Effect of financial and non-financial incentives, organisational culture and leadership styles on employee motivation and how the impact influences the performance of employees: Empirical evidence from the Nigerian public sector

Abstract

The Nigerian government have applied several reforms to develop the performance of its workforce; in particular, how best to motivate the public sector employees to achieve this end. This research examines employees’ judgement with regards to the financial and non-financial incentives, organisational culture and leadership styles impact on the motivation of employees and how their motivation becomes an attitude and reason for not performing well. A subsidiary commitment of the research is to study the relevance of Western theories of motivation for employee motivation in the Nigerian public sector. Several studies were developed from the Western countries where the theories of motivation originated from, whereas reduced study have been carried out in underdeveloped African nations like Nigeria. The foregoing shows that the Nigerian public sector lacks any strategy to harness the motivation of its staff, whether through financial or non-financial incentives, leadership styles, organisational culture as expressed by the theories of motivation. A hypothetical model of the relationships between these factors provided a conceptual framework that guided the research. A mixed research approach using both questionnaires (quantitative) and interviews (qualitative) was employed to enable the researcher’s understanding of the processes by which the factors considered impinged on public sector employees’ motivation. The study findings justify and establish the relevance of the Western motivation theories to the Nigerian public sector, and besides skills and technological expertise, this study proves that leadership styles, financial and non-financial incentives as well as organisational culture are drivers of employee motivation while motivation is a major driver of employee performance. This study key contribution is that organisational culture significantly impacts on employees’ motivation negatively based on its bureaucratic nature in the way it envelopes the policies, rules and regulations, structures and processes that determines both financial and non-financial incentives, leadership approach and job variables. iv Therefore, it is imperative that the Nigerian public sector give keen attention to the development of a robust and flexible culture that will strategically develop and support the implementation of a performance driven employees’ motivation that takes into account the finding from this study. Future research recommendation revealed through this study emphasises further investigation into the significance of organisational culture in the management of organisational policies, rules, regulations, structures and processes that determines key motivation factors so as to enhance both organisational and employee performance.