TABLE
OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1: Background
of the Study
1.2: Statement of the Problem
1.3: Significance of the Study
1.4: Scope of the Study
1.5: Operational Definition of Variables
1.6: Theoretical Framework
1.8: Research Questions
1.9: Research Hypotheses
CHAPTER TWO
METHODS
2.1: Research setting
2.2: Population/sample and sampling procedures
2.3: Research design
2.4: Instruments
2.5: Procedure
2.6: Data analysis
CHAPTER THREE
RESULTS
3.1:
Summary data analysis and statistics
3.2:
Descriptive statistics
3.3:
Inferential statistics
CHAPTER FOUR
DISCUSSION
4.1: Objectives of
the study.
4.2: Summary of
findings
4.3: Discussion of
findings
CHAPTER
FIVE
CONCLUSION
5.1: Conclusion
5.2: Implication
of findings
5.3: limitations and recommendations.
5.4: Contributions to
knowledge
REFERENCES
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The
recent outbreak of the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria placed a
high demand on the work efficiency of the Port Health Services Employees in all
the ports of entry to Nigeria. Employees of the Port Health Services of the
Nigeria Ministry of Health were on the spotlight as it was discovered that the
Virus got into Nigeria through one of her international airports owing to the
inefficiency of the port health employees at the screening points. The
discovery of EVD in Nigeria created a need to investigate the work efficiency
of the Port Health Services arm of the Federal Ministry of Health because
according to Solow (1957), efficiency can be said to be very important in
organisational effectiveness.
Efficiency
simply implies that an organisation has achieved the maximum amount of output
that is physically achievable with current technology, and given a fixed amount
of inputs (Diewert & Lawrence, 1999). Efficiency simply refers to the
ability to be productive. This implies that improving efficiency is fundamental
to increasing the organisations economic performance. The effort to make
distribution of resources more efficient is becoming very important due to the
massive growth in population. Robbins and Coulter (2005) posits that employee
efficiency has been a major determinant of a good job performance. They went on
to argue that efficiency is the ability to produce the most amount of output
from the least amount of input. According to them, organisational effectiveness
is dependent on high efficiency because efficiency is a means to meeting
organisational goals. Work efficiency is a variable that has been studied as
part of employee productivity until Taormina & Gao (2009) claims that work
efficiency can be investigated independently of productivity. Similarly,
Diewert and Lawrence (1999) claimed that Efficiency is a very important factor
to consider in organisational productivity. However, efficiency of the employee
depends on a number of factors such as the nature of work, the work
environment, the employee personal characteristics and some environmental
characteristics (Stigler, 1976) One important task for psychologists and human
resources managers is how to make an employee to be efficient in order to
improve the overall efficiency of the organisation and increase the
organisations competitive edge in the modern economic environment. Taormina
& Gao (2009) posits that organisations intending to attain high
effectiveness desires high efficiency from their employees. In this regard, work
efficiency being a new variable in psychological literature has not been
extensively studied, however a limited number of studies such as Paul (1967)
had actually introduced the concept of work efficiency in their investigations.
It is noteworthy that the studies which introduced work efficiency had not
actually investigated the unique contribution of psychological factors such as
creativity and risk taking behaviour on efficiency.
The
emergence of Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa and particularly Nigeria, requires
strategies that will counter its spread. This has made the job of the Port
Health Services a very important role for the nation. Port health services are
concerned with disease surveillance which includes; Immunization and Issuance
of International Health Certificate (Yellow Card), health response to disasters
such as EVD, plane crash, bomb explosions, terrorism, boarding and inspection
of ships, aircrafts and road vehicles. Similarly, port health services also
carry out environmental services which includes; environmental health
activities such as sanitation, pollution control, waste disposal etc,
disinfection and decontamination of conveyances. At other times, port health
services is concerned with provision of curative and preventive health care
services including referral and laboratory service, ad-hoc activities e.g. hajj
operations, screening of refugees, deportees. Due to the discovery of this
virus, the job of the port health services employees became prone to risks.
