Abstract
This study was conducted to examine the effect of employees participation in organizational decision making on the performance of public sectors. The collected data were analyzed using simple descriptive and inferential statistics like multiple regression. From the findings of the study, it was established that regardless of how much the management has been able to do in terms of embracing workers in policy formulation, a lot still needs to be done to facilitate increased efficiency of the system towards better policy acceptability within the organization. The conclusion drawn shows that effective participation in policy formulation was a function of positive employee attitude, high employee morale and good human relations at work place as well as effective communication, and as such, the researcher would recommend that the culture of the organization need to support employee participation in policy formulations so that it can be easy for the management to accept participation. Also, there is need to empower employees for them to have increased accountability in terms of workers involvement in policy formulation.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Certification ii
Declaration iii
Acknowledgements iv
Table of Contents v
List of Tables vi
List of Figures vii
Abstract x
CHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTION 1
1.1
Background of The Study 1
1.2
Statement of The Problem 4
1.3
Research Objectives 5
1.4
Research Questions 6
1.5
Research Hypothesis 6
1.6
Significance of Study 7
1.7
Scope of The Study 8
1.8
Limitation of Study 9
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 10
2.1 Conceptual review 11
2.11 Definition of participation 12
2.1.2 Origin and growth of workers’ participation 1
2.1.3 Advantages of employee participation 15
2.1.4 Disadvantages of employee participation 17
2.1.5 Methods/ways of participation of employees
in decision-making 23
2.1.6 An overview of participative decision making 23
2.1.7 Types of participatory decision making 28
2.1.8 Dimensions of participatory decision making 30
2.1.9 Model of participatory decision making 33
2.2 Theoretical Framework 35
2.2.1 Vigilant interaction theory 36
2.22 Democratic participatory theory 37
2.3 Empirical Review 38
2.4 Summary of Literature Review 42
2.5 Gaps in Literature Review 43
CHAPTER
3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 44
3.1 Research
Design 44
3.2 Population
of Study 44
3.3 Sources
of Data Collection 44
3.4 Sample
and Sampling Technique 45
3.4.1 Determination
of sampling size 45
3.5 Validity
of the Instrument 47
3.6 Reliability
of the Instrument 47
3.7 Method
of Data Analysis 47
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS
AND DISCUSSION 49
4.1 Socio-Economic
Characteristics of the Respondents 49
4.1.1 Gender 50
4.1.2 Age of the respondents 50
4.1.3 Marital status 51
4.1.4 Respondents’ level of education 52
4.1.5 Staff category 53
4.1.6 Level of work 54
4.1.7 Division/department/unit 55
4.1.8 Years of service 56
4.2 Nature of Employee Participation in
Organization’s Decision
Making 57
4.3 Types and Evaluation of Employees
Participation in
Organizational Decision Making 59
4.3.1 Types of employees’ participation in
organizational’ decision
making 59
4.3.2 Evaluation of employees’ participation in organizational
decision
making 60
4.3.3 Levels of employees’ participation in
organizations’ decision
making 63
4.4 Relationship Between Organizational
Performance and Employee Participation
in Decision Making 64
4.5 Factors Influencing Employees’
Participation in Decision Making 65
4.6 Hypotheses Testing 68
CHAPTER
5: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS 69
5.1 Summary 69
5.2 Conclusion 72
5.3 Recommendation 72
5.4 Suggested
Areas for Further Research 74
REFERENCES 75
Appendix 81
LIST OF TABLES
2.1 Dimensions of participative decision
making 32
4.1 Frequency distribution of
respondents according to gender 50
4.2 Frequency distribution of
respondents according to age 50
4.3 Frequency distribution of
respondents according to marital status. 51
4.4 Frequency distribution of
respondents by level of education 52
4.5 Frequency distribution of
respondents by status/category 53
4.6 Frequency distribution of
respondents by level of work 54
4.7 Frequency distribution of
the respondents by division/unit 55
4.8 Frequency distribution of
the respondents by their years of
Experience 56
4.9 Nature of employee participation in
organization’s decision making 57
4.10 Types of employees’ participation in
organizations’ decision making 60
4.11 Evaluation of employees’ participation in
organizational decision making 62
4.12 Levels of employees’ participation in
organizations’ decision making 63
4.13 Effect of employee participation in
decision making on organizational
performance 64
4.14 Factors influencing employees’
participation in decision making 65
4.15 Z-test differences of nature, type and
participation in decision making by employees. 68
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Every organization
grows, prospers or fails because of decisions made by its members. Therefore, effective
decision-making demands accurate, timely and relevant information from both
management and employees (Ajayi and Omirin, 2007). In the words of Emerole
(2015), higher productivity and efficiency of employees in government
parastatals is possible with the effective exploitation of human resources. As
such, it is worthy to note that human resource could be exploited by allowing employee
to participate in decision making.
