JOB DESIGN AND ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY (A CASE STUDY OF MULTI-CHOICE NIGERIA LIMITED)

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ABSTRACT

Managers have striven to understand on how to design jobs that would optimize workplace productivity. Different theories have also been postulated and some of the most celebrated in the arena of job designs include Job Characteristics Model and the Socio-Technical Systems Theory. This paper explores conceptual and empirical literature touching on three typologies of job designs viz Job Enlargement, Job Enrichment and Job Rotation and seeks to establish commonalities and controversies with an overall agenda of establishing the nature of relationship between these job designs and workplace productivity. Problems being investigated is whether organizational staffs are motivated to perform on their jobs and whether organizational find their work interesting and meaningful. Proposed that people are motivated by how much they want something and how likely they are to get it. This research report is based on “job design and organizational productivity” which included a population size of 200 and sample size of 133. Data were collected through self administered questionnaire and oral interview. Data analysis was based on descriptive statistics and presented in tables and percentages. It is recommended evident that there are dissenting voices as to whether these interventions actually lead to workplace job satisfaction and employee productivity. Actually, these classes of researchers indicate that it is not just that the interventions have no effect on employees’ job satisfaction and commitment but indeed have negative effects on such a relationship.

TABLE OF CONTENT

TITLE PAGE       i

CERTIFICATION         iii

DEDICATION     iv

DECLARATION v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT       vi

ABSTRACT        vii

CHAPTER ONE  Error! Bookmark not defined.

INTRODUCTION         Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY  Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY          Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS         Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY      Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY Error! Bookmark not defined.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS          Error! Bookmark not defined.

CHAPTER 2        1

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE   14

2.2 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK         14

2.1.1 DIMENSIONS OF JOB DESIGN     15

2.2.2 Job Autonomy:     17

2.2.3 Job Identity:          18

2.2.3 Feedback     18

2.2.4 MEASURES OF ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY     19

2.2.5 KNOWLEDGE SHARING:     19

2.2.6 Employee commitment   20

2.2.7 Employee productivity   20

2.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK        20

2.3.1 Job characteristic theory:         23

2.3.2 Socio-Technical Systems Theory       25

2.4 REVIEW OF RELATED EMPIRICAL STUDIES  26

2.5   SUMMARY OF REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE      30

CHAPTER THREE       32

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY      32

3.1     INTRODUCTION         32

3.2     RESAERCH DESIGN   32

3.3     POPULATION OF THE STUDY     33

3.4       SAMPLE SIZE DETERMINATION        33

3.5     SAMPLING TECHNIQUES   34

3.6     SOURCES OF DATA COLLECTION       34

3.7 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT FOR DATA COLLECTION        35

3.7     DATA ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES 36

3.8     VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF INSTRUMENT  36

3.9 TECHNIQUES FOR DATA ANALYSIS      36

CHAPTER FOUR         38

DATA PRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION  38

4.1     INTRODUCTION         38

4.1 QUESTIONNAIRE ADMINISTRATION AND RETRIEVAL  38

4.2 DATA ANALYSIS  39

4.5     DISCUSSION OF FINDING  45

CHAPTER FIVE 46

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS       46

5.1     SUMMARY         46

5.2     CONCLUSIONS  46

5.3     RECOMMENDATIONS         48

REFERENCES    50

APPENDIX I       53

APPENDIX II      54

QUESTIONNAIRE       54

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Job design is work arrangement or re rearrangement aimed at reducing and overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive tasks. Job design related applications started to take shapes with scientific management approach in 1990s. Fredrick Taylor is a well-known theorist about the job design, he wrote the principle of scientific management. He believed that job design identifies the duties, tasks and responsibilities of a job to be accomplished. Aim of job design is to encourage the job satisfaction and performance by changing the contents and process of a specific job so that employee may avoid from boredom (Taylor, 2004). It is assumed that pay is the most significant factor at work to motivate employees. But many studies indicate that job design is the major influence on worker motivation. Therefore, management must consider how to design a job which has influence on employee motivation and performance. Three typologies of job design i.e. job enrichment; job enlargement and job rotation have a significant relationship with workplace productivity. So managers should strive to understand that how the jobs are designed (Siruri & Muathe, 2014).Immense competition and increase in cost of production is becoming the reason of downsizing, lay off and restructuring so the employees of the organizations have to do a lot of work than before because now additional work is added to their duties in the form of job enlargement, enrichment and rotation (Sverke & Hellgren, 2001). Well-designed jobs help in accomplishment of two important goals: gaining the desired work done in a timely and effective manner, and motivating and challenging employees. If a job is appropriately well designed, it is beneficial both for business and workforce. A poorly designed job leads to a failure in getting the work on time and in a competent manner. It also discourages and unsatisfied employees from their job. Even if the employees are competent, efficient and productive, they get disappointed, disillusioned and frustrated by poorly designed jobs

(Borman, 2004).There is a need to build a conducive environment that is not only suitable for organizational performance but also for the people working in it because they are the assets of an organization. Management uses various job design approaches, which allow the management to achieve their desired outcome through employee motivation and satisfaction. Management focuses on the aspects of the job that are fit to organizational goals. Thus, while designing the job design they need to decide that what is needed from the job and from the employees (Garg &Rastogi, 2006).Job design contains three main elements i.e. Job Enrichment, Job Enlargement and Job Rotation.  Many people tend to assume that the most important motivator at work is pay. Yet, studies point to a different factor as the major influence over worker productivity, job design. How a job is designed has a major impact on organizational productivity, job satisfaction, and commitment to an organization, absenteeism, and turnover. The question of how to properly design jobs so that organizational are more productive and more satisfied has also received attention from managers and researchers since the beginning of the 20th century. This chapter therefore discusses background studies relating to how job design tends to affect organizational productivity and job performance and then based on the background, the research problem, objectives of the study, research questions, relevance of the study, among others are stated. The nature and characteristics of organizational’ work have a great impact on worker productivity and the way they perform at work. Well designed jobs have a positive influence on organizational productivity and performance, lending to improved individual and group organizational performance outcomes such as their membership (joining/leaving an organization), reliable role  behaviour  (how  well  the  worker  does  their  job),  and  innovative/spontaneous  action (going above and beyond the normal job) (Ugboro, 2006).

