The topic of motivation continues to command substantial attention in the field of industrial or organisational psychology. Motivation has always been an essential factor in managing personnel and is a crucial variable in creating a high performance organization. Public administration research has largely ignored motivation as a topic, contrary to research of private sector management. Nurses represent one of the biggest profession group in South Africa's health care services and forms the vertebrae of the Primary Health Care in South Africa. South Africa has experienced large numbers of nurses immigrating to other foreign countries due to poor working conditions in South Africa. Government has a responsibility of ensuring that there is always a motivational climate in the institutions where nurses work. Several investigations have been conducted by various organisations regarding the state of South African Health Care System, due to a high rate of reported deaths in South African hospitals. Dispatch investigation team in 2005 revealed a number of findings that related to various motivational issues at the Eastern Cape Frere Hospital maternity ward. These motivational issues included but not limited shortage of nurses and doctors; use of interns on night duty without qualified doctors and anaesthetist; a cleaner confirmed to have been seen delivering a baby in the labour ward while wearing a doctor‟s coat, as well as accessing and dispensing medicine; no security to prevent people from wandering the labour ward and the entire maternity section; deaths due to negligence; inappropriate appointment of personnel, a situation causing problems for the nurses; employees complaining of work overload; absenteeism and sick leave leaving one nurse on duty at night in the nursery; lack of equipment like oxygen points, suction catheters, CPAPs and CTG machines, alleged by some nurses to be directly responsible for a number of avoidable deaths; staff shortages thus forcing inexperienced nurses to carry duties beyond their experience; detrimental shortages of labour beds; a general assistant dressed in a green nurse‟s gown rinsing blood-soaked linen before dishing up for, and serving food to patients, still wearing the same clothing. Since the Dispatch investigation and the subsequent investigations by political parties and the National Department of Health, no scientific research or investigation has been done around challenges at Frere Hospital maternity ward. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the levels of staff motivation and staff motivation levels' impact on job performance in the Frere Hospital maternity ward. In conducting this study the researcher explored five motivation theories which are amongst a group of motivational theories that have shaped worker motivation in both the public and private sectors. The study explored Maslow hierarchy of needs, Herzberg two factor theory, Vroom's expectancy theory, Locke's equity theory and Festinger‟s goal setting Theory. These theories were used with a view of gathering an understanding of staff motivation and job performance. The reasons for the researcher to choose these five motivational theories is that they are amongst the most popular theories used by scholars to measure staff motivation and performance both in the private and public sectors. These theories were also used due to their relevance to the organisation investigated. This study followed a quantitative approach and empirical study was conducted using a questionnaire with closed and open-ended questions. The empirical results from the nine sections researched showed some distinct findings, from which the following recommendations were drawn: management should consider employees' involvement during goal setting in the department; management should work towards building in job motivators into the employees’ jobs; management should ensure that there is a reputable performance reward and recognition system in place that is agreed upon with staff, instead of imposing the system; management should support nurses in ensuring that their working conditions and salaries and benefits are improved; and It is therefore the responsibility of managers to ensure that staff are always kept motivated in order to increase job performance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:26428 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Makapela, Lunathi Brian |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | xi, 101 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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