Employee participation in
decision making has become significant in human resource management (HRM), as
it is regarded as one of the chief ingredients of employee voice, which many
management scholars have observed to be a growing management concept (Essays,
2013).
Employee participation is not the goal nor is it a tool, as
practiced in public sectors. Rather, employee participation is a management and
leadership philosophy about how people are encouraged to contribute to
continuous improvement of the public sectors. Anyanwuocha (2003) explained that
public sectors are government or state-owned business organizations, which are
usually set up by act of legislation, with the main aim of maximizing public welfare.
Moving decision making power downward in public sectors is what employee
participation is all about. Employee participation is implemented in the
Nigerian public sectors in order to motivate the employees by involving them to
make contributions on the progress of the public sector.
In
Nigeria, participatory decision making has come a
long way. In the words of Akpala, (1982) as cited in Anierobi,
(2017), the Nigeria Military Government in 1977 decided to democratize
industrial ownership in Nigeria by promulgating the Nigerian indigenization
decree part of which provides "that 10 percent total equity share of any
enterprise on schedule and should be reserved for workers. This is to ensure
that workers have a sense of belonging in their respective organizations. Both
the state and Federal government of Nigeria have in the past involved its
citizenry in the management of affairs of the state (Anierobi, 2017). Everybody is working for the state
because everything you do, be it the private or public sector, it is
contributing to the national development of the country. It is in recognition
of the significance of participation that the federal military government of
Nigeria sometime invited the entire citizenry to participate in deciding
whether Nigeria should accept the IMF loan or not (Ezeanya, 2011). After a
heated debate by "well meaning" Nigerians, the idea was cancelled.
Apart from the Federal and State government being aware of the need to involve
citizens in the management of affairs of the state, many companies in Abia
State mostly the multinationals are practicing participative decision making (Anierobi, 2017). Suggestion
boxes and government journals are means through which employees are
represented on the Board of decision makers in the public sectors in Abia state while other way can be personal or
group opinion seeking.
From
the above it is a clear fact that participative decision making exist in both
private and government owned parastatals in Abia state, still yet, some people
in other countries and some Nigerians are of the view that real participatory decision
making does not exist and cannot exist due to under development, inexperience
in democratic process, political instability and economic instability caused by
frequent changes in economic policy by the government (Ezeanya,
2011). As such, one of the reason given for the above view is due to the
negative attitude of the Nigerian worker to work. They are more interested in
what they will get from the employer in terms of salaries and other employment
benefit and not the job itself. Such attitudes cannot give rise to effective
participation.
As
such, a modern forward-looking business does not keep its employees in the dark
about vital decisions affecting them. It trusts them and involves them in
decision making at all levels. A more open and collaborative framework will
exploit the talents of all employees (Hewitt, 2002). As viewed by Ezeanya, (2011),
participative decision making can be well practiced only in a stable economic
environment because of its time-consuming nature and investment in training to
enable workers to have a contributing capacity. The Nigerian public sector,
particularly the government owned parastatals in Abia state, their attitude to employees
is paternalistic and authoritarians. Their activities are often shrouded on
secrecy. They are suspicious of the workers and therefore cannot afford to
share information or engage them in making decision. There have been some
experiences of some departmental heads, they fail to delegate, as they do not go
on leaves, while some go, they are on working leave; still attending work, some
while on leave lock up certain files/documents in their drawers, thus making handicapped
till they resume, whereas participative decision making involves nothing more
than sharing information with subordinates.
In
the light of the above, this study will critically evaluate the effect employee
participation in organizational decision making has on the performance of
public sectors of Abia state particularly, Pacesetter FM, Umuahia and
Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state from 2011 to 2016
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Decision-making
seems to be the most appropriate task of top management in all organizations.
Obviously, this has direct or indirect negative impacts on those companies, in
terms of employees' commitment, cooperation between managers and employees and
finally on productivity. That is, it is maintained that when groups are
excluded from effective roles in decision-making affecting them, they tend to react
in aggressive and polarizing ways (McCaffrey et al.1995).