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The underlying basis for the research is about how organizational tend to view and enjoy their work and its impact on their production. The major problems organizations face is whether organizations’ staff are motivated to perform on their jobs and whether organizational find their work interesting and meaningful. While there are contributions in the area of job design and organizational productivity (Lawler, 2006), a relatively few studies attempt to combine the two relationships into a larger relational flow between job design, organizational productivity. Vroom, (1964) proposed that people are motivated by how much they want something and how likely they are to get it. He suggested that productivity leads to effort and the  efforts  combined  with  organizational  ability together  with  environmental  factors  which interplay shall result in productivity. It is in furtherance of this that this study reviews literature from a number of studies that attempts to outline how the design of a job can affect organizational productivity.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The specific objectives are as follows:

1.       Identify the relationship between the way a job was designed and how it illicit productivity among organization.

2.       Examine how job design affects organizational job performance.

3.       Determine if productivity influences job performance.

4.       Establish the relationship between job design, organizational productivity and performance in organization.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

          Specific research questions stand out and are as follows;

1.       Does job autonomy influence the productivity of employees?

2.       To what extent does job identity influence employees’ commitment?

3.       How does feedback system influence knowledge sharing in an organization?

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

          The first and foremost significance of the study rises from the fact that little is known about the extent to which managements engage in job design for their organizational and business; when it became important to them and how they have implemented such an approach. Very few research projects have actually been conducted in this area of research within the business organization in Nigeria. In addition, despite searches, there is no evidence that any research on job design and how it relates to productivity and job performance in the industry has ever been conducted in Nigeria.

In addition, Business have increased in importance recently and their unique characteristics development and implementation of job design in these organizations, warrant more detailed investigation. Hence, the purpose of this study was to conduct a research into how relevant, applicable and operational job design was to the organization. Research on productivity means innovation and creativity. It also means a change in the gear for HR policies and practices. The faster the organizations nurture their organizational, the more successful they would be. The challenge before HR managers today was to delight their organizational and nurture their creativity to keep them a bloom. This study helps the researcher to realize the importance of effective organizational productivity. This research study examines types and levels of organizational productivity programmes and also discusses management ideas that can be utilized to innovate organizational productivity. It helps to provide insights to support future research regarding strategic guidance for organizations that are both providing and using reward and recognition programs. This study would in no small way help project a unified message and image of the companies.

1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this exploratory study was to bring to the fore how job design, an all- important concept has gained grounds on the front of Human Resource Management in terms of its influence on work productivity and job performance. Thus, a qualitative case approach was chosen. Because this study sought to answer questions that arose from a review of theories and tried to understand the theoretical framework within a specific setting, it was considered an instrumental case study. In actual fact this study was a case study that focused specifically on how the businesses were influenced by the design of their jobs.  Instead  of  testing  prior  hypotheses,  the  aim  here  was  to  analyze  the  organizational’ responses to the design of their jobs. In this research, the main attempt was not to make statistical generalizations to a larger population. Rather the attempt was to make analytical generalization to expand theory. However, as Gomm et al,. (2000) pointed out, results of research of this nature could provide grounds for generalizations about the case under study and to other similar cases. What was attempted in this study was “a detailed examination of an event (or series of related events) which exhibits (or exhibit) the operation of some identified general theoretical principles” (Mitchell, 1983, p. 192). Thus, the validity of the case study depended not on the typicality or representativeness of the case but upon the cogency of the theoretical reasoning.

1.7     LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

It should be noted that the selected cases are not considered representative of a larger population. Since this study was a qualitative one, its results were not automatically generalizable. However, it was prudent to note that generalizability of qualitative research was not related to the collected material itself, but to the interpretation of the data in terms of categories, concepts and explanations. Nonetheless, to be able to make generalizations future research would benefit from large-scale cross-cultural and/or cross-industry surveys. Although the researcher included several dimensions in explaining the concept of job design, a limitation could be placed on this as the factors affecting the way job design influences organizational productivity and job performance are often more context-specific and thus in future, studies should take an even more holistic view and include more constructs in explaining the concept of job design. Additionally,  more  work  could  also  be  directed  towards  developing  setting-specific instrument  for  the  interview  or  data  collection.  The interview used for this  study  was developed in Pakistan to assess the extent of relationship among job design, organizational productivity and job performance, making use of companies situated in Nigeria so therefore it is likely that it would not apply to other settings like Nigeria. It is thus highly recommended that future researchers realize the need to get an instrument that fits the Nigeria setting. In addition, although the procedure was common research, self-reported assessments may not reveal all sides of the subject that was studied. In general, however, it was perhaps the most thorough study design available.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Job design: Means outlining the task, duties, responsibilities,                             qualifications, methods and relationships required                     to perform the given set of a job.

Motivation: Is the reason for people’s actions, desires, and needs. Motivation is also one’s direction     to behavior, or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior. An individual is not motivated by another individual. Motivation comes from within the individual.

Organization:       An organized group of people with a particular                                purpose, such as a business or government                                  department.

Productivity:        Is an average measure of the efficiency of production. It can be expressed as the ratio of output to inputs used in the production process.

Satisfaction:         Customer level of approval when comparing a                                product’s           perceived performance with his or her                           expectations.

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