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Professor Ritu TripathiBy
GROUP NO. 4
Study of performance drivers in educational institutions
MPPO Project Reporton
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
2. Why we chose Education sector?.............................................................................................3
3. Interview Participants Details..................................................................................................4
4. Themes that Emerged...............................................................................................................8
5. Hypotheses...............................................................................................................................8
6. Survey Items used to measure each concept............................................................................9
7. Detailed description of the respondents.................................................................................10
8. Reliability of the Data: Cronbach's α.....................................................................................12
9. Results on Hypotheses...........................................................................................................12
9.1 Hypothesis 1.....................................................................................................................12
9.2 Hypothesis 2.....................................................................................................................13
9.3 Hypothesis 3.....................................................................................................................14
10. Specific prescriptions for Managers....................................................................................16
11. Appendix..............................................................................................................................20
11.1 Participant 1 - Professor Arnab Basu.............................................................................20
11.2 Participant 2 - Professor N. Ravi....................................................................................22
11.3 Participant 3 - Ms Arnavaz Kapadia..............................................................................26
11.4 Participant 4 - Mrs Kanta...............................................................................................28
12. References............................................................................................................................31
1. Introduction
Education contributes and enriches science, arts, philosophy, religion and socio-political
thoughts. Education plays a vital role in democracy. Education at all stages of life is very
important. But education which a person gets at pre-primary, primary, secondary school is the
most important. Thus the teachers have a tremendous responsibility on their shoulders to impart
the best knowledge. For the teachers to give their best, it is important to figure out the factors
that influence their performance and motivate them to do their job with full enthusiasm and
energy.
This report summarizes the findings during the empirical and application-oriented study of the
various factors that could affect the performance of teachers. These factors have been arrived at
by interviewing teachers at various levels of education like School, Engineering College and
Management Institutes. Further, statistical method of hypothesis testing using data taken from
surveys was used to validate the results. Finally, we have recommended a set of best practices
that an educational institute can follow to increase the performance of its employees.
2. Why we chose Education sector?
India has one of the largest education sectors with the second highest number of students as
compared to any other country in the world. Indian education sector is divided into two major
divisions - core and non-core. The core division
consists of schools and higher education while the
non-core division consists of pre-schools,
vocational training and coaching classes. As per the
Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD)
Annual Report 2010-2011, India has 544
University level institutions that include 261 State Universities, 73 State Private Universities, 42
Central Universities, 130 Deemed Universities, and 33 Institutes of national importance. The
importance, relevance and the real world application on education sector has motivated us to take
this sector for our study.
The future of the country aligns with the success of education as per the India vision 2025. As
such, education is of prime concern for the country. An estimate suggests that although
enrolment rates in primary school are more than 95 per cent, drop-out rates are as high as 40 per
cent. Enrolment rates in secondary school are 33 per cent, but drop-out rates are 66 per cent.
Thus, more than 65 million children who should be in school are not; of these, 55 million are in
rural India and 10 million are in urban India. Only 6 per cent of the population enters into the
world of higher education. Trying to understand what motivates teachers to teach children in
schools also led us to select this sector.
Moreover, India is accepted globally as a leader of the developing nations. However, it still lags
significantly behind other countries like China, U.S and U.K when it comes to research. Our
research will bring out the key motivating factors among researchers in institutions and their
impacts on performances.
3. Interview Participants Details
3.1 Participant 1 - Professor Arnab Basu
Professor Arnab Basu completed his B.Tech (H) in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT
Kharagpur. Subsequently he worked for about six years in various MNCs like Mentor Graphics,
HP, Cadence etc. in the area of Algorithms for Micro-chip and Compiler Design. He finished his
PhD in Computer and System Science from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR)
where he was awarded the Infosys Research Foundation Fellowship. He also received the TIFR-
Sasken Best Thesis Award. He joined IIM Bangalore after his PhD where he was awarded and is
currently holding the Young Faculty Research Chair Professorship. Professor Arnab Basu has
published his work in renowned international journals like SIAM Journal of Control and
Optimization, Mathematics of Operations Research, Operations Research Letters, Stochastic
Analysis and Applications etc. He is also one of the five recipients of the SAP Research and
Innovation Award across India in 2010.Professor Arnab Basu has held Visiting Faculty positions
in TIFR, IIM Indore, IGIDR and other National Institutes and has given Invited Lectures in
various IITs, NITs and ISI. He teaches extensively in various academic programmes at IIMB. He
specializes in teaching Optimization, Probabilistic Methods and Game Theory.
Verbatim Highlights
Professor Arnab was asked about the routine task of teaching which he does daily. The idea was
to validate the perception that teaching is a monotonous job. Professor Arnab agreed that it is a
kind of monotonous job and a more challenging job like research motivates him the most. But at
the same time he said that teaching is definitely an integral and important part of the job. More
details can be seen in the appendix.
3.2 Participant 2 - Professor N. Ravi
Prof. N. Ravi is an adjunct faculty in the Public Policy department at IIM Bangalore since 2010.
His main work is related to completing five projects at IIM Bangalore. He teaches a course on
Business, Government and Society in Term I of PGP course.
