IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/ijoemp/ijoem-04-2022-0689.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Government support, employee motivation and job performance in the COVID-19 times: evidence from Turkish SMEs during the short work period

Author

Listed:
  • Cevahir Uzkurt
  • Semih Ceyhan
  • Emre Burak Ekmekcioglu
  • Musab Talha Akpinar

Abstract

Purpose - This paper aims to explore the effect of government support (short work allowances – SWA) on SME employees' job performance and employee motivation perceptions, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach - Survey data were collected from 2,781 employees working in SMEs registered to Small and Medium Enterprises Development Organization (SMEDO) in Turkey. The relationships were assessed through structural equation modeling with bootstrap estimation. Findings - The results support the proposed framework illustrating the positive effect of government support on employees' perceived motivation and job performance. Findings indicate that employee motivation has exhibited a mediating effect between government support and job performance. Another important finding is that, contrary to the classical understanding of Herzberg's two-factor theory, SWA system was able to perform as a motivating factor during the pandemic by meeting the hygiene needs. Research limitations/implications - Since this is a cross-sectional research study, causal inferences cannot be derived from the research results. Originality/value - There is a lack of empirical study on SME employees' perceptions on the government support during the pandemic, especially on the perspectives of emerging economies are infrequent. Turkey's case is unique in terms of providing insights on how perceived employee motivation is increased by the government supports (SWA) in Turkey, and how this motivation mediates the job performance perceptions. Besides, the impacts of government support are mostly studied at the firm or macro-levels, this study's unit of analysis is at individual level. Regarding the criticism from the motivation perspective of two-factor theory, COVID-19 context and its impact on the motivation needs have not been elaborated before. This article starts new discussions on how crisis contexts influence individual motivator factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Cevahir Uzkurt & Semih Ceyhan & Emre Burak Ekmekcioglu & Musab Talha Akpinar, 2023. "Government support, employee motivation and job performance in the COVID-19 times: evidence from Turkish SMEs during the short work period," International Journal of Emerging Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 20(2), pages 537-560, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:ijoemp:ijoem-04-2022-0689
    DOI: 10.1108/IJOEM-04-2022-0689
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJOEM-04-2022-0689/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJOEM-04-2022-0689/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/IJOEM-04-2022-0689?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:ijoemp:ijoem-04-2022-0689. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.