In public organisations with constrained financial incentives, motivation increasingly reflects employees' day-to-day interactions with managerial practice. This article examines how psychological need satisfaction (NS) influences employees' evaluations of non-financial motivational methods (NFMMs) and managerial effectiveness.
Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, the study conceptualises NS as a multidimensional construct comprising basic, relational, and higher-order needs. We analysed survey data from 807 Romanian public-sector employees using PLS-SEM to test the direct and mediated relationships between NS, perceived NFMMs effectiveness and perceived managerial effectiveness.
Results show that NS functions as a core interpretive mechanism through which employees assess non-financial motivation and managerial practices. Higher-order needs, which encompass personal growth, development, creativity, esteem, and self-realisation, make the strongest contribution to overall need satisfaction. In turn, NS has a positive effect on both NFMMs effectiveness and managerial effectiveness. These evaluations depend less on formal HRM instruments and more on how managers enact practices in daily interactions.
Motivation improves when HRM practices support core psychological needs. The strongest NFMMs signals relate to recognition, respect, autonomy support, and development, while participatory behaviours, collaboration, task support, and fairness drive managerial effectiveness. Small, procedurally feasible forms of autonomy support help reinforce employees' sense of competence and control, offering actionable avenues for HRM improvement even in resource-constrained administrative environments.
The article refines need-based frameworks by showing how motivational meaning develops in highly institutionalised public-sector settings and clarifies how managerial behaviour and need satisfaction jointly shape motivational evaluations.
Psychological need satisfaction strongly predicts employees' evaluations of both non-financial motivational methods and managerial practices, underlining its central role in how public employees interpret motivational signals.
Higher-order needs – growth, creativity, recognition and opportunities for meaningful contribution – exert the strongest influence within the need structure, making them especially salient for motivational evaluations.
Motivation depends less on formal HRM instruments and more on employees' lived experience of work, particularly their interpretations of fairness, procedural clarity and relational support.
Human-centred HRM practices, especially credible recognition and participatory behaviours, can enhance engagement even in public organisations operating under procedural constraints and limited resources.
