The Influence of Organizational Commitment on Work Motivation: A Comparative Study of State and Private University Teachers

IntroductionMotivation can stimulate a person and help him/her towards satisfaction and commitment to his/her job. Motivation is a drive which immediately influences direction, vigor (energetic activity) and persistence of action (Atkinson, 1964). Motivation helps to stimulate an individual to perform actions for achieving the desired results.According to Luthans (1998), along with 'money,' there are some other incentives which act as motivators. Miner et al. (1995) stated that motivation is the combination of three elements such as needs, drives and incentives. Ryan and Deci (2000) concluded that psychological needs, i.e., competence, autonomy and relatedness are the three fundamental needs which people try to satisfy at the earliest and interaction of these needs with the environment created two types of motivation such as intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.According to Deci and Ryan (1985), intrinsic motivation refers to the work that is inherently interesting or enjoyable in nature and extrinsic motivation refers to the work that leads to a separable outcome. Vallerand and Bissonnette (1992) stated that intrinsic motivation is an activity which is done for the satisfaction derived from that activity, while extrinsic motivation is an activity which is carried out from a sense of obligation.Organizational CommitmentOrganizational commitment is one of the most important work-related attitudes which has been studied in management and organizational behavior (Allen and Meyer, 2000). It is a strong belief in an organization's goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of an organization and a strong desire to remain a member of the organization (Mowday et al., 1982). Commitment is typically conceived as an individual's psychological bond to the organization, including a sense of job involvement, loyalty and a belief in the values of the organization and a force which obliged employees to continue in an organization (O'Reilly et al., 1991). Commitment is an ongoing process and an attitude which reflect loyalty of employees towards the organization (Northcraft and Neale, 1996).In different organizational settings and in different cultural environments, organizational commitment is expected to be different in its nature and meaning (Clugston et al., 2000). Meyer and Allen (1991) framed an Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) containing three dimensions, i.e., (i) Affective commitment (a desire), refers to a feeling of emotional attachment of employees with their organization. Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they feel emotionally attached to it; (ii) Continuance commitment (a need), refers to an awareness of cost associated with leaving the organization. Employees with a strong continuance commitment continue employment with the organization because they feel the need to stay with the current organization as shifting to another organization is difficult due to lack of alternatives or other costs involved; and (iii) Normative commitment (an obligation), refers to a feeling of obligation to continue employment. Employees with a high normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization.Literature ReviewAmabile et al. (1994) developed the Work Preference Inventory (WPI) instrument to assess individual differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Respondents were college students and working adults. This instrument was scored on two primary scales, i.e., intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Further, each scale was subdivided into two secondary scales. Intrinsic motivation scale was further categorized into secondary scale, i.e., 'challenge' and 'enjoyment'; on the other hand, extrinsic motivation scale was categorized into 'outwards' (oriented toward the recognition and dictates of others) and 'compensation'. The results revealed weak negative correlation between intrinsic motivation and years of experience in their occupation, whereas modest negative correlation was found between extrinsic motivation and work experience. …