These employees come in contact with the virus directly or in directly and they
are can also be agents of its spread. To this end, there becomes a need to
investigate the risk taking behaviours of port health services employees in
relation to Ebola virus disease (EVD). Specifically, a case of the dreaded
ebola virus disease was reported in Nigeria in 2014. This incidence was
acclaimed to have occurred to negligence and low levels of work efficiency on
the part of port health services employees who were unable to detect that the
carrier of the virus; Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian American who brought the
virus to Nigeria through the Murtala Mohammed international airport Lagos, was
actually suffering from the disease. Some Nigerians even claimed that the port
health services employees were not creative otherwise the situation would have
been avoided.
This assumption based on observation implies that
creativity may be implicated in work efficiency. creativity is a construct that
has been defined and studied by some researchers such as Albaum & Baker (1977),
Amabile (1983) Zhang & Bartol (2010). However, creative traits, abilities
and peoples’ belief about their creativity are different (Furnham, Zhang, &
Chamorro-Premuzic, 2006). This has made the study of creativity across domains
a challenge to researchers (Kaufmann, 2012). One alternative as put forth by
(Kaufmann, 2012) has been to look at how people view and report their own
creativity. Generally, layperson perceptions of the construct of creativity
tend to be close to expert opinions (Sternberg, 1985). According to Zhang &
Bartol (2010), employee creativity involves producing novel and useful ideas
for organisations including processes, products and services. This has made
creativity to be a very important consideration in assessing employee work
efficiency and performance. Creativity provides an organisation with
competitive advantage by generating, deploying, transferring, and integrating
new technological knowledge (Ángel & Sánchez, 2009). Similarly, Montag,
Maertz, & Baer, 2012) claims that engaging in behaviours conducive to
creative outcomes is an integral part of professional role requirement. The
identification of key factors that can foster, influence and sustain employee's
engagement in creative behaviours, therefore, is a major factor to consider (Manolopoulos,
2006; Zheng, Khoury, & Grobmeiher, 2010). Furthermore, the increasing
challenging work environment of the 21st century has made employers
to be involved in an unpredictable and technological change resulting to
efficiency which is dependent on creativity (Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Thus
creativity has become a very pivotal factor of interest to employers as they
have realized the importance of encouraging their employees to be creative
(Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Employee creativity has also been indicated in
organisational outcomes such as innovation, effectiveness, efficiency and
survival. (Amabile, 1996; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). Today more than
ever, organisations are trying to blend creativity and efficiency. This is timely as it helps in productivity
(Wagner, 2005).
Finally, Taormina and Gao (2009), concludes that
efficiency is a means to achieve organizational goals, therefore high
efficiency should be desired by management for their organizations to attain
high effectiveness.
1.1: Background
of the study
Work
efficiency was first introduced by Taylor (1911) in his time-and-motion studies
when he attempted to determine the best way of reducing time and effort in the
production of a commodity. This is an attempt at improving employee efficiency
because efficiency results to a reduction in time and effort and also, better
use of work time could bring about greater operational efficiency. Taormina and
Gao (2009) went further to highlight that efficiency involves getting the most
output from the least amount of input. This implies that organisations should
be concerned with work efficiency as it may be cost effective and instrumental
to an increased productivity, because efficiency is included in
work performance which is instrumental to desired organisational outcomes (Maxham,
Netemeyer, & Lich- tenstein, 2008).
Consequently,
it is becoming increasing important to investigate work efficiency since work efficiency
has not been sufficiently examined, and the factors contributing to its
existence remains unclear. In the standard efficiency
literature, organisations are assumed to choose a plan that minimizes costs,
given its output mix and input prices or that maximizes profits given the
prices of its inputs and outputs. However, recent research (e.g., Hughes, Lang,
Mester, & Moon, 2000; Hughes, 1999; Hughes, Lang, Mester, & Moon, 1999;
and Hughes, Mester, & Moon, 2001) have demonstrated that managers maximize
their utility, which is a function of risk. To the extent that decisions
affect risk which ultimately influences efficiency and performance.
