations among components of achievement motive. The questionnaire was then administered to a sample of 190 middle managers in a large industrial corporation in Israel.As hypothesized, results reflected three facets of achievement motive:(1) type of confrontation;(2) time perspective of task performance and (3) behavioural modality.Six measures formed from a combination of items related to the first two facets were found to be internally reliable. Moreover, three of these measures dealing with readiness to confront uncertainty, to solve problems and to take calculated risks were found to predict at a significant level actual manager performance. Discussion focused on a multifaceted rather than unitary approach to achievement motive and implications for assessing its relationship to performance in various settings. Defining achievement motiveContent analysis of the literature on achievement motivation (cf.

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