Asian Research Consortium

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1 Asian Research Consortium International Journal of Research in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Vol. 1, No. 3, 2013, pp ISSN International Journal of Research in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management Work Motivation and Organizational Commitment among Iranian Employees Meysam Alimohammadi * Master of Financial Management, University of Economic Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Ali Jamali Neyshabor Master of Financial Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. Received June 4 th, 2013; revised June 22 th, 2013; accepted June 29 th, 2013 Abstract The present study was conducted in Tehran and aimed to analyze the relationship between work motivation and organizational commitment of employees. The authors selected 10 SMEs as statistical population of the study. There were 195 employees in those companies. After distribution of questionnaires among the employees, a total of 163 usable questionnaires were gathered. The research method used for this study is descriptive-correlation. Moreover, Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling were conducted by LISREL. The factors analysis and the findings show that work motivation has a significant positive influence on organizational commitment of employees. Keywords: Work Motivation, Organizational Commitment, Iran. * Corresponding author. address: meysam.finance@gmail.com 1

2 1. Introduction Management of employees at workplace is an integral part of the management process. To understand the importance of people in organization is to recognize that the human element and the organization are the same. A well-managed organization usually considers an average worker as the root source of quality and productivity gains. An effective organization will make sure that there is a spirit of cooperation and sense of commitment within the sphere of its influence. In order to satisfy employees and make them committed to their jobs, the need for strong and effective motivation at various levels will be more obvious. Motivating is the management process of influencing behavior based on the knowledge of what make people tick. Also, employees commitment to the organization is a crucial issue in today's changing world. Commitment of employees can be an important instrument for improving the performance of the organizations. Previous studies on commitment have shown that employees with higher organizational commitment engage in organizational behavior and this, in turn, results in better performance and higher work motivation that are beneficial to the organization. Therefore, employees productivity is highly related to their motivation levels and a higher level of organizational commitment. Thus, it is important for an organization to examine the relationships between these two variables. The term of "commitment" has been defined, measured and investigated variously and extensively but what is important is to examine the relationships between these two variables (organizational commitment and work motivation). In this study, the authors examine the relationship between the motivation and the organizational commitment in Tehran province of Iran. 2. Work Motivation According to Pinder (2000), work motivation is a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual's being, to establish work-related behaviors, and to determine the form, direction, duration and intensity of these behaviors. Motivation is a person's internal disposition to be concerned with and approach positive incentives and avoid negative incentives. Further, according to Deckers (2010), an incentive is the anticipated reward or aversive event available in the environment. On the other hand, motivation can often be used as a tool to predict behavior, and it varies greatly among individuals and should often be combined with ability and environmental factors to influence performance and behaviors of employees. According to Jex & Britt (2008) and Mitchell & Daniels (2003), because of the motivation's role in influencing workplace performance and behaviors, it is a key factor for any organizations to understand and to structure the work environment to encourage productive behaviors; and discourage those unproductive employees. Organizational Behavioral Modification is the behavioral approach to workplace motivation. This approach applies the tenets of behaviorism developed by B.F. Skinner to promote employees behaviors that an employer deems beneficial and discourage those that are not. And any stimulus that increases the likelihood of a behavior increasing is a reinforcer. The effective use of positive reinforcement would be frequent praise while employees are learning a new task. Employees behaviors can also be shaped during 2

