Are Romanian Employees Motivated by the Same Things? An Empirical Perspective of Herzberg Theory among Employees from Public Versus Private Sector

Alexandra BEIU
Adriana AnaMaria DAVIDESCU

Keywords

Herzberg theory, hygiene factors, growth factors, survey, Romanian employees, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis

Abstract

The objective of this study was to highlight the main motivational factors of the Herzberg theory and to investigate the differences of employees’ perceptions from public and private sectors related to those factors using the opinions of 301 Romanian employees from different sectors of activity. More concrete, the study aims to respond to the following questions: what do people want from their jobs? Do they just want a higher salary? Or do they want security, good relationships with co-workers, opportunities for growth and advancement – or something else altogether? In order to do that, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied in order to extract the main motivational factors and furthermore their impact on the overall level of job motivation was quantified using the regression analysis. Finally, using the main motivational determinants of the Romanian employees potential differences between employees from public vs. private sectors were captured using t-test. The exploratory factor analysis results pointed out the existence of a 4 factor structure highlighting the positive impact of both growth and hygiene factors on the overall level of motivation. Therefore, recognition, advancement, job security and rewards were considered to be the most relevant motivational factors for the Romanian employees. The results of confirmatory factor analysis emphasized the role of work itself, responsibility, working conditions, benefit and salary on increasing the overall level of motivation for the Romanian employees. Testing the impact of all these factors on the overall level of job satisfaction, the empirical results revealed the significance of recognition, responsibility, job security and rewards as the main motivational factors. Analyzing comparatively the opinions of Romanian employees from both sectors related to the main drivers of job satisfaction, it ca be highlighted the fact that job security, recognition and responsibility were considered to be the most important for public sector employees, while rewards was considered to be more relevant for the private sector employees. The empirical results of t-test revealed statistical differences between public and private sector employees regarding responsibility and recognition. Public sector employees tend to give a higher importance to those factors, while for employees from private sector other factors as being relevant for their satisfaction. Job security and rewards do not exhibited any statistical difference among employees from public versus private sector.