RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

Exploring the factors that affect employees non-financial motivation in Moldova’s private sector 141
Research methodology
In this study participated employees from approximately 30 SMEs from Moldova’s private
sector located in the biggest cities Chisinau, Cahul, and Balti. These cities were chosen
in order to receive more generalized and representative information. The 150 employees participated
in the research, most of them are first line employees or middle level managers. However,
just 133 questionnaires were fully completed and returned. The response rate of 88,7
per cent shows the high results.
Table II presents the main characteristics of the participants. The research sample consists
of well-educated participants (undergraduate – 60,1%, postgraduate 25,6%). Moreover,
the sample represents small and medium sized firms from divers industries, mostly representing
services (62,4%). Further, as can be noticed, 50,2% of respondents have work experience
1-3 years, whereas 27,1% have 4-7 years of professional experience.
The questionnaires were distributed generally direct to employees. This approach allowed
to explain the research objectives to correspondents. According to Schutt (2011), individuals
that do not respond may affect the quality of the research. Creswell and Clark (2007) state
that those who do not respond could have different opinion compared to those who participate.
However, Gray (2013) claims that those who participate are more interested in the topic.
The questionnaire was developed appropriate to the researched topic, based on the previous
findings. The items were taken from other studies and proved to be a good tool to measure
motivational factors. The questionnaire is divided in two sections. First section includes
consent form for correspondents who participate in the survey. Second section includes the
items itself and is divided in twenty sections. The first section includes personal information
of the correspondent, the second section contains organizational information where correspondent
works, while other sections have questions that measure motivational factors presented
in the research model: promotion and growth opportunities, work itself, teamwork, communication,
mentoring and supervision, sense of achievement, training, empowerment, creativity,
feedback, job security, leadership, job engagement, organizational loyalty, recognition,
extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and employees’ performance. All items (a total of
55) are measured using five-point Likert scale, form 1 – strongly disagree, 2 – disagree, 3 –
neither disagree nor agree, 4 – agree, 5 – strongly agree. The Table I presents factors measured
in questionnaire, their operational definitions and related academic literature.