ABSTRACT
Performance management aligns the goals and processes of employees to
those of the organization so that both work together towards the achievement of
the organization’s goals and objectives. Achievement of its goals affords the organization the opportunity to attain competitive
advantage, enhance customer satisfaction and maximise its wealth. This study identified some of the challenges of organizational
performance which include vague goals, inadequate training and development of
employees, ineffective communication, poor motivation, inadequate reward for
tasks executed by employees, inaccurate appraisal of employees’ performances, lack
of performance feedbacks and dialogues, persistent low U.K. education standard
attainment tests (SAT) scores, and products/services lacking in innovation. This
study examined the performance management and organizational performance of
British-curriculum elementary schools in Lagos state.
Survey research design was utilized for this study. The population for
this study is 1,464 made up of the senior and administrative employees of
twenty four British-curriculum elementary schools in Lagos state. Krejcie and
Morgan’s formula was used to derive the sample size of 305 and the simple
random sampling technique was used to select the sample. A structured
questionnaire was adapted and validated and used to collect the required data
for this study. The overall average of the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for
the variables was 0.867. Copies of the
questionnaire were administered and a response rate of 94.4% (288) was
obtained. Data obtained were analyzed using the SPSS software for descriptive
and inferential statistics.
Findings revealed that goal setting had a
significant effect on firm survival of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos state (R
= .845, R2 = .714; F(1,286)
= 715.285, p<0.05).Training and development had a significant effect on firm survival of
British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos state (R
= .925, R2 = .856; F(1,286)
= 1699.080, p<0.05). Communication had a significant effect on employee satisfaction in
British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos state as (R
= .769, R2 = .591; F(1,286)
= 413.442, p<0.05). Motivation had a significant effect on employee satisfaction in British
curriculum elementary schools in Lagos state (R
= .927, R2 = .860; F(1,286)
= 1752.116, p<0.05). Performance management had a joint significant effect on organizational
performance (R = .978, R2 = .956; Adj R2
= 0.955; F(4,283) = 1536.925,
p<0.05).
The study concluded that performance management has a joint significant
effect on organizational performance. Based on this findings, the study
recommends that British-curriculum elementary schools in Lagos state should
institute a system of a system of performance management that would ensure that
goals are jointly set, training reflects the performance or lack of, of
employees, communication channels are always open and employees are adequately
motivated.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The deplorable state of public schools in Nigeria
has given rise to the preference for private educational institutions in
Nigeria. This preference has fuelled the establishment of private schools such
that the educational sector in Nigeria has witnessed an increase in the number
of academic institutions operating, from primary/elementary schools to
universities. This is especially rife for private elementary schools given
Nigeria’s population explosion and the improvement in the purchasing power of
the middle class (Akpa, Udoh, & Fagbamiye, 2005). And even though the
increase in demand for private elementary school education means more income
for the proprietors, it comes with the expectation of better infrastructure,
higher quality instruction, more excellent grades and more qualified (sometimes
expatriate) teachers often touted by private schools in Nigeria (Oyibode,
2015).
The rate of pupil enrolment increases at a much
lower rate when compared to the rate at which the private elementary schools
are established. The result is that the supply of schools far outstrips the
demand for pupil spaces and total available pupils are stretched out among the
competing schools. This glut in schools enables a buyers’ market, breeds
intense competition amongst schools and gives rise to dwindling enrolment
figures (Yawe & Akighir, 2014). This proliferation of schools has also
given rise to performance issues as teachers, lecturers and other employees
that move from one institution to another create vacuums that cannot be quickly
filled. Vacuum so created means that fewer teachers contend with the
responsibilities of executing the curriculum.
Schools are differentiated by the scores obtained by
their pupils in major foreign examinations. This becomes a major determining
factor for parents and guardians in choosing which institution to enrol their
children and wards. The higher the scores achieved by pupils in their external
examinations, the greater the probability of existing parents keeping back
their children in the school and prospective parents selecting the school for
future enrolment of their children. The strategy for increasing pupil enrolment
in these elementary schools therefore lies in improving the result scores obtained
by existing pupils. Stellar employee and team performances become imperative if
grades must improve. But the problems of this subsector, which militate against
the stellar performances required to accomplish the goal of improved
examination grades, are many. Key among them is the inappropriate measurement
of employees’ performance (Akpa, Udoh, & Fabgamiye, 2005).
