Caroline njambi united states international university africa

1.2 Statement of the Problem 
Employee motivation is a topic that has received very significant attention by managers 
and researchers alike (Gautam, Mandal and Dalal, 2006). It is acknowledged with 
certainty that no organization may possibly thrive without their employees. Employees 
are the main reason any organization might have the potential to keep in existence for a 
long time. Similarly to Amref Health Africa in Kenya, employees are the ones who play 
the major roles and make significant contributions to the organization. Well motivated 
employees would influence the efficiency of the organization and could lead to achieving 
the organization‟s vision and goals (Hussin, 2011). 
Previous studies on employee motivation mainly focused on the factors that contributed 
to it being attained. On the other hand, not much research on its impact towards 
performance was made (Dinler, 2008). Studies on employee motivation have been carried 
out over the years but they are largely based on the western organizations and very few 
studies on motivation have been done in African organizations/companies let alone 
particularly Kenya. An example of such studies is one carried out by Grant, Fried, and 
Juillerat in 2010 on bankers in the UK. This brings about a great gap that needs to be 
filled with tremendous research considering the fact that employees in different 
environments and who are affiliated to different cultures cannot attain motivation from 
the same factors. 
There has been a great challenge on the part of managers in Amref Health Africa in 
Kenya on determining how exactly they can attain maximum motivation for their 
employees whom they believe would go a very long way to improve on the organizational 
performance. Many managers have tried to attain motivation of their employees by trying 

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to use methods that were successful in other areas around the world and have desolately 
been disappointed, but the reason is simply because this research was not directly relevant 
to their own employees. It is for that reason that this research intend to fill in the 
knowledge gap.