Employee Motivation beyond Incentives: An Integrative Review Using Self-Determination Theory and Necessary Condition Analysis

Employee motivation remains a persistent concern in organisational behaviour and human resource management, particularly amid observed disengagement, declining commitment, reduced productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Although organisations invest substantially in salaries, bonuses, promotions, recognition, and other incentives, these interventions do not always produce sustained motivation. This raises an important question: what conditions enable employee motivation to remain sustainable beyond external rewards? This integrative review examines employee motivation beyond incentives by bringing together Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) as complementary perspectives. SDT provides the theoretical foundation by explaining how satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness supports autonomous motivation, well-being, engagement, and positive work outcomes. NCA, in contrast, provides a necessity-based lens for distinguishing conditions that are merely beneficial from those that may be required for an outcome to become possible. The review synthesises literature on incentives, psychological need satisfaction, autonomous motivation, leadership support, organisational resources, and necessity logic. It proposes that motivation should not be framed as a choice between incentives and intrinsic motivation. Financial and extrinsic incentives remain important for attracting employees, supporting performance, and meeting employment expectations; however, their effects may depend on the organisational environment in which they operate. Incentives may increase effort without necessarily fostering ownership, commitment, meaning, or sustained engagement. The review therefore proposes a condition-dependent perspective in which psychological and organisational foundations create the possibility for sustainable motivation, while incentives function as supporting rather than substitutive mechanisms. It concludes by proposing an integrated SDT-NCA framework and identifying empirical NCA as a promising approach for testing whether autonomy, competence, relatedness, supportive leadership, and other organisational conditions function as necessary conditions for sustained employee motivation.

employee motivation, necessary condition analysis, psychological needs

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