He joined the Foreign Service in 1973 and retired in December 2009 after working nearly 37
years in different positions at home and abroad. His last assignment was Secretary in the
Ministry of External Affairs looking after the conduct of all aspects of bilateral relations with as
many as 70 countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, East Asia, South East Asia, Australasia,
the Gulf, West Asia and North Africa. He was also in-charge of bilateral economic relations of
India with all countries of the world, with an emphasis on multilateral and regional ties with
organizations of which India is a member. These included ASEM, ASEAN, EAS, GCC, SAARC
etc.
His abroad postings have been in Belgrade, Tokyo, Thimphu (Bhutan), Moscow, Munich and as
Ambassador of India in Hanoi from 2004 to 2006. He served the Ministry of Commerce,
between 1997 and 1999 as in charge of the West Asia & North Africa Division, when he looked
after India’s economic and commercial relations with Iran, the countries of the Persian Gulf, the
Middle East and North Africa.
He is from IIMB’s Class of 1982 and has received the Chairman’s Gold Medal for the Best All
Round Performance in April 1982. He also received the distinguished alumni award from the
IIMB in October 2009. He also has a M.Sc. in Chemistry from Delhi University in 1971.
Verbatim Highlights
The respondent was primarily asked questions related to performance at workplace on the onset,
the interviewee was asked about his work. He talked about his projects which are his prime focus
and then teaching at the institute. More details regarding the interview can be seen in the
appendix section.
3.3 Participant 3 - Ms Arnavaz Kapadia
Ms Arnavaz Kapadia is teaching at Podar School, a very reputed school in Mumbai. She has
been teaching at this school for the past 2 years now. She is the class teacher for Std XI and
teaches the subjects Economics, Business Development and Business Entrepreneurship. She has
done her MA in Economics and BCom from Pune University and Symbiosis College
respectively and her B.Ed from St.Teresa convent in Mumbai.
During her college days, she used to take private tuitions to earn her pocket money. Today apart
from teaching at school, she takes out time every weekend to visit her alma mater, St.Teresa and
help the weaker students to become better teachers. She believes that education in India has a
long way to go and teachers play a pivotal role in that. The future of the education system and
students in India is in the hands of teachers. Her ambition is to set up specialized centres where
new innovative teaching methods and ideas can be shared. For Arnavaz, teaching has always
been a passion and taking up teaching as a career was always on the cards.
Verbatim Highlights
The respondent was primarily asked questions related to performance at workplace on the onset,
the interviewee was asked about her work and responsibilities in school. She talked about the
various factors that are important and influence her performance in school.
3.4 Participant 4- Mrs. Kanta
Mrs. Kanta Sunil is a Senior lecturer (Maths) at University of Rajasthan. She has done her M.Sc.
(Hons.) in Mathematics and her B. Ed from Gujarat University, Ahmedabad. She has been
teaching for the past 3 years now. Earlier she had also worked as an Administrative Officer at
LIC. She is basically from Jaipur, Rajasthan and her hobbies include statistical modeling
research and practical applications of higher mathematics in today’s world.
Verbatim Highlights
If students are told to come prepare for the class and if they don’t then the respondent feels bad
because they put in a lot of effort for the class lectures. The respondent lays a lot of emphasis on
the flexibility and the freedom imparted on the teaching aids and methodology. The respondent
believes and favours that the faculty should be left free in deciding the course teaching methods
like using ppt slides, models, class notes or some other exercise. These days’ internet videos like
Kahn academy, Investopedia and Wikipedia helps students in learning things in a better way.
For this reason nowadays a lot of emphasis is given on imparting soft skills and computer
training programmes. The respondent believes that until and unless the faculty are themselves are
not well prepared and acquainted with the latest technologies they can’t expect the students to
follow their teachings.
The respondent strongly agrees to the fact that these days the student-faculty relationship is
deteriorating day by day. In most of the cases the students are not even comfortable talking to the
faculty. This is mainly because there is no direct feedback available. Though we do have a
feedback mechanism where in the students gets a chance to rate their concerned professors at the
end of the course.
The respondent strongly agrees on the point that the faculty do want to perform well than their
peers. Also if they are timely rewarded and recognised for their good work, they do feel like
working even harder next time. Being a government University these things rarely takes place
and in the right spirit. The respondent further believes that teaching being one of the noble
professions, it feels great and motivated if their efforts are valued and recognised timely.
4. Themes that Emerged
Based on the details of the above interviews it can be inferred that teachers prefer diversity and
non monotonous job. This can be achieved via involvement in various kinds of projects, teaching
aids and methodologies. Flexibility allows them to experiment and then use the best way of
teaching which is very important in order to keep the students involved in classroom. Since the
ideas are initiated by the teachers they are more likely to get motivated.
Recognition by the Institute also impacts the performance. Recognition act as a parameter for
comparison with other peers and also indicates that their performance is on expected lines.
Teachers feel that they are the valuable asset of the institute. This report will validate the themes
mentioned above with the help of statistical method of hypothesis testing.
5. Hypotheses
1. Recognition from the institute increases level of performance of teachers.
2. Challenges in the role are positively related to work performance.
3. Freedom in the job results in better job performance.
6. Survey Items used to measure each concept
A total of 24 survey items were developed with four questions for each of the independent
variable. The list of the survey items is given below:
1. Task Performance
a. I adequately complete my assigned duties.
b. I fulfill the responsibilities specified in my job description.
c. I perform the tasks that are expected of me.
d. I meet all the formal requirements of the job.
