Selected Reward Factors and Work Motivation: The Potential Moderating Role of Self-Directed Career Goals

Employee motivation is important to organisational functioning, yet the relationship between reward provisions and work motivation may vary across reward types and employee circumstances. This study examined associations between four selected reward factors (bonus, compensation, free medical treatment, and a safe working environment) and work motivation. It also tested whether self-directed career goals moderated the relationship between the overall reward factor and work motivation. Spearman’s rank-order correlations were used to examine the bivariate associations, while hierarchical regression was used to test the proposed moderation. The overall reward factor was not significantly associated with work motivation (r? = ?.078, p = .142). Bonus (r? = ?.019, p = .714), free medical treatment (r? = ?.010, p = .855), and a safe working environment (r? = ?.025, p = .631) were also not significantly associated with work motivation. Compensation showed a very weak negative association (r? = ?.103, p = .050. The interaction between the overall reward factor and self-directed career goals was not statistically significant (? = ?3.380, p = .141), and the explained variance increased only slightly from R² = .016 to R² = .021. The very high reported variance inflation factor values warrant checks of predictor coding and model specification, although they do not independently demonstrate that the interaction test is invalid. The findings underline the importance of examining reward dimensions separately and of ensuring appropriate model specification when testing individual-level moderators.