THE CHALLENGES OF MANAGING LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN NIGERIA

EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: OPTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT (A CASE STUDY OF SELECTED SMALL/MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN IKOT EKPENE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Study

Today it becomes necessary for every organization to have full level of its employee commitment in order to have outstanding performance on long term basis.

Organizations are also increasing realizing that it is only with and through the commitment of their workforce that they can fully achieve and sustain improvement in business performance and succeed in market place. This success however can only be achieved in a structure system where their commitments to the achievement of organization goals are enhanced.

• This concept of commitment plays an important role in human resources philosophy because it is designed to maximize organizational integration, employee commitment, flexibility and quality of work.
• This presents the need for employees to be committed to the attainment of the objective for which the organization was created and the reason for which they were employed. Many factors account for the lack of commitment in organizations and among such factors are poor incentive, poor coordination, of workers and inadequate assignment of workers to job.
• Organizational performance is an analysis of a company performance as compared to goals and objective, organizational performance can be measured through three basic outcome which are financial performance (profit), product market performance (sales) and return to the share holder (Total Share Holders). In the light of the above analysis, the essence of employee commitment to the improvement of organizational performance should be explored in this work.

1.2    Statement of the Problem

Conventionally one of the paramount responsibilities of an organization is to retain a highly motivated work force to enhance extent of employee commitment to all achievement of a preset goal of an organization. Several voices of dissent arise as to what an employee should really be committed to, and also the exact measurement of an employee level of commitment.

• Coopey and Hartbey (1991) pointed out that organization that adopt a conformist approach to promote organizational commitment do not only fail to reflect organizational reality, but can be narrowing and limit the organization chance of survival.
• Organizational performance is a global concept that represent the results of human activities, organizational performance is “the way in which an organizational performance tries to be effective” (Ricky W. Griffin) and organizational performance can be measured in many different ways the most common ways are in terms of efficiency or effectiveness.
• Performance is the attainment of organizational goals by using resources in an efficient and effective manner ( Richard Daft).
• According to Richard et al (2009), organizational performance encompasses three specific areas of firms outcome which are financial performance (Profit, Return on Asset, Return on investment) product market performance (Sale, Market Share ) and share holder return (Total Share Holder Return) total shareholder return on economic valued added.
• In the light of this study, this project is poised to investigate how employee commitment enhances organizational performance in Nigeria.

1.3    Objective of the Study

The following are the main objectives of this research work:

• To examine the effect of employee commitment on increased quantity produced.
• To determined the effect of employee commitment on increased organization’s profitability.
• To investigate the effect of employee commitment on increased sales volume of organization.

1.4    Research Questions

The following questions are formulated to guide this research work:

• What is the effect of employee commitment on increased quantity produced?
• What is the effect of employee commitment on increased organization’s profitability?
• What is the effect of employee commitment on increased sales volume of organization?

1.5   Statement of the Hypothesis

As a guide and to achieve the purpose of this study, the following hypotheses were formulated.