2. Citizenship Behavior
a. I attend functions that are not required but that help my organization.
b. I keep up with the developments within the organization.
c. I defend the organization when other employees criticize it.
d. I show pride when representing the organization in public.
3. Counterproductive Behavior
a. I have, at times, wasted company materials or supplies.
b. I have, at times, done work slowly or incorrectly on purpose.
c. I have, at times, broken important rules on purpose.
d. I have, at times, complained about insignificant things at work.
4. Recognition
Job Performance
Recognition
Challenge
Freedom
Dependent Variable
Independent Variables: 1.Degree of freedom & flexibility 2. Level of Challenging Job 3. Recognition from Institute
a. I work more efficiently when my suggestions are valued by the faculty members and
institute administration.
b. I get motivated to teach well when my students thank me for being an important part of
their academic achievements.
c. I feel more confident since my last promotion.
d. I execute my work more effectively when recognized by the institute as a good teacher.
5. Challenge
a. An exciting and competitive work environment motivates me to work harder.
b. I am inherently innovative and try to devise new and better ways of teaching and other
assignments.
c. Opportunity to work on challenging projects excites me about working as a teacher.
d. I have a great sense of accomplishment when I satisfactorily complete challenging job
assignments.
6. Freedom
a. I like to have the freedom to take independent action when considered necessary.
b. I like to have the freedom to do what I feel is right for the student.
c. I prefer flexibility in my working hours.
d. I feel the institute should be considerate with respect to my family responsibilities.
7. Detailed description of the respondents
The respondents were chosen from a diverse set of backgrounds ranging from people working in
post-graduate colleges, under-graduate colleges to intermediate schools and primary schools. The
detailed profile of the respondents is given in the table below.
Name of the respondent
Institute Name Designation e-mail id Contact No.
Venkatesh SCZRPS Govt High School B. Ed. teacher in Social Science
Sirish IIMB Doctoral Student [email protected] 9916511366
Shruti Baijal University of Miami Research fellow [email protected] 8292601761
Shashidhar Murthy
IIMB Professor [email protected]
080-2699-3695
Sanjeev Ranjan DAV Hehal,Ranchi,Jharkhand Teacher [email protected]
Ritu Tripathi IIMB Professor [email protected]
Rajgopal Bhashyam talent school Maths teacher 5th grade onwards
Prof P D Srivastava
IIT Kharagpur Professor [email protected] 9538850848
Parminder Singh Thapar University Assistant Professor [email protected] 9915951688
Pankaj Kumar Government Middle School Teacher [email protected]
Navneet Kumar BIT Mesra Professor [email protected]
Mandanna M.P Reva Institute of Science & Management
Asst. Professor [email protected]
9741864856
Lalita Nayampally
SIES, Mumbai Primary Teacher
KK Pant IIT Delhi Professor [email protected] 011-26596172
Jyoti Gupta Reva Institute of Technology & Management
Asst.Professor [email protected] 9590078008
Gurudutt Kuchinad
Maharashtra Institute of Naval Education and Training
Professor [email protected] 9423004066
Dr. Haripada Bhunia
Thapar University Associate Professor [email protected] 9316682355
Dr. Apurba Chatterjee
[email protected] 9936433777
Dhruv Agarwal University of Illinois, UC Student [email protected]
9742390008
Bringi dev IIMB Professor [email protected] 2699 3133
Ayush Ranjan MIT Teacher [email protected]
Arzoo Mustafi IIMB Academic Intern [email protected] 7411900884
Arnavaz Kapadia KN Podar school Teacher [email protected]
9822084617
Arnab Basu IIMB Associate Professor [email protected]
Anuj Singh Rotary Siksha Sadan Assistant Teacher 9450692554
Ankita Singh Kotak Salesian School Primary Teacher [email protected]
Anil Anuragi I.E.C. G.B. Nagar Lecturer [email protected]
Ananta Kumar Kar
F. M. Autonomous College, Balasore
Senior Reader - History
[email protected] 9338310179
Alok Garg Thapar University Lecturer [email protected]
Abhaya De Paul School Maths teacher [email protected]
Respondent Distributions
The charts below give the information about demographics and the work profile of the survey
respondents.
Male
Female
0 5 10 15 20 25
21
9
Series1
Number of males and females
8. Reliability of the Data: Cronbach's α
Task Performance
Citizenship Behavior
Counterproductive Behavior
Recognition Challenge Freedom
0.84 0.76 0.81 0.45 0.70 0.71
As it can be seen from above, the Cronbach's α value is more than 0.70 for data on independent variables
challenges and freedom which indicates high accuracy of the data points. The Cronbach's α value for
recognition is 0.45 which is also satisfactory keeping in mind that the sample space was just 30 responses
and 4 data points (questions) related to each variable. This means that the random error is less and further
hypothesis analysis can be done using this data.
9. Results on Hypotheses
9.1 Hypothesis 1
H0- Recognition from the institute does not relate to task performance, citizenship behavior and
counterproductive behavior.
HA- Recognition from the institute relates to task performance, citizenship behavior and
counterproductive behavior.
Dimension of performance Task Performance
Citizenship Behaviour
Counterproductive Behaviour
Confidence Interval
Correlation with Recognition 0.44 0.25 0.16 -Critical value at α = 0.05 0.361 0.361 0.361 95%Critical value at α = 0.02 0.423 0.423 0.423 98%Critical value at α = 0.01 0.463 0.463 0.463 99%
Since the correlation coefficient value between independent variable “Recognition” and Task
performance is greater than critical value of 0.361 the null hypothesis is rejected.
