The incentive theory in organizational behavior research is a hot topic, the 20th century, many Chinese and foreign scholars from different angles on the research incentive theory has made a very significant achievement. To sum up, a study of these scholars are mainly from two aspects, namely management science and economics incentives motivate these two areas. Two schools and different types of theories resulting social practice had a significant impact. This article attempts to various periods and different motivation theories summarize and review, in order to be able to grasp the future development trend of research incentive theory, wish to contribute to the further study of the issue of motivation theory.