For more than twenty years, Edward E. Lawler III has had worldwide influence in the areas of management and organization design. This landmark book, one of the most-cited volumes on the topic of motivation in the workplace, defines Lawler's basic philosophy: in order to have effective organizations, we must understand how to motivate and encourage effective individual performance. Time-tested theories have been the basis for nearly all of Lawler's subsequent work in the areas of pay and reward systems, employee involvement, organization design, and organizational change.

In his new introduction to this classic edition, he shows how his original emphasis on work design and reward systems is especially relevant to the current emphasis on creating high performance work organizations through new organization design and management approaches. Lawler's theories continue to help us understand the world around us today, forming the basis for many successful managerial practices found in today's workplace, and continue to prove that no matter what organization design or approach is used, it cannot succeed if it fails to motivate employees to perform well.