THE WORK ATTITUDE OF NIGERIAN WORKERS A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PUBLIC LIABILITY COMPANY AND PRIVATE LIMITED COMPANY
ABSTRACT
This study will investigate work common in public and private sector of the Nigerian economy, to see to what extent of disparity or similarity as the case may be in both sector of the Nigeria economy, adds or reduces productivity. The questionnaire distributed were both structured and unstructured, to give room for a more expressed opinion, which means that the structured questionnaire will guide the researcher in getting direct response to the hypothesis stated which the unstructured questionnaire would aid the researcher in other findings that will lead to a better understanding of questions and general conclusions. Questionnaires will be distributed to First Bank of Nigeria Plc and SlO Nigeria Ltd. Both in Asaba. In which it is expected that these two sectors have a permanent work forces of at least over 30 worker. Data obtained was be analysis using frequency distribution for pat of the questionnaire, and mean scores for part 2 T test will also be used for significance between the means. T-variables controlling work attitude and analysis will include. (a) Opportunity for personal growth and development. (b) Job security.(c) Promotion opportunities (d)job satisfaction.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
1.2 Historical Background of First Bank of Nigeria Plc
1.3 Historical background of STO Nigeria Limited
1.4 Statement of Problem
1.5 Objective of the study
1.6 Significant of the study
1.7 The scope of the study
1.8 The limitation of the study
1.9 Hypothesis
10 Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO - LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Concepts of work and attitude
2.3 Theories of motivation on Nigerian workers
2.4 Work attitude in the public and private sector
CHAPTER THREE - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design
3.2 Population
3.3 Sampling techniques
3.4 Research Instrument
3.5 Scoring Method
3.6 Method of Analysis
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF
RESULT
4.1 Research Question one
4.2 Tables
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Summary of the Study
5.2 Conclusion
5.3 Recommendation
References
Appendix
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Attitude is described as an individual characteristic way of responding is an object or situation. It is based on his experience and a lead is certain behaviour or expression or -certain opinion. Attitude determines the employees approach is work. In the absence of attitudinal measurement data of work attitude of Nigerian works by psychologists, a cursory observation of daily experience behaviour reveals some basic negative attitudes which are not helpful to increased productivity. As Omolayele, a one time management director of Leventis once put it, “one of the biggest factors retarding progression productivity in Nigeria is attitude to word and general indiscipline in relation to work.” He added that Nigerians love money but do not want to work hard; those who work hard are said to be doing “Afamaco work” (No man’s job).
In Nigeria, there is the belief that there is general apathy towards work which according to Uche (1980) is hardly identifiable, badly suffer loss or does not hurt if it suffers any.
Who is the Nigerian worker? Is he different from other workers in other part of the world? To the first question, the Nigerian workers in this context are those who are employed directly by government against such as parastatals and those employed by multinational and other private companies. In addition to these groups over 7% of Nigerians engage in their own private business of various types. To this group of privately engaged individuals we have no serious problems as is whether their attitude to work is negative or positive. To the second question, studies have shown that the Nigerian workers are not too different from any other worker except that he worked in a different environment with varying cultural background and value system. These differences have significantly affected his attitude to works and productivity.
Attitude to work is a critical determinant of productivity in any organization, public or private. It has to do with the feeling, habit and beliefs that affect the individual behaviour of work. These may pre-dispose a positive or negative attitude to work. Some beliefs, habits feelings and motives are supportive of positive work ethics and behaviour and therefore necessary for the performance of specific jobs. On the other hand, there may also be experiences and behaviour that supportive of negative to work. The work attitude affects the way a worker relates to, conceives, and views his job. It shows how committed, dedicated, hard working and performing a worker is in relation to the objectives of the organization.
As a result of these beliefs, and many other factors, the work attitude of Nigerian worker has been characterized by poor commitment, shoddy handling of the activities, and lack of initiative, callousness, dishonesty, lying, false claims and others. The condition of the job is another factor that increases or depilates positive work attitudes.