Organisations
in the 21st century have diverse environments with a range of
organisational processes (Fineman, 1993; Brief & Weiss, 2002; Barsade,
Brief, & Spataro, 2003). However, recent work on organisational outcomes
has indicated the influences of such factor as efficiency (George, 1991; Staw
& Barsade, 1993; Staw, Sutton, & Pelled, 1994). According to Amabile,
Barsade, Mueller and Staw (2005), “relatively less attention has been paid to
organizational creativity as a work outcome”. Creativity is the process of
“coming up with fresh ideas for changing products, services, and processes so
as to better achieve the organization’s goals (Amabile et, al 2005). Similarly,
Fesharaki, Fesharaki & Allameh (2012) agreed that efficiency
and effectiveness of management means the manager's ability to prepare,
develop, allocate, maintain and use of resources. This requires accurate
information about human resources as a vital resource of any organization.
Creativity on the other hand, has been a variable that
has generated lots of controversy regarding its definition. Creativity has been
defined as useful novelty (Amabile, 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Robinson
& Stern, 1997; George & Zhou, 2001; Zhou & Shalley, 2003). However,
Wei, Robert and Taormina (2011) posit
that “there has been a growing consensus among creativity researchers
regarding the appropriateness of defining creativity in terms of an outcome”. Amabile
(1988) believes creativity should involve an outcome in terms of an idea or
product. Specifically, Amabile (1988) defined creativity as the “production of novel and useful ideas”.
Creativity also has not been studied extensively in psychological literatures
(wei et, al,. 2011). Creativity is not a
job specific variable as it can be relevant at any level of the organisation
(Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002). However some researches on creativity has
found that work climate factors were significantly related to creativity (e.g,
Rasulzada & Dackert 2009).
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that improving
creativity is very important for organisational sustainability (Amabile, 1988;
Burnside, 1990; Shalley, 1995). Similarly, Crant (2002) assert that creativity
of employees is one of the effective options on organization performance In
today's world. This can be attributed to the reason why the effect of social
environment on creativity remains non-negotiable. The dynamic business climate
of the 21st century, laden with gross competition has created a need
for creativity and innovation. Creativity has thus become a vital ingredient
for sustainable development of organisations as organizations need to unleash
their employees’ innate creative potential, because employees’ creative ideas
can be used as building blocks for organizational innovation, change, and
competitiveness (Amabile, 1988; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993; Zhou
& George, 2003). Against popular misconceptions that creativity is domain
specific, creativity can be employed in a vast array of disciplines to achieve
a wide amount of positive outcomes. In other words, creativity can be important
at any level of the organisation (Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002). Although it is undeniable that creativity
stems from individual ability, whether or not individual creativity is
activated, exercised, and channeled into a final product or service is a
function of the work environment, or the contextual characteristics that may be
involved in stimulating and supporting creativity (Amabile, 1988, 1996; Lubart,
1999; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). When employees exhibit creativity at
work, they generate novel responses that are useful in dealing with the tasks
at hand (Amabile, 1983, 1996).
Moreover,
the recent epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) has increased the likelihood
that travelers to EVD-affected countries will be exposed to infected or ill
persons. This is making the risk of infection for residents and visitors in the
affected countries through exposure in the community a prime area of concern in
order to safeguard the health of people living in these countries. Employees of
port health services are thereby at risk of exposure to this dreadful disease
and the Residents and visitors to the affected areas run a risk of exposure to
EVD in healthcare facilities. In Nigeria, the ability to control the spread of
this virus rest on the onus of the Federal Ministry of Health through the port
health services because the level of risk is related to the efficiency of the
port health services employees in combatting the spread of the virus. This has
placed a high demand on the job of the port health services employees as they
are expected to be highly created and innovation in the administration of their
duties in other not to get infected with the virus in the line of duty.