The correlation coefficient value between Citizenship behaviour and “Recognition” is 0.25
which is less than the critical value, hence null hypothesis is fail to be rejected.
Also the correlation coefficient value between Counterproductive value and “Recognition” is
0.16 which is less than the critical value of 0.361 indicating that both are not related and null
hypothesis is fail to be rejected.
Hence the alternate hypothesis is partially supported since only task performance is related
to Recognition. If employees are recognized they perform their tasks properly, fulfill their
responsibilities, and are satisfied.
Job dissatisfaction and antagonistic behavior leads to counterproductive behavior. Since in this
the counterproductive behavior and recognition are not correlated significantly and has very low
value for coefficient of correlation, it indicates the employees are satisfied and are performing
well in their jobs. Thus recognition leads to better job performance and hence job satisfaction,
workplace incivility is not there.
Job performance and hence satisfaction is a major determinant of an employee organizational
citizenship behavior .Satisfied employees seem to talk more positively about the institute.
Recognition and citizenship behavior should have been positively related since recognition by
the institute leads to better job performance and hence employees will behave positively. But the
sample results are not indicating this. The above theory is refuted indicating that even if they are
recognized and are satisfied, not necessarily every employee will praise the institute.
9.2 Hypothesis 2
H0- Challenges in the role does not relate to task performance, citizenship behavior and
counterproductive behavior.
HA- Challenges in the role relates to task performance, citizenship behavior and
counterproductive behavior.
Dimension of performance Task performance
Citizenship Behaviour
Counterproductive Behaviour
Confidence Interval
Correlation with Challenges 0.06 0.56 0.11 -Critical value at α = 0.05 0.361 0.361 0.361 90%Critical value at α = 0.02 0.423 0.423 0.423 96%Critical value at α = 0.01 0.463 0.463 0.463 98%
The correlation value of challenges with task performance and counterproductive behaviour are
0.06 and 0.11 which is less than the critical value 0.361 at α = 0.05. This means that the null
hypothesis (H0), that challenges in the role do not relate to the task performance and
counterproductive behaviour is fail to be rejected.
However, the correlation value of challenges with citizenship behaviour (0.56) is higher than the
critical value 0.361 at α = 0.05. On comparing the correlation value with critical values for
different α, we find that the hypothesis is rejected at α = 0.01 . This means that we can say with
98% confidence that challenges during work relate to higher levels of citizenship behaviour.
Hence, the alternate hypothesis (HA) is partially supported.
This hypothesis is in conformation with Edwin Locke's Goal-Setting Theory which says that
specific and difficult goals, with feedback, lead to higher performance. This theory is also proved
by Robbins (2005) and Syptak et al. (1999) in their research. To improve the job performance,
organizations can use management by objectives in which the organization's overall objectives
are translated into specific objectives for each succeeding level in the organization.
Since the teachers are highly satisfied with the quality of work which they are doing, they tend to
behave as a more responsible employee and they talk in public about the quality of work which
they are doing. OCB leads to job satisfaction can be validated from the research paper by
Malvern (2011).
While on one hand challenges at work leads to organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB), it
doesn't necessarily relate to higher task performance. This could be because of the difficult
nature of the work & no infrastructure to support the successful completion of the challenging
task. However, a small correlation shows that it can sometimes lead to higher task performance
as the teachers are challenged and their thinking process improves. Challenges in job also
minimally correlate with counter-productive behaviour which can be the outcome of frustration
of a tough and highly demanding job.
9.3 Hypothesis 3
H0- Freedom in the job does not relate to task performance, citizenship behavior and
counterproductive behavior.
HA- Freedom in the job relates to task performance, citizenship behavior and counterproductive
behavior.
Dimension of performance Task Performance
Citizenship Behaviour
Counterproductive Behaviour
Confidence Interval
Correlation with Freedom 0.53 0.01 0.00 -Critical value at α = 0.05 0.361 0.361 0.361 90%Critical value at α = 0.02 0.423 0.423 0.423 96%Critical value at α = 0.01 0.463 0.463 0.463 98%
Since the correlation coefficient value between independent variable “Freedom” and Task
performance is greater than critical value of 0.361 the null hypothesis is rejected.
The correlation coefficient value between Citizenship behavior and “Freedom” is 0.01 which is
less than the critical value, hence null hypothesis is fail to be rejected.
Also the correlation coefficient value between “Counterproductive” value and “Freedom” is 0.00
which is less than the critical value of 0.361 indicating that both are not related and null
hypothesis is fail to be rejected.
Thus the alternate hypothesis is partially true as only task performance is related to
Freedom.
Task autonomy refers to giving the individual who is performing the task, considerable control
and discretion in deciding how to carry out the task. [3] As such, we are interested in determining
the factors that explain how and why task autonomy affects job performance.
We suggest that it is motivation that moderates such relationship. According to Hackman and
Oldham (1976), autonomy leads to critical psychological state of “experienced responsibility for
outcomes of work”, leading to high effectiveness and high internal work motivation [1,2].
