Inspirational motivation and information and communication technology utilisation in public universities: A leadership perspective

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in higher education institutions is fundamental in the improvement of the teaching, research and administrative efficiency, but the use of ICT is not uniform in all public Universities in developing countries. This study assessed the impact of leadership motivation on the use of ICTs by academic staff of public universities in Tanzania, with emphasis on two aspects of leadership motivation: inspirational and leadership-based. A quantitative cross-sectional research design was used, guided by the theories of Transformational Leadership and the Technology Acceptance Model. Stratified random sampling was used to select 321 academic staff from public institutions, to ensure that a representative sample of the academic staff was selected across disciplines and institutional contexts. A structured questionnaire with validated items on a five-point Likert scale was used for gathering data. The analysis was conducted using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) software program, which was run using SmartPLS 4 to examine the measurement and structural models. It was found that the levels of ICT utilisation among academic staff are moderate to high, that is, most of the academic staff use ICT for research, communication and administrative work; however, their use in classroom teaching is relatively low. The two types of motivation (inspirational and leadership) had a significant positive effect on ICT utilisation, with the leadership-driven motivation having a greater effect (β = 0.499, p < 0.001; and β = 0.321, p = 0.010, respectively). The model was found to have a good explanatory power of 64.1% (R² = 0.641) for the variance in ICT utilisation. The study finds leadership to be critical in improving the use of ICTs by using motivational and operational support mechanisms. University administration is advised to develop motivational leadership among lecturers and, at the same time, provide training, technical assistance, infrastructure, and allocation of resources to promote the continued use of ICT with lectures.