THE EFFECT OF ACADEMIC STAFF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL SYSTEM ON EMPLOYEES’ MOTIVATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS: THE CASE OF DEBRE BERHAN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The success of any organization depends on the quality and characteristics of its employees. It is a fact that any employee for that matter needs something to induce them or to look forward so that they are motivated to work at the best interest of the company. Performance appraisal is one of the ranges of tools that can be used to motivate employees and manage their performance effectively. This study aims at assessing the effect of performance appraisal on motivation in academic staff of higher education institutions in Ethiopia by taking the case of Debre Berhan University (DBU). This study has two independent variables (perceived fairness and perceived accuracy) and a dependent variable (employees’ motivation). Though, perceived fairness is measured by its elements procedural justice, distributive justice and interactional justice by making the total independent variables four. Descriptive and explanatory survey research design is employed for this study. The primary data is collected from permanent academic staff of DBU by using self-administered questionnaire. 300 out of 1203 academic staff of DBU are selected by simple random sampling method. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program. The results indicated that there are significant, positive and moderate relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. Nevertheless the independent variables procedural justice, interactional justice and perceived accuracy have a moderate and positive effect on the dependent variable employees’ motivation. And the effect of the distributive justice on employees’ motivation is insignificant. The coefficient of determination value for this study is 0.322, which means that the mentioned factors of Performance Appraisal cause 32.2 % of the variation in Employees’ Motivation. This study recommends that the stakeholders should focus more on procedural justice concept and work accordingly to enhance the motivation of the academic staff.