Relationship between motivation, organizational citizenship behavior and employee performance among research university academicians

Abstract

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have a significant relationship with employee performance. Although the topics have been studied extensively, minimal efforts have been made within an academic setting such as to investigate the types of motivation one is likely to be engaged with, how organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) plays a part in the relationship and the importance of continuing professional development (CPD) as one of the dimensions needed to evaluate the employee’s performance. This research seeks to broaden the field of study by investigating the interplay of OCB on motivation and employee performance in an academic setting. Lecturers from five major research universities in Malaysia participated in the study. 6000 sets of questionnaires were distributed using simple random sampling method and 368 sets were useable for the final analysis. Data to measure the correlation between dimensions were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the effect of motivation on employee performance and path analysis was used to identify the mediating effect of OCB. Significant differences in the variance of employee performance were found between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. In addition, OCB was found to partially mediate the relationship between motivation and employee performance. This study also found that CPD is necessary and suitable as one of the dimensions of employee performance. The study has illustrated the understanding with reference to the type of motivation that affects the lecturer’s performance and how OCB plays a role in enhancing a lecturer’s performance. Besides that, the importance of CPD when evaluating the employee performance was also highlighted. In conclusion, lecturer’s performance is influenced by their OCB and not solely affected by their motivation.