MGMT5323 – Research Project
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards & Motivation
August 6, 2011

Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876. One of the most famous stories in the novel is whitewashing the fence. It was a chore that Tom’s aunt Polly had assigned him but Tom found a way to get others to do the work and his first convert was Ben. When Ben told Tom he was going swimming and stated “Don’t you wish you could? But of course you’d druther work, wouldn’t you? Course you would!”. That was the start of a powerful lesson. Tom replied “Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know, is, it suites Tom Sawyer” and he informed Ben that is it was not every day that a boy gets a chance to whitewash a fence and then proceeded to convince Ben that it was a privilege and only a few boys were even capable of doing such a job. Now the situation changed and Ben was willing to give Tom his apple in exchange for a chance for him to have the privilege of whitewashing the fence. “Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with--and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece of blue