© 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved 23 ACADEMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF PERCEPTION ON MOTIVATIONAL PROCESSES AND JOB FACTORS Lazarus Ndiku Makewa1 --- Claver Ndahayo2 --- Chantal Kabanda3 1University of Eastern Africa, Baraton, Kenya 2Adventist University of Central Africa, Rwanda 3Kigali Institute of Education, Rwanda ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to find out the relationship between personal and job factors and employees’ motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence in Kigali Institute of Education (KIE), Rwanda. A correlational design was used to conduct this research and a questionnaire was administered to 151 employees from KIE, representing a population of 318 employees. Data collected were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings showed that there is a significant relationship between employees’ motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence and job factors. The exception was observed for the relationship between direction and task design which was not significant. The findings revealed that the difference between academic and administrative staff members in their perception of motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence as well as personal and job factors was not significant. It was also observed that both academic and administrative staff members were not fully satisfied with what the institute leaders do with regard to employees’ motivational processes and the related personal and job factors. This study recommends that the institution’s leaders increase their efforts with regard to employees’ motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence while increasing related personal and job factors. Keywords: Academic staff, Administrative staff, Perception, Motivational process, Job factors, Rwanda. 1. INTRODUCTION Employee motivation has long been a concern for organizational management (Rue and Byars, 2005). One of the factors that encourage managers to be interested in motivation and its management is the awareness that employees and their motivation are key for an organization to be efficient and effective. This idea is emphasized by Certo (2006), when he says that employees must want to do a good job. The author observes that many supervisors would wish to motivate Humanities and Social Sciences Letters 2014 Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 23-37 ISSN(e): 2312-4318 ISSN(p): 2312-5659 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 24 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved their employees; unfortunately, they are not aware of the factors that make employees want to work effectively. People are the real source of competitive advantage for most organizations (Greer and Plunkett, 2007). This will be true if people are motivated to timely deliver quality service. Research has demonstrated that despite government effort to improve quality service delivery, poor service delivery is still observed in Rwanda and it is seen as the worst in the region (Lwakabamba, 2009). This study paves the way to address this issue. It intends to raise awareness of the problem of poor service delivery in higher learning institutions in general and Kigali Institute of Education (KIE), in particular. Quality service delivery would not be possible in organizations when employees are not motivated in their work places. Many factors are involved in motivational processes of employees. This is important because some leaders tend to put much accent on some factors like salary, leaving out many others which, in fact, might be more important. This study therefore intended to remove this bias by highlighting that, indeed, motivation is multifaceted and explored the relationship between individual input and job contexts and motivational processes. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Despite significant progress in developing and testing the construct of employee motivation, scholars have failed to reach a consensus as to what employee motivation actually means (Conger and Kanungo, 1988; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990; Spreitzer, 1995; 1996; Herrenkohl et al., 1999). Two distinct theoretical perspectives have emerged in the literature, a managerial and a psychological one. From a managerial perspective, employee motivation is a relational construct that describes how those with power in organizations motivate those who are not motivated ( i.e., employees; (Conger and Kanungo, 1988)). The intellectual origins of this construct have been traced back to McGregor (1960) Theory Y of leadership, Likert (1967) classification of managerial styles, and other seminal contributions to the Human Relations movements in organizational theory (Herrenkohl et al., 1999). Scholars taking this perspective have focused on management practices and behaviors aimed at sharing motivation, information, and rewards with employees to improve results (Kanter, 1979; Bowen and Lawler, 1992; 1995) Other studies have focused on categories of work-motivation theories. For example, Hodgetts et al. (2006) distinguish two categories of work-motivation theories. These are content theories and process theories. Content theories are specific things which motivate individuals at work. Content theories are explained in terms of what arouses, energizes, or initiates employee behavior. Process theories are concerned with the process of motivation. That is how behavior is initiated, directed and sustained. Content theories that are described in this study include Maslow’s hierarchy needs theory, McClelland’s Needs theory and Herzberg's Two-Factor theory. Process theories considered in this study are expectancy, equity and goal setting theories. These theories, as explained below, offer to the reader the weight they exert in this study. Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 25 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved 2.1. Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory This theory is explained by Okumbe (1999) as well as D’Souza (2008) that people have needs that follow each other in hierarch, running from physiological needs through safety, social, esteem to self actualization. As each need is satisfied, the person moves a level higher. In the context of this study, this theory can be explained as follows—unsatisfied needs activate (or cause arousal in) an employee to decide on which action to be taken (direction) in order to have the needs satisfied. The employee will not move to the next level of needs until the needs of the current level are satisfied (persistence). 