Employee motivation in public sector: evidence from Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

Performance of public employees become the most concern in the implementation of innovation in Vietnam recently because bad performance or less motivation are the results getting from almost surveys or researches. While public employees which are considered as the precious resource is the premier factor of innovation in Vietnam, such undesired results indicate that it is necessary to find out the reasons as well as the methods dealing with such problem. Issues relating to motivation have been researched meticulously. Among plenty of researches, choosing the one to apply for public sector in Vietnam requires a wide range of serious concerns including culture and specific environment of Vietnam. At inception, Maslow s Hierarchy of needs is basic source of the thesis. Moreover, in the process of seeking direction for the thesis, Nevis s research about hierarchy of need of Chinese can be considered due to certain compatibility with specific conditions in Ho Chi Minh city where the thesis chosen to study. Based on both on Maslow s Hierarchy of needs and Nevis s Chinese hierarchy of need, this research compares five basic factors affecting to motivation of public employees including social needs, physiological needs, safety needs, esteemed needs, self-actualization needs in order to find out which one is more important than the others. The thesis uses SPSS software to analyze data collecting from the survey of 200 public employees in Ho Chi Minh City. The findings from studying indicate that unlike the Nevis s results about the four-factor model in China or the five-factor model of Maslow in Western countries, the appropriate model for public sector in Ho Chi Minh city concludes six factors and the order of such factors is totally different from the previous researches. Although such findings should be continually researched in different ways, the study attempts to significantly contribute on improving managerial methods of public managers in the innovation process.