Employee motivation and employee productivity remain among the critical areas that are key to the growth of developing countries and organisations. This paper explores employee motivation and productivity in the middle-tier banks in Zambia through connecting the relationship between motivation and productivity and highlights the factors that drive motivation and productivity. The research study was conducted through qualitative research and semi-structured interviews, direct observation and qualitative questionnaires were used as data collection instruments. The emerging theme from the study was competitive remuneration but this has a limited impact. In addition, quality of leadership emerged as the other theme with three sub-themes, which were management style, participative leadership, and balancing work life dynamics. The other themes that emerged were performance management, growth and development and organisational culture. The study has policy implications not only for leaders in the banking sector but also for policymakers in government, as some of the emerging themes could extend into other sectors. The study concludes that there is a strong relationship between employee motivation whether intrinsic or extrinsic and employee productivity in organisations.
motivation, productivity, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation
Louis Mwaba. Corresponding author. MA. Institute of Distance Education (IDE). University of Zambia. Email: louiscmwaba@gmail.com
Javaid Dar. PhD. Department of Economics, Government Degree College, Kokernag, India
"All authors contributed equally to the conception, design, preparation, data gathering and analysis, and manuscript writing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
This work was not supported by any funding.
This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines set by the University of Zambia Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (UNZABRECS). The conduct of this study has been approved and given relative clearance(s) by the University of Zambia Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (UNZABRECS).
AI tools were not used in writing this paper.
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Cite this article:
Mwaba, L. & Dar, J. (2025). Employee motivation and productivity: A case study of Zambia’s selected middle tier banks. International Journal of Academe and Industry Research, 6(2), 78-100. https://doi.org/10.53378/ijair.353203
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