Intrinsic motivation and employee engagement in manufacturing: moderating effect of organisational justice

Abstract

Employee engagement is a key element for South African manufacturing companies to gain a competitive advantage in the global context. Inherently, an understanding of the drivers of engagement is important. Limited research has been conducted to confirm the effect of intrinsic motivation on engagement in the South African manufacturing industry. Additionally, there has been a call from scholars to add to the understanding of the complex interplay between the antecedents to engagement. The aim of this study is to better understand the potential impact that organisational justice could have on the engagement of intrinsically motivated employees, through the lens of self-determination theory, in the context of the South African manufacturing industry. A quantitative, explanatory, cross-sectional survey approach was used. A sample of 218 respondents from the South African manufacturing industry participated in the study. The measurement instrument included elements from the Job Engagement Scale (JES), Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale (WEIMS), and Moorman’s (1990) three-factor scale to measure justice perceptions. The correlation tests found that there is a relationship between intrinsic motivation and employee engagement in the context of the South African manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the moderated regression analysis showed that organisational justice has a moderating effect on the relationship between intrinsic motivation and two dimensions of employee engagement, physical and cognitive engagement, but not emotional engagement. The importance of understanding the dynamics related to how organisational justice affects the engagement of intrinsically motivated employees and leadership style was shown to provide an important perspective for human resource management practitioners