However, Nigeria has been pronounced free from EVD. To this end, as the
epidemic is still evolving, it is expected that a very efficient work force in the
port health services will be highly instrumental to keeping Nigeria safe from
the dreaded EVD.
1.2: Statement
of the problem
Safeguarding
a nation is not a task relegated to the military alone but a collective
responsibility with everyone having a role. The role of the Federal Ministry of
Health Port Health Services in safeguarding Nigerians is one that cannot be
overlooked. This is because, the major airports and seaports in Nigeria need to
carefully screen for diseases. Millions of people travel daily from one
location to another all over the world and this had made the need to prevent
the spread of diseases a major concern in International Health. The control and
prevention of communicable diseases in a migrating population is a sole
function of Port Health officers who are the first contact to anyone entering
the country frontier be it air, land or water. These employees therefore play a
very important role in the international control measures for cross-border or
trans-boundary transfer of diseases.
Port
Health Services in Nigeria started in 1925, in response to the plague pandemic,
unfortunately, not much empirical work has been done regarding the
effectiveness and efficiency of Nigeria Port Services employees. The Port
Health Services is deployed through a division in the Public Health Department
of the Federal Ministry of Health. Port Health
Services will provide and ensure the implementation of guidelines for cross
border monitoring of EVD, especially in riverine areas and states with
international borders. The past few decades have seen the emergence and
reemergence of infectious diseases. The emergence of “new” infectious agents such
as Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever and the re-emergence of cholera and plague in South
America and India, respectively. This has necessitated the need for an applied
study on the factors that are major determinants of efficiency among employees
of Port Health Services so as to prevent the spread of theses communicable
diseases into the country. While previous studies mostly on efficiency
focus either on cost efficiency (e.g. Kwan & Eisenbeis 1997, Berger &
DeYoung 1997, Williams 2004, Altunbas, Carbo, Gardener & Molyneux., 2007) or
profit efficiency (Berger & Bonaccorsi, 2006),
there remains a dearth of relevant studies on the determinants of work
efficiency as a complex variable especially among a unique sample such as port
health and this has created a gap in knowledge.
Efficiency levels may be dependent on risk (Fiordelisi , Marques-Ibanez & Molyneux,
2010), in what Berger and DeYoung (1997), and Williams (2004) have
concluded to lead to poor performance. Gibss (2000) asserts that environments
that attract, motivate and retain hard-working individuals will be better
positioned to succeed in quality and efficiency. This is to say that the nature
of job is a very important factor to consider in investigating work efficiency.
In this regard, the nature of the job performed by port health officers remains
a major factor to consider in relation to the level of their efficiency. The
duties of these officers sometimes get risky due to the fact that some
passengers consciously will try to infect them with diseases. This makes
creativity important in the performance of the employee role. Port health
officers who are creative can still perform their jobs within the required time
frame and remain efficient with no risk to their lives and health.
Most studies on creativity investigated personal
characteristics, such as personality and cognitive ability, and on the creative
few individuals (Feist, 1998; McCrae & Costa, 1997; Tierney, Farmer, &
Graen, 1999). However, attention has shifted away from the individual focus and
the creative few toward the integrative view (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999;
Zhou & Shalley, 2003). Unfortunately, the blend of creativity and risk
taking behaviour remain to be investigated.
1.3: Significance
of the study
The
significance of this study is to cause a provide an understanding of the
factors that may have led to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Nigeria
which was generally assumed to be caused by inefficiency in the part of Port
health services employees. To achieve this, the study has a main objective of
investigating creativity and Ebola virus disease risk taking behaviour as
predictors of work efficiency among port health services employees in Nigeria.
The
study also looks at the following specific objectives:
- To examine the role of Ebola virus
disease risk taking behaviour and creativity in the work efficiency of
Port health services employees.
- To determine the level of creativity
of port health workers that enhances work efficiency.