There is also the problem of poor motivation, particularly in terms of reward for hard work. People that are known to be lazy but have connections are seen being promoted to the detriment of hard working ones. Unable to trust themselves under the system of promotion by merit, these employees invoke the myth of ethnic hurdles and detractors and manipulate ethnic sentiments in other to be promoted. In the process, subjectivism replaces objectivism in the performance of duties and in the appraisal system.
Most employees if labours are developing third world country like Nigeria do not see any reason for incentives in what ever form to its workers, apart form payment of their monthly salaries. Employers believe that once salaries are paid, they have no obligation towards workers. Workers are expected to put in their best in terms of labour, behavioural conduct, punctuality, competence in machine operation and innovation in their area of endeavour. As a result of these, employees are not motivated by their employers to put in their best and therefore have significantly depletes positive work attitudes.
Closely related to work are work ethics. Ethics are code of conducts by which human beings have their lives regulated for the general good of all. Ethics enable us to judge the correctness and wrongness of an action. It is the moral compass that guides human action work ethics are the set of rules that govern that behaviour of workers in their places of work. There are different codes of conduct governing the different professions. Nevertheless codes such as punctuality, honesty, dedication confidentiality, and loyalty are common and highly cherished in all organizations. The degree of adherence is those codes of conduct in Nigeria organizations leaves much to be desired.
1.2 Historical Background of First Bank of Nigeria Plc, Asaba.
First Bank of Nigeria PLC is a financial service organization with the vision “To be the clear leader and Nigeria’s bank of first choice” and a mission “to remain true to our name by providing the best financial services possible”.
First Bank of Nigeria is the leading banking institution in Nigeria with over a 100 years of banking experience founded in 1894 by shipping magnate from liver pool, limited kingdom, Sir Alfred Jones of British West Africa in single location in Lagos first Bank has evolved into truly national banking with about 300 branches through out Nigeria, and a branch in United Kingdom.
The Bank in December 1995 announced a profit before tax of one billion naira. The bank has been recording a highly commendable performance. Gross earnings increased from N 10.03b to N13.808b in 1997 which represents a percentage increase of 37.7 while profit before tax doubled that of the proceeding year from N16b to N232b profit after tax total N1.6 billion in 1997/1998 as against N996, 8 billion derived in 1996 representing an increase of 67%.
In the view of the fact that the banking industry has undergone tumultuous change of an unprecedented sole; market for banking services has shrunk, competition amongst new and old banks in force and continues to intensify, customers have become more choice and in fact become very choosy.
In response to unfolding scenarios management has decided on a process to comprehensively increase the banks positive, envision the kenal of bank we will collectively like to see in the future and develop a well-thought-through blue print.
The overall objective is to maximize the utilization of the human material resources of the bank for the benefits of its customers, employees and shareholders.
1.3 Historical Background of SIO Nigeria Limited
SIO Nigeria limited is relatively young company. The company was constructed by French fabrication company (PARISOT) with modern sophisticated machines with chief Sunny Odogwu as chairman Managing director.
The contract for the construction of the company started in February 1988 and was completed on 23rd October of the same year. On 3rd of April 1989, the factory was officially operated by the then military administrator of old Bendel State, Col. John Yeri.
At present, the company has staff strength of about 104 (one hundred and four) employees. SIO Nigeria limited has its office in Lagos, its main factory at Asaba.
1.4 Statement of the Problem
The human factor is the most important factor in the production process in that if determines the fortunes or misfortunes of any organization. While his actual capacity s known, the importance of human resources management is to find his potential capacity and attempt to bring the actual to the level of the potential. The achievement of this goal requires directly the energy of the worker towards the designed goals. In essence, the worker has to be influenced to work towards the particular goal.
The achievement of an organizational goal by a worker depends to a large extent, or the extent to which his own personal goals are achieved. Little effort will be put in, if workers feel their needs are not being met by the organizational policies.
It implies that the success or failure of human resources management lie4s in the ability of managers is efficiently and effectively monitor the workers, if organizational goals are to be met.
The needs of the workers dictates his attitude hence an understanding of his needs, which is the effect of the culture and environment, is important in the understanding of workers attitude.
There is little empirical proof about the work attitude of any particular group of workers in Nigeria hence the need is ask the following questions.
a. What s the work attitude to all groups of workers?
b. Is this attitude common to all groups of workers?
c. Is the work attitude affected by the work environment?
