CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the Study
Human beings are the most important resources in every organization. Without human, it is quite impossible to achieve the goals or objectives of any organization. It is very important to consider the ways of getting them to do their work willingly and enthusiastically, and be satisfied with their jobs. Before any employee can get satisfied with his or her job, his/her problems, needs and aspirations have to be identified by the management so that possible solutions could be given. Man’s problems arise due to the fact that he has lots of responsibilities not only to himself but as well to his fellows and the society as he interacts with his environment and others in the society. These needs, responsibilities and interaction with his environment urge him to act or respond in a particular manner towards the satisfaction of these needs and maintenance of the social system.
Lawler and Hall (2010) defined the job involvement as the extent to which an individual sees his entire work situation to be a crucial part of his life and to be central to him and his identity mainly because of the opportunity it provides him to satisfy his/her important needs. Job involvement is seen as the extent to which an individual identifies psychologically with his or her work and the importance of the work in the individual’s total self-image. Thus, according to Pathak (2013) there have been spirited efforts in the past years throughout the world by top management consultants to redesign jobs so as to increase job involvement. This is apparently based on the belief that job involvement is conducive to both productivity and job satisfaction.
According to Liao and Wen Lee (2015), today’s organizations need to know how to accomplish the utmost degrees of job involvement, despite all organizations likely aspire to encourage a high degree of job involvement, this attempt is very complex, mainly because of the intrinsic differences in the degrees of job involvement among employees. These differences may be as a result of the differences in personality, a key individual difference variable. On the other hand, Blau and Boal (2011) stated that, organizations with low job involvement level pay a high cost in terms of lower employees’ productivity and higher absenteeism and turnover rates. Such cost is one reason why a lot of efforts have gone into understanding the causes or antecedents of job involvement. Brown (2016) argues that both personality variables and concept of work ethics are antecedents of job involvement.
Organizational culture is regarded as a collection of various value system which can assist an organization to operate itself and carry out a successful business, (Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2013). The culture of an organization helps an employee understand better the functioning of the organization by sharing its norms, values and rules and regulation of organization, (Deshpande & Webster, 2000). According to Lok and Crawford (2015), organizational culture has an outstanding impact on employee’s job involvement and overall performance. If an organization employee has more understanding of the organizational culture, there is a higher chance of more job fulfillment and satisfaction, (Chang & Lee, 2007). A happy employee is an individual who stay with the organization in tough condition and try to fulfill the organizational goals, (Meyer & Allen, 2017).
It is of utmost importance for every organization to establish an organizational culture in order to maintain its position in the market, (Apostolou, 2000). The organizational culture has to be developed in such a way that it will provide support to an organization and bring constant improvement, (Huczynski, & Buchanan, 2014). The culture of an organization is very germane for the progress of an organization as it impacts on employee job involvement and performance as well. If an organizational culture is flexible, it will provide a working environment in which employees may work easily and independently without feeling any burden. Every organization wants the commitment of its employee simply because it is very important for the effectiveness of an organization, (Meyer & Allen, 2017). If the employees of an organization understand the culture of the organization properly, there is likelihood for the improvement in their performance since the employee’s performance is the base of an organization.
One of the best approaches of enhancing the performance of an organization is through the provision of motivational benefits for employees in order to enhance their performance towards achieving organization goals and objectives, (Sofijanova, & Zabijakin-Chatleska, 2013). Staff welfare is a corporate attitude or commitment reflected in the expressed care for employees at all levels, underpinning their work and the environment in which it is performed, (Cowling & Mailer, 2010). According to Heery Edmund and Noon Mike, (2011), the involvement of employee helps an organization keep its employees in the organization and find solution to avoid losing your valuable staff.
Coventry and Barker (2014) opined that, staff welfare entails to provide social club and sports facilities as apt, supervising staff and works’ canteens, running sick clubs and savings schemes; dealing with superannuation, pension funds and leave grants, making loans on hardship cases; arranging legal support and giving advice on personal issues; making long service grants; providing support to staff transferred to another location and providing fringe benefits (like payment during sickness, luncheon vouchers and other indirect advantages).