2.2. Mcclelland’s Needs Theory This theoryemphasizes, according to Bateman and Snell (2007), three different needs: the need for achievement, characterized by a strong orientation toward accomplishment and obsession with success and goal attainment; the need for affiliation, which reflects a strong desire to be liked by other people and the need of power, which is a desire to influence or control other people (Bateman and Snell, 2007; Wood et al., 2010). As commented on Maslow’s theory, what matters in McClelland’s needs theory, is that employees have different needs that have been classified into three categories- achievement, affiliation and power. Each employee should therefore be treated in a particular way depending on the need to be satisfied. 2.3. Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory Herzberg et al. (1959) categorized motivation into two factors: ―motivators‖ and ―hygiene‖ factors. Factors which cause dissatisfaction are called ―hygiene‖ factors and are generally related to the characteristics of the workplace. Hygiene factors are related to the environment in which the work is performed. These factors can make people unhappy if they are poorly managed. Pleasant and comfortable working conditions, good pay, job security, good relationships with co- workers, and effective supervision are some examples indicated by Jones and George (2006). Factors which cause satisfaction are called ―motivators‖ and are generally related to what people do at work or the nature of the work itself (Bateman and Snell, 2007). Examples of motivators, as indicated by Jones and George (2006), are interesting work, autonomy, responsibility, being able to grow and develop on the job, and a sense of accomplishment and achievement. 2.4. Process Theories Process theories have been explained by Kreitner and Kinicki (2004), as a category of theories of motivation focusing on the process of motivation instead of specific things that motivate workers. Three important process theories have been indicated — Expectancy, Equity and Goal Setting Theories. Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 26 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved 2.4.1. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory This theory holds that people are motivated to act in ways that produce valued outcomes Kreitner and Kinicki (2004). In the context of this study, the theory explains motivational processes of employees as follows: the need of outcomes causes arousal, this arousal directs the employees to choose the strategies leading to outcomes (direction). The employees are expected to work hard until outcomes are observed (persistence). This is why in Rwandan public institutions generally, and institutions of higher learning particularly, employees sign performance contracts with targeted results (outcomes) clearly indicated with indicators. 2.4.2. Adam’s Equity Theory Adam explains that one of the most important issues in motivation is how people view their contributions to the organization and what they receive from it in return (Bateman and Snell, 2007). Viorel et al. (2009) realize that people assess how fairly and equitable the organization treats them in comparison with the way others are treated. Fairness and equity are values emphasized by this theory. Values observed in an organization are important factors of employees’ motivation. These values and beliefs observed in an organization constitute its organizational culture as discussed in this study. 2.4.3. Goal Setting Theory This theory indicates that people have conscious goals that energize them and direct their thoughts and behaviors toward a particular end (Bateman and Snell, 2007). As mentioned above by Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, employees are motivated to work when they know what they want to achieve. This activates them to work harder. As said previously, in Rwandan public institutions, including public institutions of higher learning, employees sign performance contracts. Employees’ lack of motivation for quality and timely service delivery is both these researchers’ concern and Rwandan government. Research has proven that Rwanda is seen as the worst in the region as far as poor service delivery is concerned (Institute of Policy Analysis and Research, 2010). This challenge was observed both in private and public institutions, including institutions of higher learning. Government efforts to address the problem have not been successful (Lwakabamba, 2009). This might be due to employees’ lack of motivation in their work places. If the challenge is not addressed on time, institutions’ work performance could be compromised. Since no research has been conducted in Institutions of Higher Learning in general, and in Kigali Institute of Education in particular to find employees’ motivation factors that may affect their work performance, this study was conducted as a way forward to address the challenge of poor service delivery in institutions. Organizations are under pressure to demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness (Rabey, 2001). This requires greater effort from employees, but in general, people work hard and well when they are motivated. This is true at home, school and even in other organizations. Kreitner and Kinicki Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 27 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved (2004) put it well when they advocate that employees’ motivation is one of the most important duties of organizational management. According to (Viorel et al., 2009), motivation is one of the main factors responsible for the work performance of employees. This motivation refers to motivational processes of arousal, direction, and persistence (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2004). Certo (2006) observes that insome organizations, employees’ work performance suffers from lack of employee motivation. This is why leaders have no choice but to motivate their employees if they want their organizations to achieve their mission. Leaders of higher learning institutions, in particular, need to understand the importance of employees’ motivation in the accomplishment of their special mission—to offer quality education to people. Rowley (1996) explained that ―most higher education institutions have an implicit or explicit mission to offer a high quality learning experience to all their students‖ (p.11). The same idea is supported by Lunenburg and Ornstein (2004) that outstanding schools require leaders who have the ability to motivate people to maximize their performances, to grow professionally, and to change their behavior. This study discussed employees’ motivational processes and other related factors in Kigali Institute of Education (KIE). The factors related to motivational processes were divided into two categories. The first