Psychological needs and workplace commitment of selected local government workers

Abstract

Psychological needs are the explicit or implicit lacks in intra and interpersonal conditions, aspects, or circumstance such as achievement (nAch), affiliation (nAff), power (nPow), and autonomy (nAut) that a worker experiences in a workplace. The extent to which such needs affect the worker's workplace commitment (WC) was investigated in this study. One hundred and sixty (160) workers whose ages ranged between 20 and 55 years (M= 31.20, SD= 2.77), were randomly selected from a pool of 318 in such a way that 40 individuals represented each of the psychological needs categories. They responded to Manifest Needs Questionnaire (MNQ) (Steers and Braunstein, 1976) and Organizational Commitment Scale (OCS) (Buchanan, 1974). Intercorrelating the OCS and MNQ scores of the 318 individuals, results indicated that a significant positive relationship existed between nAch and nPow; nPow and WC; nAut and WC; nAch and WC; nAut and nAff; nAut and nPOW; and nPOW and nAff. But nAff and WC had a significant inverse relationship. The results of the one-way ANOVA and Least Significant Difference test showed that Workers in the nAch and nAff categories were the most committed and the least committed respectively. Implications for theory, practice, and future research were discussed.

African Journal for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Vol. 9(2) 2006: 152-161