- To investigate the relevant personal
characteristics that are instrumental to the work efficiency of port
health employees.
Findings
from this study will be relevant in providing information to policy makers
regarding factors to consider in improving the efficiency of the Nigeria port
health services. Similarly, the study will be instrumental to identify the
relevant personal characteristics of port health employees that can be
channeled into training sessions. Furthermore, the study will indicate the
amount of risk that can still be employed in the performance of the employee
duties.
1.4: Scope
of the study
This
study covers the Lagos state Headquarters of the Port health services unit of
the Federal Ministry of Health. The findings from this study will be
generalized on all port health services employees across the country and by
extension all health workers in Nigeria and beyond.
1.5: Operational
definition of variables
Work Efficiency:
in this study, work efficiency will be described as the ability of an employee
to be able to be creative and complete a well-defined job role within the
allotted time and with minimal risk. Work efficiency will be measured by a five
item scale constructed and validated by the researcher which includes some
items adapted from Gao and Taormina’s (2002) measure of employee work
efficiency. The pilot study for the
instrument established strong psychometric property (α = .69). sample item for
the instrument includes, “My relationships at work promote my work efficiency”
and “ I make efficient use of my time at work”
Employee Creativity:
Employee creativity is a process that involves creation of novel ideas that are
instrumental to the performance of an employee job. In this study, employee
creativity will be measured using a 12 item scale developed and validated by
the researcher with some items adapted from Zhou and George (2001). Zhou and
George (2001) reported the reliability of their instrument to be highly
reliable. (Cronbach’s alpha = .96). However for the present study, the scale
was revalidated for use in the present populations to establish strong
psychometric property (α = 73).
Ebola
Virus Disease (EVD): Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a
severe, often fatal illness in humans. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads
in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
Risk:
Risk is a situation that involves exposure to danger
Risk taking behaviour:
Risk talking is a process whereby an individual consciously or unconsciously
involve in certain behaviours that will expose the individual to threats on
life.
Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) Risk taking
behaviour: EVD risk taking behaviour of employees in this study
refers to the behaviours of employees that expose them to chances of
contracting EVD in the course of performing their job roles. In this study EVD
risk taking behaviour will be measured with a nine item EVD risk taking
behaviour scale adapted from HIV/AIDS risk taking behaviour scale by the
National center for biotechnological information. After pilot study to
establish the reliability of the instrument, the scale was found to be very
reliable (α = 79).
Port Health Services:
Port Health Services is an arm of the Federal Ministry of Health that is
concerned with the spread of communicable diseases through the major airports
and seaports in Nigeria
Airport:
in this study, an airport will refer to a
location with facilities to store and maintain aircraft, and a control of
commercial and private aviation flights to take off and land.
Seaport:
a seaport is the maritime equivalent of an airport. It is a location which
involves ships harbor and dockyard where ships are maintained loaded and
offloaded.
1.6: Theoretical
framework
Psychologists generally assume that motivation has a
fundamental role in achieving efficiency at work through creativity (Amabile,
1983, 1996; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Efficiency at work will therefore ultimately lead to
improved Performance (Diewert & Lawrence, 1999) However, there are some personal and psychological
variables which may be responsible for how efficient the employee is. This
section will provide a review of some theories that helps to explain some of these
variables which were investigated in this study.
1.6.1: SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT THEORY
describes
and explains work relationships as regards efficiency Frederick Taylor, in
the early twentieth century, He
claims that maximum prosperity also implies the development of each man to his
state of maximum efficiency, so that he may be able to do; generally speaking,
the highest grade of work for which his natural abilities fit him, and it
further means giving him, when possible, this class of work to do. . Essentially, managers
were making decisions on how to lead their workers, which was almost like a
situation where the blind leads the blind. Taylor (1911) resolved to create a
solution to this problem.
