BEHAVIOURAL PROBLEMS IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATION GOAL ATTAINMENT WITH REFERENCE TO NIGER MILLS PLC UYO

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BEHAVIOURAL PROBLEMS IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATION GOAL ATTAINMENT WITH REFERENCE TO NIGER MILLS PLC UYO

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of breach of psychological contract on workplace deviant behavior of Information Technology Professionals of Nigeria. There is a need for this study as it was seen that IT industry of Nigeria could not flourish as much as IT industries of India and other regional countries. One of the major problems regarding IT industry in Nigeria is that there is lack of organizational commitment. So we have tried to find out the reasons behind this problem. From preliminary research it was found that two key factors affecting commitment in IT industry are compensation and psychological contract. Breach of psychological contract and workplace deviant behavior were measured with the help of questionnaire. Statistical analysis was conducted to find the relationship. The study shows that if there is a breach of psychological contract on part of employer then the employee tends to show negative behaviors and attitudes. This can result in reduced loyalty, decrease in organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior and it increases workplace deviant behavior. The performance of employee is affected and hence it affects overall productivity of the organization. The implications are discussed and further study is proposed.

This article intends to shed light on the basic concept of Behaviour Modification which is drawing attention increasingly of managers and parishioners in shaping behavior of people with whom they are dealing constantly in the organization. Researches and studies revealed that Behaviour Modification can be an efficacious tool in modeling individual behaviours if it is appropriately used with caution. As such, it is also attempted to present here the basic steps and guidelines for its application. In addition to these, the article attempts to point out experiences and limitations of application of Behavioural Modification as explained by its researchers.

Although organizations on the same side in a negotiation often work together there is little understanding about such dynamics at the operations level. The present paper uses the “inter-organizational negotiation team” and structural theory to frame this intellectual problem, while identifying five structural factors that support inter-organizational negotiation team dynamics (i) inter-organizational relations, (ii) relations between organizational leaders, (iii) supervisory-subordinate relations and/or agent-constituent relations, (iv) inter-organizational negotiation team member relations and group dynamics, and (v) inter-organizational negotiation team relations with their environment. This typology of structural factors is then applied to a complex inter-organizational case study that contains commercial, governmental, political and international characteristics. Case analysis of inter-organizational negotiation team behavior assists in identifying how these five factors effect negotiation process and outcome, while prescriptive guidance for negotiation management is offered. Analysis and discussion considers inter-organizational relationship formation and negotiation planning, inter-organizational relations and power, inter-organizational control, and inter-organizational unity and goal achievement. An inventory of factors that enhance or diminish inter-organizational negotiation team unity is developed through the present study.

Emotional exhaustion and organizational deviance are getting increased attention because of their negative impact on business in terms of lost productivity, decreased job satisfaction, lower organizational commitment, and decreased performance. In this study, we investigated thecombined effect of leadership style and person job fit on emotional exhaustion using a sample of employees that provide healthcare and social benefits to a large metropolitan county. We also explored how the impact of emotional exhaustion on organizational deviance behaviors ismediated by employee’s job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Results indicate that both emotional exhaustion and job attitudes mediatethe effects of participative leadership and person job fit on organizational deviance. Managerial implications are also provided.© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This study investigated the possibility of predicting the withdrawal behaviours (defined in terms of absenteeism and lateness to work) as an outcome of job dissatisfaction resulting from the perceived low levels of job involvement of private service employees in Akwa-Ibom state of Nigeria. While much research has been conducted on this variable separately, very little has been done in terms of understanding the relationships between job involvement and absenteeism and lateness. 1200 employees drawn from the population of 3600 workers participated in the study. Multiple regression and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were used to analyze the data. Results indicated that the perceived low levels of job involvement acted as predictors of absenteeism F (3.1196) = 235.62, p <.001 and lateness F (3, 1196) = 313.23, p <.001 of private service employees in Nigerian work organizations. Results also revealed that the gender had significant influence on absenteeism and lateness with males being more absent than females. Imo state ranked highest both in absenteeism and lateness followed by Akwa-Ibom state came last. The implications of the study for employee orientation and interpersonal relations in the work behaviour were discussed.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUMND OF THE STUDY

A rule is an explicitly defined policy, regulation or constraint defined by the organization which every employee is expected to follow. Norms, on the other hand, have been defined in the literature as ranges of behaviour that are tolerated or expected by a particular social group (Jackson, 1966; Rushing, 1975).

