Motivation of the Faculty in the Politics and Administration Training: The case of provincial schools of politics in Vietnam

Abstract

People are the precious asset of a public organization given its scarce resources and competiveness of the private sector. Motivated public employees are likely to add values to the services delivery to citizens, private organizations as well as government entities. Faculty in the state-funded provincial schools of politics and administration in Viet Nam are the key actors in training public administration and politics for local officials who play important role in promoting effective local governance and ensuring no one left behind in the neighborhood. Therefore, it is crucial to improve the quality of the training and motivate the faculty members involved in the training. The paper aimed to identify the level of motivation and determinants of motivation of the faculty in the provincial schools of politics and administration in Viet Nam. The research questions to be answered were at what level the work motivation of the faculty in the provincial schools of politics and administration and what factors most affect the creating of work motivation for the faculty. The stakeholder mapping approach allowed to select three groups of people to be surveyed consisting of faculty, school administrators, and provincial public service department officers. The survey took place in 2019 and 2020. The questionnaire respondents totaled 1058. As an additional source of information, fifteen 45-60 minute-long interviews were conducted with ten faculty members and five school administrators. Cronbach’s Alpha was used to measure scale reliability and the T-test and Anova compared groups. Work motivation of the faculty was mainly at the "fair" level; male faculty was more motivated than female and the faculty holding doctor degrees were more motivated. A modest number of the surveyed faculty were highly motivated and very satisfied with their job. The highest influencing factor was the faculty factor or intrinsic motivation. The research had practical implications when providing rationales for identification of solutions to create work motivation for the faculty in the politics and public administration training for local officials whose enhanced capacity is believed to improve public services to the local people, especially in the context of unpredictable changes.