Intrinsic Motivation and Job Involvement on Employee Retention: Case Study - A Selection of Eastern Cape Government Departments

Abstract

The study examines the relationship between intrinsic motivation and job involvement, with employee retention acting as a mediating variable. To succeed in its mission, every company must be able to retain its key employees. The independent variables of the study were intrinsic motivation and job involvement, while employee retention is the dependent variable. Data was gathered from a convenience sample of 160 employees from selected government departments in East London and Zwelitsha, Eastern Cape province. A four-part questionnaire was used for data collection. The measuring instruments were a self-designed questionnaire to measure the biographical and occupational data, and a questionnaire developed to measure intrinsic motivation (Intrinsic Motivation Inventory) with a Cronbach alpha = 0.81. To measure job involvement, Kanungo’s (1982) 10-item five-point Likert-type rating scale was used (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.74). To measure employee retention was measured using the cumulative Michigan Organizational Assessment two-item questionnaire (Camman, Fichman & Klesh, 1979) and a third assessment item from Landau and Hammer (1986). Data analysis was done by means of the Pearson Product Moment Correlation technique, and Multiple Regression analysis. The results obtained from this study showed that there is a significant positive association between intrinsic motivation, job involvement and employee retention. The results further showed that employee’s intrinsic motivation and job involvement have an influence on employee’s intention to quit. The results further showed that intrinsic motivation is the strongest predicator of employee retention, followed by job involvement. The practical implications of this study mainly relate to employee retention or prevention of a high rate of labour turnover. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p2119