Humanistic management and self-determination theory: the impact of the ‘perception of work supervision’ on employees’ ‘self-regulated motivation’: an empirical french study

We study the main principles of “humanist philosophy”, in order to interpret them in terms of human resources management (HRM) practices. We show the similarities between a “humanist HRM” and the recommendations of the self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 2000). Then, we describe a French empirical study (568 questionnaires). Our ‘perception of the work supervision scale’ is very satisfactory. Our ‘self-regulated motivation scale’ is bi-dimensional. The structural equations model is satisfactory (X²/dl: 2.91; RMSEA: 0.08; GFI: 0.907). Results show the crowding-out / crowding-in effect of self-regulated motivation by a type of management perceived as controlling / informative and autonomy supportive. So there is a crowding-in effect of employees’ self-regulated motivation by a humanist HRM.