Online published on 28 February, 2020.
Employee motivation has played a central role in management-both theoretically and practically and at the same time provided a foundation to the realm of industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology. The study of motivation permeatesmany of the subfieldsin management such asincluding retention, leadership, teams, performance management, managerial ethics, decision making and organizational change. Organizations (public or private) face the challenge to manage the twin demands of corporate objectives for effectiveness and productivity and employee motivation. A sense of urgency therefore exists within organizations to understand what motivates their employees because of globalization, economic trends, competitive labor market, market forces, and other variable forces. Today's workplace is characterized by a short-term focus, a multigenerational and diverse workforce, time as a critical performance variable, transitory career trajectories, increasing interdependence among employees, and an increase in value and motive conflicts in employees. Hence motivation is the mainstay of any credible model of human performance.
Apart from employee motivation, equally important and challenging is the task of employee retention in organizations. Ananalysis of workforce trendspoints out to an alarming though impending shortage of highly talented employees with the knowledge and ability to perform, ultimately hindering organizational ability. Replacing employeesis expensivein terms of recruitmentand training to achieve desired levels ofperformance. Studies conducted byorganizationssuch as Gallup, the Work Foundation and Roffey Park have identified a direct relationship between employee motivation and retention. Hence management research has constantly urged for relevance in the theory and practice of employee motivation. Though organizations traditionally used extrinsic motivators (such as salaries, bonuses, commissions, stock options etc.) to motivate their employees; importance of intrinsic motivation in retaining employees particularly among the Gen Y segment of the workforce was gaining credence in extant literature. A comprehensive review of literature in three major domains i.e. employee motivation, employee retention and generational cohorts pointed out certain noticeable research gaps. These gaps pointed out to paucity of research on intrinsic motivation on organizational issues of importance (such as employee retention); need for cultural specificity to theories of intrinsic motivation in research contexts such as that of India; nebulous association between intrinsic motivation/rewards and employee retention; treatment of generational cohorts as monolithic groups with homogenous preferences for work; lack of adequate research on generational cohorts in non-western contexts such as India and lastly a dearth of research on Gen Y. In the backdrop these research gaps and a tremendous growth of the Indian IT and ITES industry juxtaposed with a sizeable number of Gen Y professionals working in this sector, this doctoral research is aimed to systematically seek an understanding of the effect/predictability of intrinsic motivation on retention of this emergent section of the workforce in IT/ITES organizations.
The major objectives of this research delved into an examination of differences (if any) between groups of respondents (i.e. Indian Gen Y software professionals) based on demographic variables (such as age, gender and organizational tenure) and their corresponding preferences for intrinsic motivation and retention and f inally examining the effect/extent of predictability of intrinsic motivation on employee retention of Indian Gen Y software professionals. Given the objectives of our research, quantitative research was used as an appropriate research paradigm. A sample of 378 software professionals wasdrawn from the top five Indian ITorganizationsusing the logic of snowball sampling. Appropriate measures for intrinsic motivation (IM) and employee retention (ER) were content validated through their selection from extant literature and suitable tests of reliability and validity were conducted tomaintain the adequacyof scales used. Thefindings of this researchprovidemixed results regarding relationships between extraneous/personal demographic variables vis-à-vis IM or ER. A step-wise backward regression revealed that IM dimensions explained 45% of the variance in predicting ER in Indian Gen Y software professionals. IM dimensions such as sense of choice, accomplishment, encouraging initiative and responsibility were identified as significant predictors of ER. The doctoral researchdescribes the theoretical implicationsof these findings for thedomainsof literaturereviewed. Practical/managerial implications of the results are also discussed keeping in mind organizational interventions required to promote retention amongst Indian Gen Y software professionals. The insights gained from the doctoral research while contributing plausible explanations for the gaps identified, domains underexplored, and inconclusive extant empirical studies also urge for more research with focus on drivers of motivation for the most prevalent workforce segment in organizations today i.e. Gen Y.