3 the learning process if approximations of the ideal behavior are praised or rewarded. Also, the frequency of reinforcement is an important issue need to be considered. According to Jex & Britt (2008), while frequent praise during the learning process can be beneficial, it can be hard to sustain forever. According to work-based theories, the key to motivation is within employees job itself. These theories state that jobs can be motivating by their design and structure. This is a particularly useful view for organizations, as the set out practices in the theories can be implemented more practically in organizations. Moreover, according to the job-based theories, as Jex & Britt (2008) stated, the key for finding motivation through one's job is being able to derive satisfaction from the job content. Through five studies, Eisenberger & Rhoades (2001) stated that repeated reward for creative behavior consistently yielded an increase in creative behavior across three different samples. They also found that intrinsic job interests mediated employees expectations of reward for creative performance at workplace. Eisenberger & Rhoades (2001) state that these results are consistent with the findings of other scholars that reward for high performance increase intrinsic task interest (rather than undermining it). Eisenberger & Rhoades found that intrinsic task motivation was increased by reward via a process of increased selfdetermination, leading to improve creative behaviors. On the other hand, according to Eisenberger et al. (1999), findings suggest that intrinsic interest can be undermined if expectations of reward are not seen as contingent on performance that ties in with the instrumentality element of Valence-Instrumentality- Expectancy theory. According to Parker et al. (2000), other findings have confirmed the importance of self-determination (i.e. autonomy and control) in the workplace as a source of satisfaction and motivation. 3. Organizational Commitment Organizational commitment has an important role and impact in the study of organizational factors. This is in part as a result of variety of works which have examined relationships between organizational commitment and attitudes in the workplace (Porter et al., 1974; 1976; Koch & Steers, 1978; Angle & Perry, 1981). Batemen & Strasser (1984) believe that the aim of studying organizational commitment are related to (a) employees behaviors and performance effectiveness, (b) attitudinal, affective, and cognitive constructs such as job satisfaction, (c) characteristics of the employees job and role, such as responsibility, and (d) personal characteristics of the employee such as age and job tenure. Organizational commitment defined in different ways (Mowday et al., 1982; Reichers, 1985). In the present study, organizational commitment refers to accordance between the goals of the individual and the organization whereby the individual identifies with and extends attempt on representing the general goals of the organization. Meyer & Allen (1991), and then confirmed by Dunham et al. (1994), introduced three types of organizational commitment: affective, continuance and normative: Affective commitment defined as employee identification with, emotional connection to, and involvement in the organization and its goals. It results from and is induced by individual and organizational value accordance. So, it becomes almost natural for the individual to become emotionally connected, and enjoy continuing membership in the organization (March & Simon, 1958; Hall et al., 1970; O'Reily & Chatman, 3

4 1986; Meyer & Allen, 1984). Also, Steers (1977), and Mottaz (1988), identified agent which helps developing inherently rewarding situations for employees to be antecedents of affective commitment. According to Mowday et al. (1982) and Dunham et al. (1994), continuance commitment is defined as readiness to remain in an organization because of personal investment in the form of non-transferable investments such as close working relationships with other employees, retirement investments and career investments, obtained job skills that are unique to a particular organization. Normative commitment inspired by a feeling of responsibility for an employee to remain with an organization. This feeling of obligation often results from a generalized value of loyalty and duty (Wiener, 1982). This is a natural susceptibility to be loyal and committed to institutions such as employment organization. Further, socialization in a culture places a reward on loyalty and devotion to institutions as a result. Based on this view commitment, an employee exhibit commitment behavior solely because he or she believes it is the moral and right thing to do. According to Schwartz & Tessler (1972), personal norms are introduced as a responsible factor for what Wiener referred to as an incorporated normative pressure, which makes organizational commitment a moral obligation because an employee feels he or she must do so. According to Wiener & Verdi (1980), this feeling of moral obligation measured by the extent to which an employee feels that she or he should be faithful to organization, make an employee sacrifice to help it out and not disapprove it. 4. Hypothesis Development Work motivation includes intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is internal tendency to do a task. Employees perform a particular task because it gives them pleasure. Further, extrinsic motivation includes external factors motivating employees to perform a task; such as money. Moreover, when employees are motivated, they will be satisfied with their organization and understand that their organization is paying enough attention to them and considering them as important factors. Satisfied employees will engage in positive behaviors. One of these behaviors could be organizational commitment. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the following model and hypothesis are proposed: Figure 1. Conceptual Model of Research 4

5 H: Work motivation has a significant influence on organizational commitment of employees. 5. Methodology 5.1. Statistical Population Statistical population in this research includes 195 employees of 10 SMEs in Tehran. After distribution of questionnaires among all employees, 163 usable questionnaires were returned. Table 1 illustrates the descriptive statistics of the respondents. Table 1. Description of Respondents Item Description Frequency Percentage Gender Age Education Male Female Below Above 41 Diploma STP Bachelor Master & PhD % 37% 34% 47% 19% 20% 26% 46% 8% 5.2. Instrument To collect the necessary data, a questionnaire was used to test the hypothesis of the study. The questionnaire consists of three parts. The first part includes 3 questions about demographic information of the respondents (table 1). In the second part, the authors used 15 questions developed by Altindis (2011) to measure intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Further, in the third part, we used 18 questions developed by Meyer & Allen (1991) to measure continuance, normative and affective commitment of employees. The authors used five-point Likert type scale for all the items. Response categories range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) Reliability The summary statistics of survey are shown in Table 2. For reliability evaluation the authors utilized Cronbach's alpha. The Cronbach's alpha reliability of all variables are more than 0.7 which shows that the scale has good reliability. 5