Taylor
believes increasing the efficiency of the employee scientifically would
increase not only the opportunity for more work, but also the real wealth of
the world, happiness, and all manner of worthwhile improvements in the life of
the working person because he assumed increased employee output will result in
improved quality of life (Taylor 1996)
The scientific management theory was based on four key principles
- An employees’ task should be precise and scientific rather
than employing general guidelines on how the employee can complete the task
- The recruitment, selection, placement, training and
development of employees should be contingent on the same scientific
methodology introduced to improve performance
- In order for the developed plans and principles to be
effective, management should ensure there is a productive level of
cooperation between staff and management
- There should be a clearly defined system of division of
labour and responsibility between, managers and staff such that managers
should be responsible for planning the work while the staff should be
responsible for following the plan to achieve a considerable level of
productivity.
Taylor
was quick to announce that the principles suggested are not new to any
organisation as it has been a revolution and the theory is practiced by almost
every type of industry. According to Taylor, the workman, on the average, in
those industries where scientific management has been introduced, has turned
out double the output and been the beneficiary of many improvements in working
conditions. , 1915). This scientific
management approach stimulated a lot of research interest which ultimately
resulted to contemporary approaches to job designs
1.6.1.1: APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC
MANAGEMENT TO THE PRESENT STUDY
According
to the scientific management theory, the ultimate goal of every organisation is
to maximize efficiency. Thus for port health employees to be efficient in the
administration of their duties they need to be efficient. In light of this, the
port health services should be responsible for putting certain factors in place
which are expected to bring out the efficiency of the employees. Unfortunately,
the management of the port health services may have overlooked these factors
prior to the outbreak of EVD in Nigeria. This may have been responsible for the
inefficiency experienced by the port health employees at the point of entry
where the virus penetrated into the country. However, it should be noted that
immediately the virus was discovered in Nigeria, health care providers
especially the port health services were equipped with the relevant tools to
aid performance of their jobs and this was highly instrumental in increasing
their level of efficiency as the virus was contained in a few months.
Finally,
the theory assumes that maximum efficiency is established when there is mutual
cooperation among employees. For this to yield an appreciable level of
efficiency, the nature of the employee job need to be considered. The employees
are in a job where the propensity for risk is high and more often than not,
they are at the forefront in combatting the spread of diseases into the country
so it can be argued that in order to guide against any form of diseases
creeping into the country, the employee may place himself at risk. Similarly,
situations may arise where it becomes imperative for the employee to be
creative as some necessary tools for proper work may not be readily available. The
aforementioned suggests that although the scientific management theory proposes
that when employees are equipped with relevant tools for their jobs, trained
adequately for better performance, work in a mutually oriented environment with
clearly defined systems of division of labour, they are expected to be
efficient. However, the theory did not consider work situations where the
employee may need to make certain decisions independently to meet task deadline
and work output. This makes the concept of creativity and the nature of the
work very crucial in the study of work efficiency.
1.6.2: Processing Efficiency Theory
Eysenck
and Calvo (1992) developed processing efficiency theory to draw a distinction
between performance effectiveness and processing efficiency. Performance
effectiveness according to them, is the quality of performance (e.g., as assessed
by outcome measures such as accuracy of performance). Processing efficiency on
the other hand, is based on the relationship between performance effectiveness
on the one hand and the amount of effort or resources used to attain that level
of performance on the other hand. The
theory assumes that task-irrelevant thoughts such as worry and
self-preoccupation will impair processing efficiency. Processing efficiency theory also relates the
effects of anxiety to the working memory system proposed by Baddeley (1986).
This system consists of three components (recently increased to four) which are
arranged in a hierarchical fashion. The Hierarchy begins with the central
executive, an attention-like, domain-free system involved in various complex functions
such as planning, strategy selection, and attentional control (Derakshan,,
Ansari, Shoker, Hansard & Eysenck, 2009.). The assumption of the theory is that
task-irrelevant processing affects the functioning of the working memory system
such that anxious individuals should show impaired performance in dual task situations
in which the concurrent demands of the two tasks on the central executive are
high.
