HOW DEFICIENCIES IN MOTIVATION TO MANAGE CONTRIBUTE TO THE UNITED-STATES COMPETITIVENESS PROBLEM (AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT)

Data are presented to support the argument that motivation to manage i s a major cause of managerial effectiveness, that it declined sharply in the college population during the activism of the 1960s and early 1 970s, and that it is now severely lacking in the United States relativ e to many other countries. Thus America's competitiveness problems app ear to be largely motivational in nature. Possible solutions are discu ssed, including recruiting and selecting for managerial motivation, in creasing motivation to manage using training and development technique s, and changing organizational designs (telescoping the scalar chain, moving managerial tasks into non-managerial positions, resorting to pr ofessional forms, and expanding venture structures). (C) 1995 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.