category was personal factors (ability and emotions) and the second category was job factors (supervisory support and coaching, task design and organizational culture). On personal factors, ability means a stable characteristic which is responsible for a person’s maximum physical or mental performance on mental and physical tasks (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2004). Emotion is defined by Wortman et al. (1999) as a reaction pattern characterized by physiological changes, expressive behaviors, and states of feeling, arising involuntarily in response to a challenging situation. For job factors, supervisory support and coachingrefer to the way employees are helped by their supervisors to acquire or improve their competences to work (Greer and Plunkett, 2007), organizational culture is defined as the set of shared values and beliefs that characterize an organization’s identity (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2004). Task design means coordinated and aggregated series of work elements used to produce an output (Ivancevich, 2004). Motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence are explained by Riches (1997) as ―what gets people activated‖, direction is ―the force exerted by an individual to engage in desired behavior‖ and persistence means ―the extent to which effort is expended on a task over time‖ (p. 90). As discussed above, and given the fact that motivation is both external and internal (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2004), motivating employees is not an easy task. This is simply because people differ in ability as well as in their will to perform (Saraf, 1994). As this study suggests, what is needed is to identify factors that are related to motivation. Once this relation is established, the institutional leaders may rethink of new ways to motivate their employees and probably their quality service delivery would improve. A study by Ahmed and Islam (2011) found out that there was a positive association of working condition, compensation and recognition with motivation. Further, there was positive association between motivation and job satisfaction. In an empirical analysis examining the Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 28 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved relationship between Bowen and Lawler (1992; 1995) four motivational practices (providing information about goals and performance, offering rewards based on performance, providing access to job-related knowledge and skills, and granting discretion to change work process and perceived performance were hypothesized to be positively correlated with perceived performance. The results showed that organizational performance correlated positively with moderate to strong associations with objective measures of organizational performance. Yasemin (2011), worked to evaluate the effective dynamics of work motivation and job satisfaction of textile employees. It analyzes the effectiveness of psycho-social, economic, organizational and managerial tools over individuals' motivation in terms of maintaining the motivation and job satisfaction of the employees in the business. He came out with the conclusions that economics tools by employee are positively and significantly related to the level of motivation increase perceived by the employee. 3. METHODOLOGY This study used a correlational research design to determine whether each dependent variable covaried with each independent variable (Bordens and Abbott, 2002). Dependent variables were motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence while dependent variables were personal (ability and emotion) and job factors (supervisory support and coaching, the task to be accomplished and organizational culture). The correlational research design was appropriate because the study explored the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. The target population for this study was 318employees fromKigali Institute of Education, an academic institution. The population was comprised of two main groups of participants including 186academic staff members and 132 administrative staff members. The study involved the academic staff members who are permanent teaching staff. Part-time teachers did not participate in this study. Administrative staff members were all non teaching staff except contractual staff. Convenience sampling was used because many academic staff members were on leave and only those who were available were considered. Therefore, the sample size for the study was 151 employees; however, 8 respondents did not indicate which category they belonged, whether academic or administrative.This study used a questionnaire measuring different perceptions of respondents on personal and job factors and motivational processes. The questionnaire, based on literature reviewed, and the theoretical framework, was developed by the researchers in such a way that all variables, both dependent (motivational processes) and independent (personal and job factors) were covered. The four-point scale design was used as follows: 1 = Disagree, 2 = Tend to Disagree, 3 = Tend to Agree, 4 = Agree. A pilot study was done in order to determine the reliability of the instrument. When using Likert-type scales it is important to calculate and report Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for internal consistency reliability for any scales or subscales one may be using (Gliem and Gliem, 2003). Pilot study for reliability check was done in Kigali Health Institute (KHI). This institution was Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 29 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved chosen because it is also a public institution and the employees are composed of the two groups as it is the case in Kigali Institute of Education and in all institutions of Higher learning. The two groups are academic staff and administrative staff members. The pilot study proved that the questionnaire was reliable with Cronbach’s alpha of .838. To improve the questionnaire such that the internal consistency of the subscales is attained, the different statements in each subscale were analyzed. One statement was deleted from the subscale motivational processes, three statements were improved in the subscale personal factors and four statements were reworded in the subscale job factors. The reliability coefficients of the subscales were as follows: motivational processes (16 statements) – 0.710, personal factors (10 statements) – 0.717, and job factors (17 statements) – 0.803.After the pilot and improvement of the research instrument, the researchers distributed the questionnaires to the respondents. The questionnaire had two main parts; a section dealing with motivational process factors, for example, arousal, direction, and persistence. The second part dealt with individual input (ability and emotion) and job contexts (supervisory support and coaching, task design, and organizational culture). Data collected were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The relationship between variables was tested using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r). The level of significance in hypothesis testing was set at 0.05. 