title: IMPROVING ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT IN THE NIGERIAN SERVICE INDUSTRY
Creators: name: Ake, U
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2019

description: The role of management in boosting the commitment of its organizational members is a critical one (Ammari et al., 2017), and in this vein, this study takes a closer look at areas where management can play a role including: crafting an effective rewards system, career development strategies and even design of organizational structure. This study investigates organizational commitment and performance in the Nigerian service industry. This research emanated from my desire to develop an effective pay scheme for my organization and this led to me, questioning the efficacy of pay as a sole driving force for employee commitment. Hence, I shifted my quest from the development of a pay scheme to a broader investigation of what drives employees to give their best to their organization. In other words, what makes an employee committed to the organization and my intention is to apply the findings to my organization. This investigation is crucial to the survival of my company as we are small and the dwindling economic fortunes of the construction industry in Nigeria is putting a squeeze on the profitability of my organization. This is an attempt to create competitive advantages and quality output in spite of dwindling resources. The whole argument is built, step by step, through each chapter. Specifically, the entire thesis shows how my review on literature, methods I have utilized and findings made, lead from the identification of a management issue that needs to be addressed, all the way through reading literatures and undertaking research to the design of proposed management action which was then tested by discussing that plan with relevant stakeholders in my organisation. The emerging ideas were tested for action with the relevant stakeholders, based on the relevant data from my research. Specifically, the research adopts the relativist ontological and social constructionist epistemological viewpoints, conceding the existence of multiple truths. By adopting this philosophical viewpoint, this allows me to see facts not from the observer’s point of view but also from the people that are intimate and immersed in the research environment. This study embraces a mixed method approach utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate organizational commitment and its impact on the practical world from the Nigerian perspective. The quantitative study found that commitment (affective) was strongly influenced by both intrinsic reward factors such as role clarity, participation and feedback; as well as extrinsic rewards (pay satisfaction, working conditions and fringe benefits). The investigation also confirmed strong links between career growth factors and commitment. Furthermore, positive relationships were confirmed between commitment and performance in the form of customer service (extra-role service behaviour and service ability). The qualitative action learning research also confirmed the links between commitment and rewards/career growth and consequently, performance. These findings informed my recommendations for the adoption of involvement structures in the participants’ organizations, specifically work teams and quality circles/task forces. These allow for employee participation, rewards based on performance, constant feedback and multi-variety skill development.