Employee Intrinsic Motivation and The Attainment of the Organisation Goals: A Case of Private University in Malawi

Abstract

Employee motivation is a very important subject as far as the achievement of organisation goals in universities is concerned. This has been recognised by some studies on staff motivation in Malawi and even abroad. Nevertheless, not much has been done on the factors that affected the achievement of organisation goals. Therefore, this study examined the effect of intrinsic motivation factors on the achievement of organisation goals at Malawi Adventist University. A causal type of study design conducted in one month was used for the study. The university population was two hundred forty-one employees whose employment status was permanent and contract, teaching and nonteaching excluding those on wages. To ensure that all employees were represented, employees were randomly selected for the study. Krejicie and Morgan pre-calculated sample size table was used to select a sample of 181 employees from the population. Data was collected with a self –structured questionnaire validated with Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of .579 on intrinsic motivation factors and .690 on the attainment of organisation goals. A total of 146 copies of the questionnaire were validly completed and returned representing 81% response rate. Descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to analyse the data. The results revealed that at the 0.05 level of significance, intrinsic motivation factors such as nature of work and responsibility significantly and positively affected the achievement of organisation goals at Malawi Adventist University as evidenced by the p-values of (.180, 1.961and .052) and (.225, 2.574 and .011). The study concluded that intrinsic motivation factors of work life balance, nature of work, equity and fairness, responsibility and recognition are important towards achieving organisation goals even though their importance were not at equal proportion. Therefore, recommendation was made to help the management to optimize the attainment of organisation goals at Malawi Adventist University.