We suggest that task autonomy affects motivation which in turn affects performance. However,
individual perceptions can significantly affect such relationship.In our research, such a
perception for a need for autonomy is expected to influence the extent by which individuals are
motivated by task autonomy. For instance, a Senior Professor in a research institute prefers to
carry out his research in his own way and also emphasizes on such freedom for higher
productivity. Thus, such a need for autonomy, when fulfilled by institute administration, results
into higher performance. Literature suggests that another factor - need for achievement - also
moderates the relationship between task autonomy and motivation.[3] For example, a
compensation plan that grants rewards based on individual performance may motivate
employees to prefer autonomy in their jobs so that they can show higher individual
performances.
Our research also suggested that higher autonomy is associated with reduction in formalities
such as documentation and rule observations imposed by the organization. This reduced
formalization empowers the individual to actually exercise discretion in implementing a
particular task. With such an opportunity, an individual can explore alternative methods for
carrying out a task, thereby affecting his or her job performance.
Overall, we find that motivation mediates the relationship between task autonomy and task
performance. Such motivation is a result of individual’s preferences for need for autonomy, need
for achievement and lower formalizations in the organization.
10. Specific prescriptions for Managers
1) Performance through Recognition: Recognition is a leadership tool that sends a message to
employees about what is important to the leaders and that their behaviour and efforts are
valued. Some certain prescriptions that managers can adopt are:
a) Develop an employee recognition or award program with links to the organization’s
mission and goals. Exemplary work, new innovative ideas and teaching techniques, social
work should be recognized at the institute level.
b) Use a variety of rewards: a mix of monetary and non-monetary. Innovative non-
monetary benefits like one day vacations or trophies for teachers and passes for an
esteemed conference for professors can go a long way in motivating them to perform
better.
c) Ensure fairness, high visibility and consistency in the recognition program. This
increases the credibility of the program among the professors/teachers and ensures that
there is no favoritism.
d) Acknowledge and appreciate the good work done by an employee. This significantly
increases productivity and morale. Especially in schools, if the principal praises and gives
a pat on the back to a teacher, it boosts the morale and significantly improves the
performance. This kind of praise and appreciation is priceless.
e) Encourage informal praise mechanisms within the team like Smileys, thankyou cards
or emails etc. This is applicable more to schools and colleges. Display of such kind of
appreciation by a fellow teacher is a big motivator to perform better and also to help
others perform better.
2) Performance through Challenges: Managers can follow a 3 step process:
a) Job Analysis: Collect data about the job, its tasks, duties and responsibilities, equipment
and tools required, knowledge, skills, abilities, experience required and the performance
standards to be maintained.
b) Job Design: He should properly design the job keeping in mind the following:
The capabilities of the employee and his/her expectations of the job. It should not
be too challenging or too easy else the teacher/professor will lose interest and this
will affect his/her performance
It encourages employees to use a variety of skills. No teacher likes a monotonous
job. The job should encourage the teacher/professor to explore the entire gamut of
his personality. It should also encourage teachers to develop and explore their
inner skills.
The employee does a total job i.e responsibility or ownership of the whole task or
job. The teacher/professor should be in charge right from deciding the course
contents, material required, exams and grading pattern.
The employee has responsibility, accountability, challenge and opportunity to be
creative in the job.
c) Feedback mechanism and job enrichment: Well-designed jobs anticipate the need for
communication. Most employees want to know what is expected of them in the job, how
they are doing, how they can improve, what latitude they have in changing how they do
their tasks.
Employees at times want more from their job and through the available feedback
mechanism can convey to their managers that they are ready for more responsibilities and
more challenging tasks. Through job enrichment, a manager can do the following:
Make a job more difficult, hence making it more challenging. By setting stringent
performance criteria, the principal/admin can increase the challenge a job offers.
Assign challenging new tasks that the employee must learn to do through self study.
Apart from teaching the normal courses, the principal may assign the task of
designing new courses, conducting research which entails the teachers to do a lot of
self study and learning.
Delegate responsibility and authority to an employee.
Job enrichment is a tool for improving employee motivation through satisfying the need
for more challenge. It pays more attention to the employee needs. Job enrichment
recognizes that non-monetary rewards are important to job satisfaction.
3) Performance through Freedom: Most of the managers provide considerable directions and
maintains boundaries for decision making before giving work freedom to their employees. In
most of the cases job performance increases significantly when the degree of decision
making, and the freedom to choose how and when work is done increases. The higher the
degree of freedom and discretion, the more paths there are toward attaining the desired goal,
decreasing task and role clarity (Evans, 1970; House, 1971).
Most organizations swear by the empowerment and freedom to their employees. As a result
employees remain happy at the workplace. However, different organizations follow these in
different forms, types and ways.
The manager can consider taking the following steps:
a) Freedom to flex one’s work timings to accommodate family life but at the same time
not compromising on work deadlines. This is relevant especially in schools. Day school
gets over by 1pm but teachers are made to stay back till 5pm to complete additional
work. If the school allows teachers to take work home, it makes the teacher feels that the
school cares about him/her and this directly has an effect on his/her performance. A
healthy work-life balance is very important.
b) Freedom to implement new ideas at the work place and to do things differently.
Professors, especially in PG colleges prefer to have autonomy, the flexibility to do things
their own way, a unique way of doing things. The institute should allow this and not
interfere as long as the required goals and performance measures are being met.
11. Appendix
11.1 Participant 1 - Professor Arnab Basu
Q. Does the performance of the students motivate teachers to do their job well?
“Performance is not the same across all students. I observe a spectrum of performance level in a
group. However if the performance is bad in general, then I feel disappointed and that acts as a
motivating factor to work harder. I try to find the reason for lack of performance by the students;
it could be due to lack of communication. I feel good if the performance is better.”