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This study purposed to test if there was any relationship between motivational processes (arousal, direction and persistence) and personal (ability and emotion)and job factors ( supervisory support and coaching, task design, and organizational culture) among academic staff and administrative staff of Kigali Institute of Education. Simple linear correlation was used to determine the relationship between the variables. (See table above) The correlation coefficient between arousal and ability was 0.287 with a p-value of 0.000 which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This meant that there was a positive weak relationship between the two variables. In other words, arousal and ability tended to vary together, despite that this variation is weak; when arousal increases, the ability tended to increase too. Likewise, as arousal decreased, ability decreased and vice-versa. As it was mentioned in literature. Review, in an institution of higher learning like KIE, employees use mostly what was called by Kreitner and Kinicki (2004) as mental ability because they deal with cognitive tasks. To be able to perform this kind of tasks well, it would be recommended to have stimulating but not over-stimulating environments (Solli-Sæther, 2011). This kind of environment is realized when employees are energized to act through the motivational process called arousal. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between arousal and ability was rejected. Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 30 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved Table-1. Relationship between Motivational Processes (Arousal, Direction and Persistence) and Personal (Ability and Emotion) and Job (Supervisory Support and Coaching, Task Design, and Organizational Culture) Factors Ability Emotion Supervisory support and coaching Task design Organization Culture AROUSAL Pearson Correlation .287** .452** .426** .261** .330** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .001 .000 N 143 143 143 143 143 DIRECTION Pearson Correlation .432** .350** .247** .158 .323** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .002 .053 .000 N 143 143 143 143 143 PERSISTENCE Pearson Correlation .505** .505** .539** .348** .427** Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000 .000 N 143 143 143 143 143 **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Note: correlation coefficients between .00 and .30 are considered weak, those between .30 and .80 are moderate and coefficients of .80 and above are considered strong. The table also shows that the correlation coefficient between arousal and emotion was 0.452 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This meant that there was a moderate correlation between arousal and emotion in a positive direction. This result shows that since arousal and emotion have a moderate relationship, they should be considered together when it comes to motivating employees. This coincides with the idea of Penz and Hogg (2011) that a certain level of arousal has been shown to be indispensable for evoking positive emotions such as pleasure, joy or happiness, and also their negative emotions. According to the authors, individuals tend to search the cause of arousal in the environment. In this case, arousal will lead to positive emotion only in pleasant environment, while in unpleasant environment it might lead to negative emotions. Therefore, the null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between arousal and emotion was rejected. From this conclusion, it is clear that an employee’s emotions will reveal whether the employee is motivated or not. Again, the correlation coefficient between arousal and supervisory support and coaching was 0.426 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This suggests that there was a moderate relationship between arousal and supervisorysupport and coaching in a positive direction. What this result shows is that the institute administration should take into consideration supervisory support and coaching which positively relate to employees’ arousal. The supervisor and his responsibility towards his subordinate is part of the subordinate’s environment, which according to Penz and Hogg (2011), could be the cause of the employee’s state of arousal. This arousal would only have positive effects in a pleasant environment while in Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 31 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved unpleasant environment arousal effects would be negative. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between arousal and supervisorysupport and coaching was rejected. In this case, what should be recommended to the institutions is that administration put in place a line of managers who are competent and are able to make their respective units pleasant working environments. Moreover, the findings indicate that the correlation coefficient between arousal and task design was 0.261 with a p-value of 0.001, which was less than the significance level of 0.01. This indicates that there is a weak correlation between arousal and task design and the correlation is positive.The explanation of this correlation might be that the tasks to be accomplished can be attractive or unattractive depending on some specific characteristics of the task (Ivancevich, 2004). The weak relationship between the two variables might be that individuals have a different base level of arousal and therefore need different magnitudes of stimulation for optimal performance (Solli-Sæther, 2011). In view of this, institution leaders should be able to know each employee and the type of task one would be happy to accomplish.The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between arousal and task design was rejected. Concerning relationship between arousal and organizational culture, the results show that the correlation coefficient between arousal and organization culture was 0.330 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05, meaning that there was a moderate significant correlation between arousal and organizational culture in a positive direction. As highlighted by Wang et al. (2011), organizational culture is an important driving force behind all the activities