Employees
are the engine room of any organization and if they are not considered be
involve in organizational decision making it could result to stagnancy of the
firm, industrial conflicts, decrease in productivity of the firm etc. Nmamseh
(2016) supported the above after identifying that non- involvement of employees
in the decision-making process could lead to job dissatisfaction which may eventually
result to loss of manpower, employee turnover and low productivity among others
that may adversely affect the fortunes of organizations.
Currently
in Abia state, due to the traditional and bureaucratic leadership style present
in the making of decisions in public sectors present in the state, most
especially Pacesetter FM and Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state, there is a
dire need to review the nature of participatory decision making to give employee
a higher participatory level in the making of decision as none of the
government owned parastatals in the states are meeting standards in serving the
public, thereby not adding value to the growth of the state.
In other to address these problems, this study will seek to find out how employees
participate in organizational decision making has affected the performance of Pacesetter
FM and Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state.
1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The
general objective of this study is to find out the effect employees
participation in organizational decision making has on the performance of
public sectors of Abia state particularly, Pacesetter FM and Broadcasting
Corporation of Abia state.
The
specific objectives are to:
i.
identify the nature and types of participation
in decision making among the employees;
ii.
determine the
relationship between employee participation in decision making and
organizational performance;
iii.
Identify the different levels
of employee participation in decision making of the organizations; and
iv.
Identify
the factors that influence employee participation in decision making among Pacesetter
FM and Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The
study will answer the following questions:
i.
What are the nature and
types of participation in decision making among the employees?
ii.
Is there any relationship
between employee participation in decision making and organizational
performance?
iii.
What are the different
levels of workers’ participation in decision making of the both organizations?
iv.
What
are the factors influencing employees’ participation in decision making in Pacesetter
FM and Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state?
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The hypothesis for the study is stated thus:
HO1: There are no natures nor type of employee participation among Pacesetter
FM and Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state
HO2: There
is no significant relationship between employee participation in decision
making and organizational performance of Pacesetter and Broadcasting
Corporation of Abia state.
HO3: There is no significant difference in the level of participation
in decision making of workers of
both organizations.
HO4: There
are no factors influencing employee participation in decision making among Pacesetter
FM and Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Employee
participation has often been heralded as a solution, to low institutional
effectiveness and performance.
The
empirical significance this study will be beneficial to the management of these
parastatals by giving enough insight into the benefits of employee
participation in decision making, make clear to managers what participative
management stands for hence, reducing the fear often harboured by these
managers. Staff, students, and the society at large are equally the potential
beneficiaries of the findings of this study. In Nigeria, the
institutionalization of worker participation within the nation’s industrial
relations system was championed by several scholars such as Adewumi (1997),
Fashoyin (1992) and Imaga (1994) who suggested that worker participation in
management decision making will reduce industrial conflict, raise workers’
productivity, ensure rapid grievance procedure and motivate workers. Also,
there is now a substantial body of evidence demonstrating the benefits to
organization for having a strongly committed workforce. According to Mayer and
Martin (2010), employees who are committed and especially affectively committed
to an organization are less likely to leave and more likely to attend
regularly, perform effectively, and be good organizational citizens.
The
theoretically significance of this study is equally hoped that the findings of
this study would provide basis upon which further research could be carried out,
thereby acting like a basic for other related research work to be improved
upon.
Strictly
speaking, growing employee participation research, particularly in the developed
world, has pointed to the significant role that it can play in enhancing the
growth and survival of organizations. It is on this premise that this study set
out to evaluate employee participation in decision making and its effect on
organization performance of government parastatals in Abia state, Nigeria.
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The
research work was designed to study the employee participation
in organizational decision making in public sector in Abia state, with a
special reference to the Pacesetter FM and Broadcasting Corporation of Abia
state, between the span years of 2011- 2016, this period was chosen so as to
get a more focused and directed work, focused and directed work in the sense
that it was this period that most organizational started understanding the need
of employees to participate in decision making of the organization and as such
extended the means in which employees can participate in the making of decision
in an organization.
The
geographical scope of both organizations is in Umuahia, Abia state, Since
Umuahia being the capital of Abia state is the center of all public
administrative functions of the state, as such information gathered will be of
vital use to this work.
While
the unit scope covers both the management and employees of Pacesetter FM and
that of Broadcasting Corporation of Abia state since the study is about them.
1.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The
following were the major limitations faced by this study:
Limited
literature in the research field was a major constraint as there were limited
research documents and materials relevant to the study. With the aid of some
private online library, I was able to source more materials.
Also,
the information gathered by the researcher was inadequate due to organizational
secrecy and public service bureaucracy, although some very considerate
employees were able to give me some information but with strict
confidentiality, so as to protect their job.
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