Q. Does the training or the skills which the teachers have help them to perform well?
“As per me basic knowledge is sufficient for teaching. Breadth and not depth in knowledge is
required to teach here. However if someone is trained then it would definitely help. For research
depth in knowledge is necessary.”
Q. Does the freedom or flexibility helps to improve your performance?
“Definitely Yes. I got various offers from different industries but the freedom was not there in
those job. The other jobs were monetarily lucrative but academic offers provides lot of
freedom ,so I chose to work in academic field. I assessed pros and cons of both the industries
and then decided.”
Q. Does the feedback process from students affect your performance?
“It is more important to have subjective written feedback instead of numerical feedback. In
numerical feedback there is a chance that a student is not in a good mood and he or she might
give random feedback. But on the other hand subjective feedback is more genuine and thought
provoking. For example a student has not been placed in his or her dream company then he may
give distorted, random feedback at that moment.”
Q. Does the fact that teachers and students are staying in the same campus affects your
performance?
“Definitely staying in campus is a good thing. See now we are sitting together on a weekend and
interacting which is helpful.”
Q. How important is recognition from school management or students for you, to perform
well?
“Absolutely important. Any organisation should be in a position to evaluate the performance of
its employees very objectively. This leads to two useful outcomes- first we can compare ourselves
with our peers and second we can compare how we performed as per the college expectation.”
Q. Do your personal problems affect your performance in school?
“It does not affect me but I have seen other colleagues getting affected due to personal issues.
Performances of some of my friends have been affected due to personal issues but they recover
gradually from that.”
Q. Does the location of the city in which the institute is located affect your performance?
“Location is a very important factor, especially if an employee is married. Suppose I am posted
in Gonda in MP, I would not like to go there with my family since my children will not get good
schooling. My wife would not be able to do her job. But for bachelors it should not matter
much.”
Q. Do you think that you are responsible in order to make improvements in the teaching
and learning in the school?
“One of my responsibility as a faculty is to suggest improvement in teaching methodology. There
are two primary responsibilities of a faculty- teaching and research. A failure in any one of them
is the failure of faculty. Administrative responsibility comes later. Both should be done with
utmost dedication.”
Q. Was teaching your obvious choice?
“After completing my Ph. D., I made an informed choice to join academics. One thing I would
like to add here is that in IITs and IIMs, teaching is an important part of the job. However, in
research dedicated institutes like IISc, TIFR teaching does not hold such importance. In IITs and
IIMs, research is important too, but these are teaching institutes and thus teaching is primary.”
Q. Do you have good friends at work?
“Yes. I have one or two of them with whom relationships extend beyond professional linkages to
personal linkages.”
Q. Do routine tasks frustrate you?
“Yeah. Teaching is monotonous and routine but it is part of the job and is important. Research is
dynamic and more interesting to the extent of recreation. It s important for an academician to
survive and then teach because he/she is paid for it.”
Q. Do you enjoy multi-tasking?
“I do only two things – teaching and research. I don’t do consulting or have any other
involvements.”
Q. How does working condition/atmosphere effect your workings?
“I would prefer to have a neutral working atmosphere with certain guidelines prescribing the
activities to be done. I like to be left alone and not bugged every now and then.”
11.2 Participant 2 - Professor N. Ravi
Q. Sir, we are here to take your interview about the factors which influence your
performance at work. Could you please tell us something about your work here?
“I have actually been given 5 projects to complete in a fixed amount of time. I am now on my
way to just complete one year (Nov 1st). There is some purpose and I have completed one project
from my side and on way to complete 1 more before the end of the year and 2 more by middle of
next year. That means 4 projects. 5th project is to get people together which is ongoing on a
continual basis. And teaching here wasn't really originally on my agenda at least. But an
opportunity came by as someone was going away on leave so they asked for volunteers to teach
BGS. I volunteered. As it is, motivated, the answer to that is. Motivation is personal. It is
something within you and you have to keep that fire burning in the sense that, well, let me give
an analogy of a lawn-mover with a motor and another lawn-mover without a motor where you
have to put in effort. Depends on which person chooses which kind of lawn-mover and how he
does the job. And the difference is in motivation. If you have something to do, it is difficult. You
may or may not get assistance. You may get all the materials that you want. But so long as you
as a person has decided that yes i will reach the goal come what may. Then the rest is up to you
and how you motivate yourself. And inevitably at the base of all motivations is self-discipline. If
you have to achieve a certain goal, you must have SD. It can be cultivated, you can identify it in
yourself or your personality. There are methods which can enhance its effectiveness or make it
come on the forefront of the things you do. But ultimately some amount of physical effort is
required. That PE can be anything from waking up in morning to sitting at a table and working
or picking up a shower and that is necessary.”
Q. Is there sufficient variety at work to maintain your interest?
“Oh yes. there is tremendous variety at work.”
Q. Are results expected of you?
“Yes, they are expected of me. “
Q. From your peers, your boss, your subordinates? Everyone?
“Yes. In fact I will go one step higher. They would be constantly observing and seeing whether I
am working towards the result. They need not even wait for the results or just the activity itself
will indicate to them.”
Q. Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
“I have got lot of freedom. Whether it is reading, writing, talking to people. All connected with
the project.”