in the organization. This means that it would be difficult to separate the two concepts in an organizational setting. Staff members are stimulated to act by the organizational set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols. These behaviors should be positive so that related arousal may lead to positive effects (Penz and Hogg, 2011). The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between arousal and organizational culture was rejected. The table also shows the relationship between direction and ability, emotion, supervisory support and coaching, task design and organizational culture. The correlation coefficient between direction and ability was 0.432 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This implies that there was a moderate correlation between direction and ability in a positive direction. In other words, for an employee to work towards the institutional objectives, he needs to have the required ability, especially, the mental ability because in an institution of higher learning employees deal mostly with cognitive tasks (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2004). All employees do not have the same abilities to perform specific tasks, it is therefore important to mention that the employee’s ability depends on one’s personality (Sha’bani et al., 2011). To assign them tasks, institution managers should consider the personality of employees among other factors. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between direction and ability was rejected. When direction was associated with emotion, the findings showed that the correlation coefficient was 0.350 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This means that there was a moderate correlation between direction and emotion in a positive Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 32 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved direction. In view of this, positive emotions will lead to employees’ positive direction toward institutional objectives. Likewise, negative emotions would affect negatively employees’ direction toward institutional objectives. Institutional leaders should make effort to put in place a pleasant working environment that leads to employees’ positive emotions for them to work towards institutional objectives (Penz and Hogg, 2011). The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between direction and emotion was rejected. On the relationship between direction and supervisory support and coaching, the results show that the correlation coefficient was 0.247 with a p-value of 0.002, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. There was a weak correlation between direction and supervisory support and coaching in a positive direction, indicating that employees, especially new ones, need supervisory support and coaching for them to be able to perform their tasks. Some tasks might require consultation from experienced people. Supervisors, considered as experienced members of staff, should take time to observe the inexperienced employee when he/she is assigned a task. This is what Certo (2006) calls coaching. In this case, when the supervisor discovers that employees meet or exceed expectations, the supervisor should give praise. When the employee makes a mistake, the supervisor should work with the employee to describe the mistake and decide with the employee about how to correct the mistake. This correlation is weak because employees do not necessarily need supervisory support and coaching for them to accomplish their tasks. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between direction and supervisory support and coaching was rejected. The findings show that the correlation coefficient between direction and task design was 0.158 with a p-value of 0.053, which was more than the significance level of 0.05. This means that there was no significant correlation between direction and task design. It should be noted that the working methods change with the nature of the task to be accomplished: some task require to be done in a group while others are well accomplished when done individually. The insignificant correlation might be due to the fact that one working method might apply for different tasks. Similarly, it would be possible to accomplish the same task using different methods. What matters, according to the Avey et al. (2008), is to try to generate ideas leading to new methods of working, which will in turn bring positive change in the organization. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between direction and task design was accepted. The correlation coefficient between direction and organizational culture is 0.323 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This means that there was a significant moderate correlation between direction and organizational culture in a positive direction. As it has been explained that arousal is determined by organizational values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols; the same guide the behaviors of organizational members (Wang et al., 2011). For example, when it is known that timely service delivery is one of the characteristics of an institution, each staff member will work accordingly. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between direction and organizational culture was rejected. Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 33 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved The last variable that composes motivational processes and which needs to be looked into in relation to personal and job factors is persistence. The table indicates that the correlation coefficient between persistence and ability was 0.505 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This means that there was a moderate correlation between persistence and ability in a positive direction. If an employee has confidence in his or her ability to provide quality work, sustainability will be maintained (Trevelyan, 2011). In addition to this, research has indicated that there is a negative relationship between employees’ quality service and their turnover intentions, implying that the ability to provide quality service reduces employees’ turnover intentions and therefore, increases persistence (Slåtten et al., 2011). In other words, employees who judge or perceive their own service quality as excellent would not intend to quit their jobs. In view of this, supervisory support and coaching, and training programs for employees are in this case important to reinforce employees’ ability to provide quality service, which would increase persistence. