Faculties’ Perceive Job Motivation beyond their Self-Interests: Emphasis on Community-Based Motivators

Aims Motivation is increasing the feeling of attachment and involvement in a workplace. In the field of medicine, in which the lives of individuals are at stake, motivation of faculties, who are at the same time, educators and also physicians, becomes more critical. The aim of this research was to explore the medical faculties’ perceive motivation in their academic lifework. Participants Methods In this research was adopted a qualitative method by semi-structured interviewing 33 medicine faculties at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The Braun and Clark’s thematic analysis approach was used for data analysis to identify themes related to visible and invisible motivators in an academic lifework. Findings It was identified two major themes after analyzing the interviews: “Enterprise-level and visible motivators”, and “Community- level and invisible motivators “. It was also identified five sub-themes: “Perceived need for authority and justice in scientific activities “, “Financial motives”,” Incentive system (tangible and intangible support) of academic activities “,” Perceived need for a complementary atmosphere”, and “Perceived need for a collaborative atmosphere”. Conclusion Faculties’ perception of job motivation goes beyond visible, self-interest, and enterprise level motivators. They also perceive community-level factors of working at complementary and collaborative atmosphere as major motivators.