Workplace is a forum where different individuals interact on a daily basis in order to accomplish goals/tasks. These individuals exhibit different behaviours which might have different consequences for the various stakeholders associated with the workplace. These stakeholders could be peers, clients or the workplace itself. Rules and norms are a grouping of “expected behaviours, languages, principles and postulations that allow the workplace to perform at a suitable pace” (Coccia, 1998). Another researcher has defined Organizational norms to be consisting of basic moral standards as well as other traditional community standards, including those prescribed by formal and informal organizational policies, rules, and procedures (Feldman, 1984).

They are needed in order to establish the common expected standards for all the individuals at a workplace so that the tasks and goals can be accomplished without hurdles.

When the individuals behave in manner other than that defined by these rules and norms, deviance occurs. Researchers have defined workplace deviance as follows:

Workplace deviance is the voluntary behaviour that violates significant organizational norms and, in so doing, threatens the well-being of the organization or its members, or both (Robinson & Bennett, 1995).

Workplace deviance refers to voluntary behaviour in that employees either lack motivation to conform to, and/or become motivated to violate, normative expectations of the social context (Kaplan, 1975).

Though the conventional connotation attached to workplace deviance is negative, through this paper we will try to delve into the positive connotation attached with workplace deviance.

Out of most of the definitions of workplace deviance that exist in the literature, very few are non-negative. The research on deviance in the workplace overlooks how establishments and their affiliate’s exhibit positive sets of behaviours not merely negative ones (Spreitzer and Sonenshein, 2004).

Even out of the two definitions of the workplace deviance stated above, it can be seen that the first one explicitly defines the term as having a negative outcome. On the other hand, the second definition has the scope for positive interpretation for the term and will help us in this research paper to develop and test the hypothesis for the positive workplace deviance.

Merely identifying a departure from the expected does not reveal anything about the value or merit of the behavior. For example, if an individual departs from norms supporting workplace harassment, it doesn’t mean that the individual has acted destructively by merely deviating from the norms.

In order to explore the positive workplace deviance through this paper, we define it as “intentional behaviors that depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways” (Spreitzer and Sonenshein, 2003). In other words, positive deviant behavior must be praiseworthy and must focus on actions with honorable intentions, irrespective of the outcomes (Spreitzer and Sonenshein, 2003).

Positive workplace deviation includes behaviours that although deviate from the rules and norms set by the organizations, but are done on order to benefit either or all of the stakeholders of the organization. These may include behaviors such as innovative behaviors, noncompliance with dysfunctional directives, and criticizing incompetent superiors (Galperin, 2002).

Through this paper we have tried to study the mediation effect of risk taking propensity and self efficacy on the relationship between autonomy in goal attainment and positive workplace deviance.

Employees often do act out their feelings of disengagement, anger, or entitlement by purposefully violating existing policies and procedures (Giacalone & Greenberg, 1997; Hollinger, 1986; Vardi & Weitz, 2004). But to come to a conclusion that employee rule breaking is always self interested and destructive appears to be a surmise. Employees’ performance and motivation may get negatively affected by a rule that is counterproductive or too rigid. In response, employees may decide at times to disregard rules, even though they know that doing so carries risk for them. This is where the concept of positive workplace deviance comes into picture.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the possibility of predicating the withdrawal behaviours (defined in terms of absenteeism and lateness to work) as an outcome of job dissatisfaction resulting from the perceived levels of job involvement of private service employees in three states of Nigeria. The literature indicates that private service organizations globally have, or are in the process of implementing a number of major reforms aimed at emulating not only the practices but also the values of business enterprises. Therefore, Reichhelds (1996) statement that: “Loyalty is by no means dead, remains one of the great engines of business success” is very relevant from the context of the private service. Organizations value job involvement among their employees because it is typically assumed to reduce withdrawal behaviours, such as absenteeism and lateness. Therefore, there is no doubt that the perceived low levels of job involvement appear to have potentially serious consequences for overall organizational performance. Organizations whether public or private had four denominators common to all:- coordination of effort; a common goal; division of labour and the hierarchy of authority. Organizations are the chess board upon which the game of organizational behaviour is played, and this study investigated the behavioural attitudes and their possible predictions on organizational behaviour. The progress of any organization depends largely on the effectiveness and cohesion of its employees. Employees themselves are divided into two categories of high or low performers using social indicator (Brown, 2003). Low performers were defined as problem employees. High performers were defined as non-problem employees. Research in the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Human Resource Management has demonstrated that the performance of problem employees significantly affect the morale, motivation, and the productive capacity of their co-workers, through their failure to apply themselves to statutory duties (Monday, 1998). However, failure to subject oneself to statutory duty is a trait noticeable not only in western world employees’ but also in many workers of many organizations in Nigeria (Odumosu, 1994, Keller, 1997).