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between persistence and ability was rejected. The correlation coefficient between persistence and emotion is 0.505 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. There is a significant moderate correlation between persistence and emotion in a positive direction. According to Trevelyan (2011), confidence in one’s abilities on a task leads to positive emotion towards the task, and that positive emotion increases effort to work towards the organizational goals. Institution’s leaders should get to understand that what matters is to reinforce employees’ ability to perform their work and plan accordingly. This will lead to positive emotion which will in turn lead to persistence in their work. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between persistence and emotion was rejected. If persistence is considered in relation to supervisory support and coaching, it is clear that the correlation coefficient between persistence and supervisory support and coaching was 0.539 with a p- value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. This means that there is a significant moderate correlation between persistence and supervisory support and coaching in a positive direction. Increasing supervisory support and coaching would increase persistence; likewise, decreasing supervisory support and coaching will decrease persistence. The importance of supervisory support and coaching is to reinforce the employee’s ability to perform. When the employee has confidence in his or her ability, he or she will work hard toward institutional goals Trevelyan (2011). The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between persistence and supervisory support and coaching was rejected. The correlation coefficient between persistence and task design is 0.348 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05, an indication that there is a significant moderate correlation between persistence and task design in a positive direction. This means that persistence and task design vary together in a positive direction. This relationship is explained by Trevelyan (2011) that different tasks will result in different effort allocation decisions because the Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 34 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved characteristics of tasks vary, consequently, perceptions of likely task completion. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between persistence and task design was rejected. Lastly, persistence was considered in relation to organizational culture. On the relationship between persistence and organizational culture, the findings revealed that the correlation coefficient was 0.427 with a p-value of 0.000, which was less than the significance level of 0.05. There is a significant moderate correlation between persistence and organizational culture in a positive direction. Persistence can be considered as a characteristic of the organizational culture. It is one quality or value that each employee is expected to have. Employees should be hard working in order to achieve organizational objectives. Organizational leaders have an important role to play in shaping the organizational culture. This is in accordance with what Ribeiro-Soriano and Urbano (2010) presented that leaders are among the strongest influencers of employees in an organization. This is an emphasis that when the leaders are hardworking people, other employees are also likely to work hard. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between persistence and organizational support was rejected. 5. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The significant relationship between employees’ motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence and personal and job factors implies that it would be difficult to expect employees’ motivational processes of arousal, direction and persistence when the personal and job factors are not made attractive to employees by the institution. Quality education depends on quality staff members. The findings indicated that improving employees’ personal and job factors implies improving motivational processes. Accordingly, the following recommendations should be taken into consideration by the institution to ensure that employees work at their full potential. Employees’ ability should be reinforced through training program or capacity building program based on individual professional needs. The institution should also consider each employee’s ability and his or her personality before assigning a task. The working environment should be made pleasant in order to have employees’ positive emotion toward work. Pleasant environment leads to positive emotions while unpleasant environment leads to negative emotions. Employees, especially new ones, need to be developed, guided, and counseled by their supervisors who are more experienced, to work successfully toward institutional objectives. The supervisor should also act as a coach, which means that he or she has the responsibility of regularly observing, teaching, encouraging and helping employees develop. The importance of improving organizational culture is observed in this study. Culture provides basic values and beliefs that stimulate and serve as guidance for (and persistence of) behavior. The best way to improve organizational behavior is to have leaders or line managers who role models to the subordinates in terms of observing the institutional core values, beliefs as well as regulations and policies. Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2014, 2(1): 23-37 35 © 2014 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved As explained by Thorbjornsen and Supphellen (2011), institution leaders should ensure that the task facilitates employees’ growth, advancement and development, which promote the idea of promotion orientation. In the same context, institutions should give employees tasks that permit them to collaborate with other institutions. It is also recommended that institutions maintain the implementation, and where necessary, reinforce the good practice of non-discrimination among staff members. However, institutions should consider and recognize the contribution of each employee to the achievement of the institution’s objectives. This is in accordance with Adam’s equity Theory, which is based on fairness and equity in the organization. For direction and task design, which were not significantly related, it would be recommended to consider the two variables separately because they do not necessarily vary.. What matters is to put the employees in conditions that will allow them to perform their tasks happily. It would also be important to consider the characteristics that make the task to be accomplished attractive. This study revealed that employees need to be more stimulated to perform their work. 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