Q. Do you have required resources to bring in the desired level of work input?
“I have enough resources. Starting with these two hands. And of course, everybody who is
anybody here, I just have to knock at the door, asks for help, i will get it.”
Q. So if you need anything when you go or approach someone. Do they help you?
“They all do that.”
Q. How is your relationship with your boss/senior?
“Quite good.“
Q. On a personal & professional front?
“Both.”
Q. Do you have good friends at work?
“Yes, I do. But the kind of work that i am doing right now depends entirely on me. Later on I
might need friends to A asses the work that I am doing and B reached a point from where a
conclusion is easier. But right now I am on my own. But any help I require, I have to go out and
seek the help.”
Q. Do you receive recognition or praise for your good work?
“I haven't reached that stage yet. “
Q. May be in your previous work life.
“Yes, IIM has recognized that and I must conceive that. Both the fact that the all round medal I
got was a total surprise for me.”
Q. When was it?
“1982 when I passed out. I never expected it. One of my professors had a small get together in
the institute and after that I went home. Then the professor called me on his own and he said
look we have decided to give you this award. I said how come? He said as a faculty we chose
you. And the second one was again it was IIMs case. It was October exactly 2 yrs back when I
got distinguished alumni award. One of my classmates called me from London. I told I didn't
even know that I was in the race. Then somebody from Delhi rang me up. Then only I got to
know.”
Q. Do you have the opportunities to innovate & work on your initiative?
“Yes, I do. I think Innovation can be done in a process.”
Q. Does your boss/senior keep you informed about what is going on around?
“I don't have any boss here. However, I do keep the director informed about what I am doing.”
Q. Does your boss/senior/colleague at work seems to care about you as a person?
“It was not there in my previous work experience where I used to work on my own.”
Q. Do you think you are getting here?
“Here, when you talk to people, they ask and then you tell about what you are doing and then
they encourage also. Here the opportunities are more but in my previous life there were
competing opportunities and not achievement based ones.”
Q. Are you free to choose your own teaching methods? Any interference?
“Yes. Only thing is the material to be taught is in a general form.”
Q. Are you adequately remunerated for what you do?
“Yes.”
Q. Do your consultation and opinions see to count at workplace?
“Ya, once in a while on professional front.”
Q. Do you get opportunities to learn, grow and develop?
“Yes, learning never stops.”
Q. Do you attend work functions like dinner parties, outings etc?
“If I am free and invited, yes.”
Q. Are your family members happy with your work & work life?
“Yes, they are since my workplace not far from home.”
Q. In the past?
“In the past it was always the case. You ultimately do the work for family. When my work was
over, I used to take my family to show natural beauty. I recently went to Orissa with my wife.”
Q. Do you arrive at the office on time and do not leave early?
“Yes, I follow the time which I am supposed to.”
Q. Do you participate in trainings/workshops organized by your company?
“It doesn't apply to me. I am part of giving trainings.”
Q. Do you get de-motivated by being bench-marked and compared against others?
“No. I am what I am.”
Q. How about opportunities for promotion?
“NA to me.”
Q. How does working condition/atmosphere effect your workings?
“I need some basic instruments to work with like a table, computer, printer and paper. With that
I am good to go.”
Q. Do you feel secure about your job & position?
“Yes, absolutely.”
Q. Do routine tasks frustrate you?
“No. It actually helps me. It is because of these routine tasks only that I am able to do non-
routine tasks better. So, these routine tasks energize me.”
Q. What's your stand on publicity of your success?
“It doesn't make any difference but I am always happy when it happens.”
Q. What are some of your main motivating factors?
“- Quality of output that I do.
- The sheer effort in doing some task
- Recognition of my work.
- Precision of the work that I complete.”
Q. Are all of these satisfied here at IIM B?
“Yes, they are all satisfied due to the freedom that I get here.”
11.3 Participant 3 - Ms Arnavaz Kapadia
Q. Does the performance of the students motivate teachers to do their job well?“Yes, yes it does. When they do well, we feel proud of the hard work they have put in.
Performance is academic as well as non academic. When they behave well in front of others
also, we feel proud. I attribute a part of their success to the efforts we have put in.”
Q. Does the training or the skills which the teachers have help them to perform well?
“Yes they help. Any additional training leads to value added and our quality of teaching does
improve. Of course, it applies to those who actually apply what they learn to the way the work. I
always inculcate whatever I learn during training sessions into my teaching.”
Q. Does the freedom or flexibility help to improve your performance?
“Yes it does. My school allows me to use internet, videos, movies etc as a medium to teach in the
class. This helps me to provide better learning experiences to my students. They also enjoy it and
remember everything better. And as I mentioned before, if they learn and do well, it encourages
me to put in more effort and try new ways to perform better.”
Q. Does the feedback process from students affect your performance?
“We don't get direct feedback from them. It remains with the management. But, yes, feedback is
an important way by which a teacher knows how her teaching is received and develops ways in
which she can improve it. But on the other hand, students at this age are not mature enough to
give a proper feedback and so that’s why I feel the management does not give it to us.”
Q. Does your peer (other teachers) good performance urge you to perform well?
“It does to the extent of technique of explaining concepts. I see if I can apply it in my ways of
teaching, especially my senior teachers. They are my role models.”
Q. Does the fact that teachers and students are staying in the same campus affects your
performance?
