CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 53Job Satisfaction and Organizational BehaviorMotivation and Self-Concept in SportsHuman Behavior and Motivation

Do individual differences in need strength moderate the relations between basic psychological need satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior?

Open access
Wörtler, Burkhard, Van Yperen, Nico W., Barelds, Dick P. H.·2020·Motivation and Emotion
DOI 10.1007/s11031-019-09775-9
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

An important theoretical debate in the literature on psychological needs concerns the potential moderating role of individuals’ need strength in the effects of basic psychological need satisfaction. The present study adds to the relatively small literature with inconsistent findings by examining whether the relations between work-related basic psychological need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and organizational citizenship behavior (i.e., constructive voluntary job performance) are enhanced when employees’ work-specific explicit need strength increases. Survey data from two samples of employees in the United States ( N = 353; M Age = 38.13) and in the Netherlands ( N = 298; M Age = 44.57) consistently showed that across the need domains, need satisfaction was positively associated with organizational citizenship behavior through work engagement. However, we only found minor evidence for a moderating role of need strength. These findings largely endorse core self-determination theory assertions, as they underscore the relevance of employees’ psychological need satisfaction rather than fit between high psychological need satisfaction and high need strength in the workplace.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s11031-019-09775-9

Cites

82 of 82 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Wörtler et al. (2020) found in samples of both Dutch and American employees that experiences of volition, mastery, and connection at work are conducive to employees' engagement and organizational citizenship behavior, with need strength moderating these effects only to a very limited degree.

    “To illustrate, Wörtler et al. (2020) found in samples of both Dutch and American employees that experiences of volition, mastery, and connection at work are conducive to employees' engagement and organizational citizenship behavior, with need strength moderating these effects only to a very limited degree.”

    From Basic psychological need theory: Advancements, critical themes, and future directions (2020) · cites this paper as Wörtler et al. (2020)

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. McClelland, D. C. (1985). Human motivation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  2. Urdan & S. Karabenick (Eds.), The decade ahead: Theoretical perspectives on motivation and achievement (Vol. 16, pp. 105- 166). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Wörtler, B., Van Yperen, N. W., & Barelds, D. P. H.
Affiliations
University of Groningen (NL)
Corresponding author
Wörtler, Burkhard
ORCID
Venue
Motivation and Emotion
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2019-06-27
Volume
44
Issue
2
Pages
315-328
ISSN
  • 0146-7239 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-6644
DOI
10.1007/s11031-019-09775-9
OpenAlex
W2955277840
Cited by
53
References
82
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 1
FWCI
7.37
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Motivation and Emotion (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Human Behavior and Motivation
Keywords
basic psychological needs, need satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, work engagement, autonomy, competence, relatedness, self-determination theory, individual differences, employee motivation

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review