MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES AND THEIR EFFECT ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN KENYA: A SURVEY OF AUDIT FIRMS IN NAIROBI COUNTY

Operative personnel motivation for long has been one of management utmost challenging and essential duties. Motivation is the discrete inner process that rejuvenates, guides and sustains performance. It is the individual force that makes one to act in a specific way. The drive of this research was to institute the motivational techniques and their influence on institutional performance: with the study objectives being; to determine how rewards affect organizational performance in audit firms in Nairobi, Kenya; To determine how employee benefits affects institutional performance in audit firms in Nairobi, Kenya; To find out the extent in which training and development affects organizational performance in audit firms in Nairobi, Kenya and; To examine to what extent working conditions affects employee organizational performance in audit firms in Nairobi, Kenya. The research will add to the body of literature in the area underneath research. The research implemented a descriptive research design. The study population for this research was the 250 of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK) registered audit firms in Nairobi County, Kenya for the year 2016. A sample was selected from the audit firms in Nairobi County, Kenya. A total sample of 148 respondents was randomly designated for the study using Krejcie and Morgan‟s method of determination of a sample. Collection of data was done by use of a semi-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was separated into two parts; part A and B. Part A captured common information regarding the respondents while part B collected specific information about the motivation challenges facing audit firms in Nairobi County, Kenya. Five-point Likert scale question types were used to determine the motivational strategies and their effects on organizational performance. The analyses of the responses are broken down to hypotheses of the objectives. Each objective is broken down into smaller entities that forms up main objectives. These entities were used by the researcher for the questionnaire. In chapter four, the analysis of the data is tabulated according to the Likert‟s scale and their standard deviation is calculated. There are two sets of table analyses for each objective; objective against organization‟s performance and objectives against individual motivation. Also, there are tabulation for linear correlation and regression analysis. The finding showed training has a positive regression on organization‟s performance with statistical significant but the others have minimal regression with no statistical prove. Chapter five summarizes the findings, conclusion and recommendations of the study based on the analyzed data. Conclusions were drawn by the implementation of these inferential statistics. The results of this research indicated that recompenses are confidently and meaningfully associated to organizational performance; personnel benefits are also positively and significantly related to organizational performance; Training is also positively and significantly related to organizational performance; working conditions are also certainly and expressively connected to organizational performance. The study concludes that employees are the most valuable resource in the organisations. Motivation is particularly essential when workers operate in a borderline straddling position as this involves high stress and burn out levels. The study recommends that it is imperious for organization to chance the burdens of their workers to reinforce their inspiration, gratification, and compensation to maximize organizational performance. Future researchers may also emphasis on the factors that motivate, and those that dissatisfy workers.