The Relationship between Achievement Motivation and Job Performance among Chinese Physicians: A Conditional Process Analysis

BACKGROUND: To explore the relationship between achievement motivation and job performance among physicians, this study investigated the impacts of different personality traits on job performance among the physicians. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2017 and 1,523 physicians from eight tertiary grade A hospitals in Harbin, China. The type of data collected included the achievement motivation of the physicians, job performance, organizational commitment, personality traits, and other demographic variables. To assess and compare the demographic data, independent t-test and ANOVA were applied. Further, Pearson correlation coefficients were used to evaluate the correlation among the variables. Moderated mediation analysis was performed to test the correlation among the job performance, achievement motivation, organizational commitment, neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. RESULTS: Achievement motivation directly influences job performance and organizational commitment partially mediates the direct effects of achievement motivation on job performance. Additionally, our findings demonstrated that agreeableness and conscientiousness moderate the strength of the relationships between achievement motivation and job performance mediated by organizational commitment. CONCLUSION: We propose that hospital managers should pay attention to the personal growth of the physicians and improve their organizational commitment via creating a positive working climate and training for career planning and education. Moreover, managers should identify conscientiousness and agreeableness individuals and increase their responsibilities geared towards improving the performance of the organization.