I'm not aware of any literature related to your hypothesis but it makes sense intuitively. Self-determination theory, which seeks to identify what motivates us

I'm not aware of any literature related to your hypothesis but it makes sense intuitively. Self-determination theory, which seeks to identify what motivates us as humans, has as one of its pillars, "relatedness." Engineers need to feel like their work matters, PMs can help with that by sharing a vision and customer feedback that drives a group of individuals forward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory