Did Labour Motivation of Workers Change in 1990s? Methodology and Methods of Research, Results and Perspectives

Abstract

Labour motivation was one of the most widespread themes of the research in the Soviet sociology of labour. As early as in the 1960-s large-scale sociological research of the labour activity were carried out in the USSR. The most well-known research in Soviet sociology of labour was "Man and his work". A considerable contribution to the investigation of labour motivation was made by repeated research of labour activity carried out in 1970-1980 in Leningrad, Gorky and Gorky region, as well as in Odessa. Special attitude to the research in labour motivation was formed in the period of Perestroika. Labour motivation had begun to be considered as the key aspect of the sociology of labour. The research of correlations between labour motivation and the efficiency of labour behavior became the most relevant question during this period. At the beginning of the 1990-s the interest in labour activity had considerably reduced. However in the second part of the 1990-s and at the beginning of the 2000-s a certain growth of attention of researchers to this problem can be observed. The main question they tried to answer was the following: is labour motivation changing in transforming Russia? From our point of view the notable phenomenon was the re-print of the book of A.G. Zdravomyslov and V.A. Yadov "Man and his work in the USSR and after its collapse". The authors of the article tried to characterize the methodology and methods of labour motivation research, to carry out an interpretation of the obtained results in accordance with the accepted methodology position, and to determine the prospects of future investigations.