Experimenting the Impact of Organizational Mission Drift on Motivation and Effort of Nascent Social Workers in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The mission statement of the organization is a specific characteristic that defines the important functions which highlights the uniqueness and difference from the other organization in society. Non-government organizations are not profit-oriented in Sri Lanka. These non-governmental organizations are currently facing a financial crisis due to the economic downturn in Sri Lanka. Although the non-governmental organization has a pro-social mission, they have to change their mission towards profit-oriented due to the economic crisis. This change where an organization diverges from its main purpose of mission can be called the mission drift. The present study captured the impact of mission drift on the pro-social motivation and effort of the nascent social workers in non-governmental organizations. The Nascent social workers are people who are going to be social workers in the future. According to this study, the effort of the social workers is dependent on the anchoring effect of incentives. If employees are provided salary or incentives by the organization, employees exert more effort than the mission mismatch situation though the drifted mission of the organization to increase the productivity of the organization. It will be an advantage for non-governmental organizations to hire employees who match with organization's mission. When their pro-social mission is matched with the organization's mission, they exert more effort to increase the productivity of the organization even without any profit from the organization. However, non-government organizations have to drift their mission towards a profit-oriented mission due to the current economic crisis. In this situation, they can provide salary from the profit for employees to obtain the productivity of employee to the organization.