Researches had indicated that, there are lots of employees that could be categorized as belonging to the cadre of problem employees, and they constitute over 65% of the work force (Gupia, 1999). The problem employee’s attitude and behaviour at work, significantly testify to their reluctance in the performance of their duties or to their non-performing status. Indeed, commentators on labour matters, researchers, industrial/organizational professionals and other behavioural scientists are of the opinion that absenteeism, loafing and lateness to work, and poor work and/or interference with the work of others may have become a cultural work value of many Nigeria employees’ (Robert 1994). Definitely, these negative attitudes to work significantly lead to poor work output, less commitment, low job involvement and low performance. This lends support to the assertion that cultural attitudes and values often constitute obstacles to industrialization (Robin 1998). Loafing, gossiping, absenteeism and lateness to work, and other such negative to work attitude are yet to attract stiff penalties in Nigerian work setting, especially in Nigeria, a fact which has led many government employees to believe that there is no “do or die” affair in government work. All these vices do not only affect the performance of the workers engaged in the act but has also led to the lowering of the morale of the hardworking employees who are job involved. The behaviour disposition of the problem employees in their various work organization has been a subject of debate and discussion among the Industrial/Organizational Psychology professionals. Indeed, absenteeism and lateness as employee withdrawal behaviours have been conceptualized from different perspectives by various authors. Arai (2000) stated absenteeism might be due to higher sick-rates of problem employees or as consequence of pro-cyclical sick report incentives. Absenteeism is costly, and managers are constantly on the lookout for ways to reduce it. One recommendation has been to increase job satisfaction. If this is a valid recommendation, there should be a strong negative relationship (or negative correlation) between satisfaction and absenteeism. In other word, as satisfaction increases absenteeism should decrease Gary (1995). Hackett (1989) tracked this prediction by synthesizing three separate meta-analyses containing a total of 74 studies. Results revealed a strong negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism. It is likely, therefore, that managers will realize significant decrease in absenteeism by increasing job satisfaction.

Lateness on its own part is closely associated with employee withdrawal behaviour and attitude to work. In other words, those employees who are late to work are also seeking for ways to stay away from the work or the organization. Employees, who are always late to work, may have a negative effect on the organizational productivity and employees efficiency. This does not only affect the productive capacity of the employees in the private services but also the economy of the nation. Reports from national dailies, Nwino (1985) “THE GUARDIAN, May 29, p. 36-37. Ekpu (1980) Daily Champion, July 16, p. 5-6 (to mention but few) have shown that prominent authorities in Nigeria have fought against the enormous effect of absenteeism and lateness in both the federal and state private services. For example, in 1976, the then Military Governor of Anambra State, Brigadier John Atom Kpera conducted occasional checks on absentees and latecomers, many of whom he apprehended, reprimanded and even dismissed for absenteeism and lateness. At the federal level, a prominent figure notable for this crusade was Brigadier Babatunde Idiagbon, (the then Chief of Staff, of blessed memory) who fired several workers in federal private service nationwide all because of absenteeism and lateness to work.

It is in an attempt to understand and explain the nature of relationship between absenteeism, lateness and job involvement, that the researcher investigated whether absenteeism and lateness could be a possible outcome of negative attitude to work, resulting from job dissatisfaction of employee’s perceived levels of job involvement. The dependent variables are absenteeism and lateness while job involvement remains the independent variable.

