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INTRODUCTION
The field of organizational behavior places great emphasis on theoretical frameworks and empirical research concerning work motivation. The emphasis is on the individual and systemic components of tapping people's stores of energies and directing those energies in effortful flows toward the achievement of organizational goals. The underlying image guiding motivational theory and research is the water spigot: turn it on and water pours forth. While not explicitly stated, organization members are presumed to have their energies pooled and ready to flow at some constant rate if only the correct combinations of motivational techniques (Maehr & Braskamp, 1986), job characteristics (Hackman & Oldham, 1980), reward systems (Steers & Porter, 1979), and goals (Locke, 1968) are established for individuals with appropriate needs (Alderfer, 1972) and characteristics within appropriate structures (Lawler, 1988; Mintzberg, 1983a). This image contains a lingering homage to Taylor's (1911) scientific management in its presumption that workers (like machines) have standard and ready capabilities to perform labors. The image Taylor's premise that workers have little to offer aside from largely physical labors that may be channeled into tasks with set parameters.
Organizational behavior theory and research has focused so intently on work motivation constructs embedding these assumptions that they have remained essentially unchallenged. Other concepts have not been advanced that focus on what enables the depths of workers' personal selves to come forth in the service of their own growth and development and that of their organizations. Research has focused on how individuals are propelled, internally and externally, toward productively performing tasks that meet organizational requirements and goals. And it has focused on concepts of job involvement (Lawler & Hall, 1970), organizational commitment (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982), and central life interest (Dubin, 1956) as ways to explore the attachments that people have to their work or organizations. Both strands of research are in the service of understanding how to increase such attachments and subsequent flows of worker energies toward given tasks.
This article articulates the concept of psychological presence. I focus on what it means to be fully present as a person occupying a particular organizational role such that one's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are accessible within the context of role performances. I define and illustrate four dimensions of psychological presence: people feel...