Much
research supports these assumptions (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo,
2007). Relatively direct evidence was reported by Eysenck, Payne, and Derakshan
(2005).
1.6.2.1: APPLICATION OF PROCESSING EFFICIENCY THEORY TO THE
PRESENT STUDY
The
theory will be useful to differentiate between the effectiveness of port health
employees and their efficiency. Port health employees who are efficient will be
able to perform effectively with a considerable amount of effort or resources.
The theory further explains that task-relevant thoughts will impair the work
efficiency of the employee. This thoughts may be dependent on the amount of
risk involved in the job and how creatively they can accomplish their job task
under an appropriate amount of time.
1.6.3: JOB CHARACTERISTICS MODEL
Job
characteristics model was designed by Hackman and Oldham in 1974. According to
them, any job can be performed based on a resourceful combination of some core
job characteristics which they called;
i.
Skill variety
ii.
Task identity
iii.
Task significance
iv.
Autonomy
v.
Task feedback
By
skill variety, they mean the degree to which a job requires various skills and
talents to complete a number of different activity.
Task
identity, on the other hand refers to the completion of a whole and
identifiable skill in relationship to the individual task as part of a larger
piece of work.
Task
significance is the impact of the task upon the lives and work of others.
Autonomy
refers to the degree of independence or freedom allowed to complete a job.
Task
feedback involves when employees individually obtain direct and clear feedback
about the effectiveness of the individual carrying out the work activity.
The
job characteristics model linked this core job dimensions to some critical
psychological states which includes experienced meaningfulness, experienced
responsibility and knowledge of result.
Experienced meaningfulness is the extent to which the
employee feels his job is important. The core dimensions, skill
variety, task identity and task significance, are all areas that determine the
meaningfulness of the job.
Experienced responsibility is the degree of personal
accountability a person has for their work outcomes. This accountability would
lead to a feeling of autonomy.
Knowledge refers to how well a person
believes they are performing on the job, which may be influenced by the
job feedback an employee receives regarding their performance.
In
other words, jobs that are high on skill variety task identity and task
significance are said to jobs involving experienced meaningfulness. On the
other hand, jobs that are high on autonomy are said to involve experience
responsibility while task feedback involves knowledge of result. The job
characteristics model claims that the combination of the core job dimensions
forms the basis of the employee growth needs and they combine into a single
predictive index called the motivating potential score (Smith & Hitt, 2005).
MPS can be calculated using the core dimensions.
MPS
= SV + TI + TS x A x F
3
The
theory concludes that jobs that are high on motivating potential must be high
on the three factors that leads to experienced meaningfulness and also must be
high on both autonomy and feedback. If a job has a high MPS, the job
characteristics model predicts that motivation, performance, efficiency and job
satisfaction would be positively affected and negative outcomes would be
reduced (Campion
& Thayer, 1987)
1.6.3.1: APPLICATION OF THE JOB CHARACTERISTICS MODEL TO THE
PRESENT STUDY
Employees
of the Federal Ministry of Health port health services hold a very important
job for the nation. This implies that their work outcomes is dependent to a
great level on how motivated they are as motivated employees are expected to be
productive (George, 1991). To this end, it is expected that their job will
require a combination of various skills and talents such as creativity and
innovation. Their ability to be creative will enable them to complete an
identifiable piece of work which will be instrumental to keeping the nation
free from diseases threatening the lives of Nigerians. In view of this, port
health services employees are sometimes expected to employ creativity as they
may work independently on some task. Likewise, the nature of their jobs require
them receiving appropriate feedback on how well they have performed their
duties. This will imply that port health employees who are expected to be
efficient should be creative as well.
1.6.4: COMPETENCE RISK THEORY
Competence
risk theory was developed by Priest and Klint, in 1992. According to them, the
probabilities of individuals to succeed or fail in an endeavor is related to
their level of personal competence provided their perceptions are correct. In
other words, individuals try to take risks that correspond to their level of
perceived competence with a belief that they can influence the final outcome to
their advantage.