1.2 PROBLEM OF THE STUDY

Risk taking propensity or courage in simple words has been linked to positive deviance of work as studied earlier by Spreitzer and Sonnenshein (2003). Courage is a willingness to confront risk to do what one thinks is right (Webster’s New WorldDictionary, 1982). A typical measure of courage might be: “I stand up for what I believe is right, even in the face of risk or ridicule” (Worline). Without a sense of risk, there is no need for courage. Positive deviance often involves significant risk as individuals break out of the rigidity of norms and patterns of expected behaviour. As Quinn (1996) suggests, it requires “walking naked into the land of uncertainty.” Consequently, courage provides individuals with the backbone to engage in positively deviant behaviours. Courage stimulates individuals to voluntarily take risks. The propensity to take risk increases as one move outside his comfort zone, beyond the boundaries of his psychological safety net. Courage helps individuals break from the routine flow of activity, to interrupt the tranquillity and stability of norms, roles, and routines that pattern organizational life (Worline, Wrzesniewski, & Rafaeli, 2002)

Autonomy and Risk Taking Propensity

Various studies have identified that there are four main demographic factors that may affect positive deviant behaviour in an organizations (Appelbaum, S.H., Deguire, K.J., Lay, M., 2005). The first factor is gender, it is a common notion that males tend to engage in more aggressive behaviour than females at work leading to a greater tendency for deviant behaviour. Tenure of work is another factor that can be considered, as employees who have joined the organization recently are more likely to engage in positive deviance. Third external variable is education, it has been shown that the more educated the employee is, the less likely they will be involved in deviant behaviors. Last variable identified by studies is the age. The older employees are likely to be more honest than younger employees (Appelbaum, S.H., Deguire, K.J., Lay, M. 2005).

An individual characteristic that can decrease emotional exhaustion is person job fit where an employee’s abilities match with job require-ments. Research indicates that employees with the right skillsand training are better prepared to handle increased workloadsand can better cope with job stress (Brkich et al., 2002; Singhand Greenhaus, 2004). However, no study has examined thecombined impact of manager leadership style and employee job fit on emotional exhaustion. Also, there has not been an empirical study investigating how emotional exhaustion impacts organizational deviance.This study shows that employees’ emotional exhaustion leads to higher job dissatisfaction and lower organizational commitment which prompts them to engage in deviant be-haviors. Hence, job satisfaction and organizational commitment mediate the relationship between emotional exhaustion and organizational deviance.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

To evaluate the behavioural problems of business organizations in Nigeria with reference to Niger Mills plc.
To know the types and formal behavioural problems exhibited by employees which affect the productivity of business organizations in Nigeria.
To evaluate organizational culture and its implication on employees performance.
To know the strategies of managing deviant behaviour among employees in order to achieve maximum goals in business organization.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTION

What are the behavioural problems of business organizations in Nigeria with reference to Niger Mills plc?
What are the types and formal behavioural problems exhibited by employees which affect the productivity of business organizations in Nigeria?
How can one evaluate organizational culture and its implication on employees performance?
What are the strategies of managing deviant behaviour among employees in order to achieve maximum goals in business organization?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

H0: There are no behavioural problems in business organizations in Nigeria with reference to Niger Mills plc.

H1: There are a behavioural problems in business organizations in Nigeria with reference to Niger Mills plc.

H0: There is no significant relationship between behavioural problems exhibited by employees and the productivity of business organizations in Nigeria.

H1: There is s significant relationship between behavioural problems exhibited by employees and the productivity of business organizations in Nigeria.

H0: One cannot evaluate organizational culture and its implication on employees performance.

H1: One can evaluate organizational culture and its implication on employees performance.

H0: There are no strategies of managing deviant behaviour among employees in order to achieve maximum goals in business organization.

H1: There are strategies of managing deviant behaviour among employees in order to achieve maximum goals in business organization.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This research work is on behavioural problems in business organization goal attainment Niger Mills plc Uyo is an interested topic which will be impact to, organization, students and entire public.