Research on the motivation of knowledge workers from the perspective of self-determination theory

With the rise of knowledge economy, knowledge workers have become an important source of enterprise competitiveness. How to motivate these employees effectively, especially by improving their intrinsic motivation has become one of the key issues in modern enterprise management. This study explores the motivation mechanism and strategies of knowledge workers from the perspective of self-determination theory. It is found that most of the current researches focus on the discussion of a single dimension of self-determination theory and most of the researches are limited to the western cultural background, ignoring the special needs of knowledge workers in Chinese culture. On this basis, it is proposed that future research should further explore the interaction effect between the needs of ego theory and develop a more perfect incentive model combined with other incentive theories. In addition, we should pay attention to cross-cultural comparative research, especially in the context of Chinese collectivist culture, knowledge workers' demand for incentives. The enterprise should design the incentive scheme according to the local characteristics according to the cultural differences. So as to improve the work performance and innovation ability of the employees. This study provides a new theoretical perspective and practical guidance for the motivation of knowledge workers.