The
theory was built upon existing psychological and educational theories which
establishes a link between risk taking, performance, motivation, self-efficacy
and competence. According to priest and Klint (1992), risk taking behaviour can
be described along two separate domains which are eustressful and distressful.
These elements aid astuteness in individuals. The theory goes on to explain the
influence of these two factors on individuals’ performance.
The
theory explains five conditions of challenges that result to risk and
competence. These are;
i.
Exploration and experimentation; this
involves maximum competence and minimal risk
ii.
Adventure; adventure relates to high
competence than risk
iii.
Peak adventure; this is a level of
equality between levels of competence and risk.
iv.
Misadventure; misadventure relates to a
situation of more risk than competence.
v.
Devastation and disaster; this involves
maximum risk and minimal competence.
These
five conditions involves a series of several constructs and the challenge is
referred to as the adventure experience paradigm (Martin & Priest, 1986).
1.6.4.1: APPLICATION OF THE THEORY TO
THE PRESENT STUDY
In
the process of port health employees performing their jobs, they are faced with
challenging situations involving risks where it becomes imperative for them to
decide on best approaches. For the employee to work efficiently and perform his
or her job, irrespective of the perceive risk involved, the employee will need
to overcome that challenge. Thereafter, the employee will experience feelings
of adventure where he assumes that his personal competence to perform the task
exceeds the perceived risk or chances of failing in performing that task and
also less likely, conditions of experimentations and exploration where risk is
extremely low (Martin & Priest, 1986). The employee may regard this as a
successful endeavor. If the employee is encouraged by his supervisor to
attribute completion of the task to self as a function of internal locus of
control (Weiner, 1985) as against due to external factors such as tools used,
then a positive feedback loop ensues (Selye, 1974) even though it may be
challenging, it is a very important process to build the confidence of an
employee.
However,
it should be noted that employees normally attribute reasons for their
performance to many causes which include ability, effort, luck, task
characteristics, attention and others (Priest, 1993). These are what Weiner
(1985) classified along three factors: Causality (internal vs. external),
stability (stable vs. unstable) and controllability (the level at which an
employee can perceive attribution as under personal control). Furthermore, if
the employee succeed at the task, his colleagues may encourage him with
positive responses such as praise or congratulation (Priest, 1993). This will
result to the employee feeling good about himself and this will influence how
the employee attend to similar situations in future that involve risk taking.
The feelings of the employee will ultimately increase the competence of the
employee which will give the employee a level of self-confidence at performing
the task irrespective of the risk involved (Harter, 1978). The perception of
increased competence will motivate the employee to try something more risky
(White, 1959). Attempting the same task
or repeating the job would lead to boredom (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) or
under-arousal (Ellis, 1973). This will make the employee to try out a higher
level of risk due to self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1977); an individual’s
belief that he or she can successfully accomplish a task in a dangerous
environment. Conditions of adventure will result once more if the employee can
perform the job again but if the employee chose a more difficult task with
higher level of risk, it leads to insufficient competence and the employee
might even give up after many trials. As a result, the employee will experience
a condition of misadventure where the situational risk or the chance of failing
exceeds personal competence or the less likely condition of devastation and
disaster, where risk is extremely high (Martin & Priest, 1986). A negative
feedback ensues if the employee attributes failure to self or is under an
internal locus of control (Weiner, 1985), rather than being due to external
factors.
This
negative feedback loop is called distress (Selye, 1974) or an unpleasant
stressful situation. Finally, the employee may prevent entry into the negative
feedback loop by attributing failure to a source other than self, such as bad
luck. Similarly, entry into a positive feedback loop of eustress can also be
prevented by attributing success to something else, such as the help of a
facilitator. In these instances, the locus of control is external and so a
competence re-evaluation arises where the employee re-evaluate his ability to
engage in the perceived risky task.
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