Today, there is the growing challenges linked with carrying out businesses in our ever changing business environment; as a result, organizations are faced with numerous pressures and challenges, (Alemika, 2016). In addition, organizations are been faced with a growing turbulence and uncertainties which deny them the room for making reliable predictions of the future, (Robbins & Sanghi, 2013). Therefore, there is the need for organization managers to effectively manage and cope with these various challenges in order to ensure the survival of the organization and to achieve other goals and objectives, (Cole, 2012). To achieve these, employees with proficient, technical, professional and or conceptual skills are been effectively involved in order to drive organizations’ vision, goals and objectives. Therefore, effective organizations put high value on employees’ involvement in achieving their goals, (Kumari & Kumari, 2014)
According to Sheridan (2014), it has been confirmed that organizational culture and employee welfare have a strong impact on employees’ job involvement and performance. Similarly, Silverthorne (2014) argued that, organizational culture and staff welfare has strong relationship with employee job involvement, because an organization with strong culture will enhance the performance of the employee and the overall performance of the organization. The continuous involvement of employees in managerial decision making process will ensure that such employee will not quit the organization and will not response to dissatisfaction and make sure that they remain with the organization, (Appealbaoum, Bartolomucii, Beaumier, Boulanger, Corrigan, Dore, Girard, & Serroni, 2015).
Organizations today are implementing policies that will permit their employees to be involved in certain processes so as to drive their performance, and to build up competitive gain in market arena (Khattak, Igbal, & Khattak, 2013). Therefore, employee job involvement has turned out to be a very important approach for an improved organizational performance and other organizational positive outcomes, (Agyeman, 2012). As a result of the increased level of changes and pressures with growing challenge and uncertainty, there is need for a fast and reliable strategy which will help organizations to cope with challenges at hand, and as well position them to accomplish pre-determined and emergent goals and objectives, (Kok, Lebusa, & Joubert, 2014).
It is in line with the above backdrop, that this study aims to investigate organizational culture and staff welfare as correlates to job involvement among employees of Babcock University.
1.2. Statement of the Problems
In today’s corporate world, organization culture is a wide concept and comes with a broad acceptance in understanding change management in practices of the human relations, while staff welfare is a dynamic idea as modern day welfare measures are been added to the current ones along with social changes. The contemporary idea of staff welfare consists of all those activities of the employers, which are directed towards providing the employees with certain facilities and services in addition to wages and salaries. Welfare facilities are crucial and necessary for the healthiness of an organization simply because it has a close correlation with the performances of the employees.
Kandula (2010) opined that, a powerful and positive organizational culture is likely to enhance the productivity of an average employee and achieve exceptionally. On the other hand, a weak and negative organizational culture is likely to make an exceptional employee to lose interest in their work by underperforming and as a result end up not accomplishing their set goals. Therefore, organizational culture has a direct and lively task in performance management, (Ahmed, 2014).
A number of studies have been examined on organizational culture, staff welfare as correlates to job involvement. Raduan, Kumar, Haslinda, and Ling, (2014) carried out a study on the perception of staff welfare programs in large manufacturing companies in Kenya and revealed that, majority of the companies provide employees with staff welfare programmes towards organizational performance. Similarly, Wainaina (2011) conducted a research on the relationship between organizational wellness programs and employee job involvement at capital group limited. His study found out that, the organization staff welfare programs enhanced and boosted employees’ satisfaction levels.
In another research carried out by Kotler (2012) showed that, there is a positive effect of organization culture on job performance and involvement of employees. Zheng and McLean (2010) examined the impact of four components of organization culture in particular, which are; communication, co-action, recognition and compensation, and training and development on employee performance. The study established that, all the four components of organizational culture were significant and relevant causes of performance. On the contrary, Raza, Anjum, and Zia (2014) noted a weak relationship among organization culture with employee performance. In another study carried out by Omega (2012) on the perceived link between organizational culture and employee job involvement and satisfaction in Kenya Commercial Bank. Findings revealed that, organizational culture dimensions of emphasis on rewards, organizational supportiveness, innovation orientation and performance orientation had a direct relationship with the job satisfaction of employees
Based on the above review of studies, it can be observed that, there are limited studies carried out in the area of organizational culture, staff welfare as correlates to job involvement on employees. Therefore, this entails a knowledge gap which justifies the reason for additional research. As a result, this study will seek to fill this research gap answering the following questions:
- To what extent is the effect of organizational culture of reward on employee output?