1.5 Objective of the Study
The objective of this study is to find out if this attitude towards work was common with all groups of workers and with all sector of the economy.
The study will also look at whether this work altitude f affected by the work environment.
Furthermore, the study looks those factors that may have contributed to the altitude being put up in the form of dissatisfaction factors.
1.6 Significance of the Study
Human resources management is directed at improving the productivity of the workers in the achievement of organizational goals.
As workers performance is a function of many factors, an understanding of these factors will make the work of managers easier.
Little empirical evidence exist as to the comparison of the public and private sector workers attitudes, hence this study is a step forward in the day of the Nigerian workers and his relationship with his work environment.
There is the added need to correctly predict the success or failure of a worker in a given task; hence the importance of this study is to enable us to know whether there is any difference in work attitude of Nigerian worker between private and public companies.
The relevance of the study of trainers and managers is seen from the fact that acknowledges of the prevailing work attitude makes easy the task of introducing new attitudes.
This is an important aspect of our drive to industrialization, especially now that we are in the era of civilian governance; this is expected to bring the much needed investor to boost industrialization.
Thus, the attitude of workers who are going to help in building and re-construction of the economy should not be looking at with carelessness, or taken for granted whether in the public sector or in the private sector of the Nigerian economy.
It is hoped that the study will stimulate further studies in the work attitude of the various sectors in the economy for their improvement by maintaining high staff moral.
1.7 The Scope of the Study
The scope of this study will focus on the following.
a. One units of analysis viz the work attitude of Nigerian workers.
b. Examination of the relevant data from this analysis in pursuance of the desired goat.
c. This research work will be for a time series.
d. The research work is restricted to the work attitude of Nigerian workers.
e. This investigation will be limited to the population of workers currently employed in public organization and those under the employment of private organization. No limitation is placed on the size and type of the organization.
f. The organization of study is first bank of Nigeria Plc and SIO Nigeria Limited.
1.8 The Limitations of the Study
The research study was limited by the following factors:
i. Finance: The research experienced financial problems which resulted in the delay or rather show pace of the work.
ii. Insufficient Material: Despite the effort of the researcher to gather relevant materials. The collected data were not enough to carryout such research project.
iii. Respondent Attitude: The reluctant of some workers to grant audience to the research also impeded the original intention of an in-depth analysis of the data.
iv. Time: This factor was a limitation considering the short time the researcher has to tarry out this work. In spite of the limited time, the researcher made great effort to satisfy the needs of such work.
v. Secrecy: Some of the information that was required for this study were regarded as confidential which he found difficult to obtain.
1.9 Hypotheses
The following hypothesis formed the basis for this study.
a. That there is no significant differences in work attitude between the public and private workers.
b. That the Nigerian worker is not too different form any other worker except that he works in a different environment w varying cultural back ground and value system.
1.10 Definition of Terms
Attitude: Chambers universal learner’s dictionary defines attitude as a way of thinking or acting a position of the body. Attitude has also been defined as learned predispositions. To respond to an object or class of object in a consistently favorable or unfavorable way.
Attitude is a described as the way we think, feel and act to words some aspect of our environment.
Public Liability Company (PLC): A Public Liability Company (PLC) is a company that publicly quotes its shares to the general public. It is formation requires not less than seven people, but there is no maximum number. Because public companies are co-operate entities, ownership is divorced from management. Once incorporated, limited liability companies are different entities form their owners. Shareholders who are owners of the companies elect. Board of directors at the annual general meeting. The Board of directors in turn appoints the top executives who are directly in charge of the day to day running or operations of the company. The public companies operate with huge capital outlay and so can afford to employ large number of staff including experts. The government does not intervene in the management and running of public liability company.
Private Liability Company (LTD): A private company is stated in its memorandum to be a private company. It articles:
i. Restrict the right to transfer its shares.
ii. Limit the number of its members to 50, excluding present employees and past employees who become shareholders when they were so employed and have continued to he shareholders, ever since.
iii. Prohibit any invitation to the public to subscribe for shares or debentures of the company.