6 Table 2. The Summary Statistics of Formal Survey N Mean Std. Deviation Cronbach s Alpha Intrinsic Extrinsic Work Motivation Continuance Normative Affective Organizational Commitment Validity For evaluating the validity of the questionnaires, the authors used content validity and construct validity. To do so, the authors asked 5 experts to modify the questionnaire. Further, confirmatory factor analysis was used to investigate the construction of the questionnaire. Factor analysis depicted that all the mentioned criteria are measured in these questionnaires Measurement Model of Work Motivation Fitness's indices in Table 3 show good fitness of our X model (Figure 2), proving that the selected indicators are good representatives for each dimension of work motivation. Table 3. Work Motivation Model Fitness Indices Fitness Indices Measure of Index Principle Chi-Square/df P-Value RMSEA < 3 < 0.05 < 0.1 6

7 Figure 2. Measurement Model of Work Motivation Measurement Model of Organizational Commitment Fitness's indices in Table 4 show good fitness of our Y model (Figure 3), proving that the selected indicators are good representatives for each dimension of organizational commitment. Table 4. Organizational Commitment Model Fitness Indices Fitness Indices Measure of Index Principle Chi-Square/df P-Value RMSEA < 3 < 0.05 < 0.1 7

8 Figure 3. Measurement Model of Organizational Commitment 6. Results In this study the relationship between work motivation and organizational commitment was tested using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique. For testing our hypothesis, we performed our structural model applying 2 dimensions of work motivation and 3 dimensions of organizational commitment. Figure 4 and 5 shows the results of the SEM analysis. Fitness's indices in Table 5 also show good fitness of the Structural model. Table 5. Structural Equation Model Fitness Indices Fitness Indices Measure of Index Principle Chi-Square/df P-Value RMSEA < 3 < 0.05 < 0.1 8

9 Figure 4. Structural Equation Model Figure 5. T-Value Test Moreover, table 6 shows the factor loading of research variables indices. Factor loading show the importance of each index for employees. Table 6. Factor loadings of work motivation indices Ranking NO Dimensions Factor loading (1) Extrinsic 1.10 (2) Intrinsic 0.97 (1) Normative 0.97 (2) Affective 0.91 (3) Continuance

10 Table 7 summarizes the hypothesis test results in terms of path coefficients (standardized) and t-value as follows: Table 7. The results of Hypothesis Test Hypothesis Path coefficient T-value Result H Work motivation Organizational commitment Accepted 7. Discussion and Conclusion The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between work motivation and organizational commitment of 195 employees in 10 SMEs is Tehran province of Iran. Past studies have examined the relationship between these variables and other variables, however, lack of sufficient research studying the relationship between these two variables with each other was the main reason this research was carried out. It has long been established that organizational commitment is an important factor that contributes to increasing in the level of individual productivity which leads to increasing in the level of organizational productivity; therefore, examining variables that contribute to improvement in level of organizational commitment has always been of particular interest to researchers and scholars in the field of human resource management, which was another strong reason to carry out this research. The results of the current study show that work motivation has a significant positive impact on organizational commitment of employees. Factors analysis shows that in our sample of Iranian employees, extrinsic motivation has more influence on organizational commitment of employees in comparison with intrinsic motivation. Thus, managers of organization should pay enough attention to factors positively impact work motivation. Moreover, taking into account the results of Mean analysis, it is inferred that the selected organizations enjoy suitable level of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Further, it is established that normative, affective and continuance commitment has the most to the least impact on organizational commitment of employees. Therefore, it is essential for managers of organization to provide suitable environment in organizations to reinforce employees commitment positively. It is important to note that future researches can improve the proposed model of the present study by considering the mediating role of other variables such as organizational justice, job satisfaction, turnover intentions and organizational cultures and expand the existing knowledge in this field. References Altindis, S. (2011). Job motivation and organizational commitment among the health professionals: A questionnaire survey. African Journal of Business Management, 5(21): Angle, H. L., & Perry, J. L. (1981). An empirical assessment of organization commitment and organizational effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 26:

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