“We don't stay in the same campus. But I do not feel that staying on the same campus will make
any difference.”
Q. How important is recognition from school management or students for you, to perform
well?
“Oh it is very important. I like my efforts to be duly recognized. It makes me feel important in the
eyes of my students and the management.”
Q. Does private tuitions or sessions outside school lowers the performance of teachers in
school?
“That depends actually. Ideally, it shouldn't. For me, it does not matter.”
Q. Do you encourage students to ask question outside the normal school hours? If you do so
and students ask questions, does it motivate you to do well?
“I do allow them to ask me questions off school hours. It is very important you know, the
relationship that you build with your students. It helps them develop a rapport with you. You see
that interest and curiosity in students and that makes you want to read more and provide them
with as much information as you can. You want to solve their doubts as accurately as you can.”
Q. Do your personal problems affect your performance in school?
“No. It never affects my performance. Teaching for me, is like acting. When an actor is on stage,
he is in the form that the character demands. As a teacher we are in the form that our profession
demands: unbiased, neutral and confident.”
Q. Does the location of the city in which the institute is located affect your performance?
“Yes obviously. I am teaching in Mumbai, one of the best cities in India. All the teaching
facilities depend on the city that you live in. It makes a lot of difference. “
Q. Does promotion boost your morale?
“Yes. Just like in the corporate world, it does. Recognition for me is an important motivator to
work harder.”
Q. Do you think that you are responsible in order to make improvements in the teaching
and learning in the school?
“Yes I am. I am a part of the system and I have the potential of making a difference. Whenever I
come up with some innovative teaching methods, I share them with my colleagues. I believe it
our duty to improve the system.”
Q. Was teaching your obvious choice?
“It is my choice. Since school times, I knew teaching would be my future career. It was
something that I was good at and loved doing. It is my destiny that I have written for myself.”
11.4 Participant 4 - Mrs KantaQ. Does the performance of the students motivate teachers to do their job well?
“Yes. If they are told to come prepare for the class and and if they don’t prepare then I personally feel
bad because I put in a lot of effort for the lecture. It is for their benefit only. At the same time they have to
be disciplined and have to maintain decorum.”
Q. Does the training or the skills which the teachers have help them to perform well?
“Yes it really helps. For this reason only nowadays a lot of emphasis is give to the teaching
methodologies n soft skills and computer training. I believe until n unless we are not well prepared and
acquainted with the latest technologies we can’t expect the students to follow what we preach n teach.”
Q. Does the freedom or flexibility help to improve your performance?
“Yes, infact it is very important in our case that we should be given the required flexibility and freedom
because its upto the professors that how they want to teach, either through ppt slides, models, class notes
or some other exercise. These days internet videos like Kahn academy, Investipedia n Wikipedia helps
students to learn in a better way.”
Q. Does the feedback process from students affect your performance?
“Very rarely students approache us with some problems or explainations. So direct feedback after the
lecture is fading away these days. We do have a feedback system after the end of the course where in
students gets a chance to rate their concerned professors. Personally I do give heed to the feedback if
given.“
Q. Does your peer (other teachers) good performance urge you to perform well?
“Obviously you wanna do better than your peers. But here its not the case because professors are not
given any performance awards. Being a govt university it doesn’t happen here anymore. Yeah in the
areas of research there is a competition among the faculty but not with the case of normal course
teaching.”
Q. Does the fact that teachers and students are staying in the same campus affects your
performance?
“I don't stay in the college campus. It can work more in schools and other boarding institutes I guess.”
Q. How important is recognition from school management or students for you, to perform well?
“For me it is the most important thing. After all teaching is one of the noble professions. It feels nice if
your efforts are valued and recognised.”
Q. Does private tuitions or sessions by faculty outside school lowers the performance of teachers in
school/college?
“I don’t appreciate the taking of private tuition by faculty at home. If you really wanna teach properly
and make a difference then the class room time is more than sufficient. And yeah if they do it for earning
more money then I cant say anything because its their personal choice.”
Q. Do you encourage students to ask question outside the normal school hours? If you do so and
students ask questions, does it motivate you to do well?
“I do encourage them to ask any questions offline. I believe these days the student faculty relationship is
deteriorating day by day. In most of the cases the student are not even comfortable talking to us dont
know why.”
Q. Do your personal problems affect your performance in school?
“No. I don’t mix my studies with my personal life.”
Q. Does the location of the city in which the institute is located affect your performance?
“Yes, its important. I just need the basic facilities like transportation, teaching aid availability and all.”
Q. Does promotion boost your morale?
“Yes. It increases your confidence.”
Q. Do you think that you are responsible in order to make improvements in the teaching and
learning in the school?
“Yes. Teachers can bring a lot of difference. I make sure that I do my part well and is able to justify my
actions.”
Q. Was teaching your obvious choice?
“It was my first choice always.”
12. References
1. http://www.oifc.in/Sectors/Education
2. Robbins SP (2005). Essentials of Organisational Behaviour. New Jersey: Pearson.
3. Syptak MJ, Marsland DW, Ulmer D (1999). Job satisfaction: Putting theory into practice.
Family Pract. Manag., 6(9): 26-30.
4. Malvern (2011), Evaluation of job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour:
Case study of selected organisations in Zimbabwe; Malvern W. Chiboiwa, Crispen
Chipunza and Michael O. Samuel.