- Do the organizational welfare program influence employees’ job commitment?
- What is the impact of organizational culture of training and development on employee performance?
- To what extent is the effect of organizational culture of communication on employee involvement in decision making?
1.3. Research Objectives
The primary objective of this study is to investigate organizational culture, staff welfare as correlates to job involvement among university employees in Ogun State. However, the specific objectives of the study will be to:
- assess the impact of organizational culture of reward on employee output
- find out the organizational welfare program that influence employees job commitment
- examine the influence of organizational culture of training and development on employee performance
1.4. Research Questions
To achieve the objectives of the study, the research sought to answer the following questions:
- To what extent is the effect of organizational culture of reward on employee output?
- Do the organizational welfare program influence employees’ job commitment?
- What is the impact of organizational culture of training and development on employee performance?
1.5. Research Hypotheses
Based on the above research questions, the following research hypotheses will be formulated in their null form.
Ho1: Organizational culture of reward has no significant effect on employee output.
Ho2: Organizational welfare program has no significant impact on employees’ job commitment
Ho3: Organizational culture of training and development has no significant influence on employee performance
1.6. Significance of the Study
The promotion of academic excellence and employees’ satisfaction in the university relies on the organizational culture and successful implementation of required changes. Therefore, it is hoped that, the findings of this study will be relevant to university administrators in both public and private sector who are faced with the challenges of improving students’ academic performance and employee performance in their university. Similarly, university administrators will be able to know the motivational factors that enhance employees’ job involvement and commitment in the university.
It is as well hoped that, the findings of this study will assist organizations managers in the corporate business world by contributing knowledge and experiences with regards to the role of organizational culture in enhancing job performance and productivity in the organization. Further, business managers in the corporate business world may benefit from the findings of this study by acquiring germane information in the area of organizational culture and staff welfare towards identifying the relevant ingredients that will enhance organizational performance and productivity.
Furthermore, the research will add to knowledge in the peculiar nature of organizational culture and staff welfare in Nigeria and its effects on organizational performance. Lastly, the study will serve as a tool of reference for other researchers who might want to carry out research in this area.
1.7. Scope of the Study
This study examines organizational culture, staff welfare as correlates to job involvement of university employees in Ogun State. The scope of this study is limited to university employees in Ogun State, Nigeria, using Babcock University in Ogun State as the study case. The university is being considered because many studies in this area are more carried out in the manufacturing industries, banking sectors, among others, while little or no research has been carried out using the university setting. Babcock University is selected because it is one the first and foremost leading universities in Ogun State.
1.8. Operational Definition of Terms
Organizational culture: is defined as the mutual basic assumptions, values, and beliefs of the employees of the organization, (Martínez-Cañas & RuizPalomino, 2014). Similarly, organizational culture is defined as the way through which managers and employees solve problems within an organization, (Schneider et al., 2013).
Staff Welfare: is an act of seeking physical, mental, moral and emotional well-being of an individual
Job Involvement: is the extent to which an employee sees his total work situation to be an crucial aspect of his life and to be central to him and his identity because of the opportunity it affords him to satisfy his primary and crucial needs.
Employee Job Involvement: can be seen as the process through which employees are empowered to participate in managerial decision making and improvement activities suitable to their ranks in the organization
Employee Performance: is perceived to be the outstanding consummation of duties by selected individuals, as created and measured by the organization, to pre-define agreed on standards while effectively and efficiently making use of the resources available within an adjusting environment
Employee Commitment: refers to the loyalty of an employee to the organization. It shows the willingness of an employee to put his best effort for the benefit of the organization.
Job Satisfaction: is appraisal of a person`s assessment level that how the working environment fulfill their needs
Organizational Performance: is considered to be the sum of accomplishments that has been achieved by all departments