Other problems are biased and inappropriate
measurement of an employee’s performance, arbitrariness in employee appraisals,
inappropriate goal setting and utilization of unqualified raters. All these
contribute to the non-attainment of schools’ goals. Many employees, especially
teachers, who are unsatisfied often seek better opportunities or redress in
rival schools. And this adds to the problem of dwindling pupil enrolment, which
remain a major challenge to private elementary schools (Greenberg, 1986).
Again, the need for fee-paying private schools to generate income to pay back
loans for massive infrastructural development, huge running costs and possibly
dividends to investors, makes the attainment of set goals paramount and
appropriate measurement of employees’ performances or lack thereof imperative.
Management must therefore come up with ingenious
ways to achieve the school’s goals and objectives given these apparent
challenges. Greenberg (1986) opines that achievement of goals and objectives
must start with the implementation of an efficient performance system.
According to Rastogi and Garg (2006), what better way to solve the problem of
inappropriate appraisal than to focus on performance management? This can
enable proprietors of these private elementary schools, at least, stem the tide
of employee disengagements due to perceived unfairness in the arbitrary
assessment of their performances.
Performance
management (PM) refers to the process
of aligning an individual or team goals with those of the organization for the
purpose of achieving the organization’s goals. It involves the stating of the
vision and mission of the organization, the setting of appropriate goals for
the organization, teams and employees as well as strategies to accomplish them.
PM also entails the setting up of standards like benchmarks, guidelines of
procedure, resources usage and finished products/services to steer employees’
performance and measure employee achievements. Feedback is an integral part of
PM. Here, management assessments of employees are relayed to the employees with
explanations about the assessment results. Also, employees’ questions are
answered and fears allayed. This process ensures fairness and equity (Ogedegbe,
2014).
PM also embraces the effective communication of the
appraisals in a manner that motivates rather than demoralizes the employee.
Access to supervisors for feedback and coaching as well as rewards for failure
to achieve, achieving or surpassing standards are integral parts of performance
management. Some organizations have therefore come
to the realization that one way to successfully measure employees’ performance
is through a well thought out performance management system (Lawlor &
Hornyak, 2014). Popular performance management systems utilized by
organizations include management by objectives and balanced score card. Using
any of these systems, goals are matched with actual achievements, and
performance at the individual, team and corporate levels in the organization
can be measured appropriately (McNamara, 2007).
The Lagos State non-tertiary education landscape is
made up of many public and private schools; from nursery to senior secondary
schools. Private elementary and secondary schools make up 57% of all enrolments
consisting of 1,408,420 pupils in 12,098 schools. Many of these schools are
unregistered and include mostly the small kindergarten school usually operated
by a sole proprietor (Harma, 2011). Of these 12,098 private schools in Lagos
State, 8,992 are private elementary schools and of this number, 24 are
registered with the council of British international schools worldwide (COBIS)
to offer the British curriculum education and certification and are located in
6 out of the 20 local governments of Lagos State (AISEN, 2016; COBIS, 2014; and
Harma, 2011).
This study intends to focus on performance
management and organizational performance of British curriculum elementary
schools in Lagos State. The researcher intends to highlight the place of
performance management in the achievement of the goals of the organization,
specifically British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State in the face
of high mobility of British-trained teachers and diminishing economic returns.
The constituents of the independent variable, performance management, examined
in this study are goal setting, training and development, communications and
motivation. The dependent variable,
organizational performance, will be measured by firm survival and employee
satisfaction.
1.2 Statement
of the Problem
Abdulwahab (2016) avers that the failure of managers
to set Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Realistic/Relevant and
Timely/Time bound (SMART) goals for their subordinates, contribute in no small
measure in scuttling the expectations and desires of individuals and
organizations to achieve set objectives or even aspire to industry
leadership. When individual and school
goals are not set, employees are at a loss about what is expected of them. Such
situations give room for guesswork and surely, goals cannot be met under such
conditions. The inability to set goals have also robbed schools of the
opportunity to receive appropriate standards to work towards, and accurate
direction to accomplish tasks. This has led to the inability of schools to
achieve desired performance objectives and industry ratings. Failure to set
goals therefore result in blurred direction, mediocrity, low industry ratings
and reduced income.
Training and development of teachers and support
staff is paramount for an educational institution given the fast-changing
nature of teaching and learning materials used for instruction and modern
techniques for knowledge impartation to pupils (Oyibode, 2015). Most of the
training programs for the British curriculum elementary schools involve the
engagement of British educators and materials flown into Nigeria from the U.K.
Given the diminishing income accruable to these British-curriculum elementary
schools in Lagos State, training and development programs suffer serious
setbacks. Sometimes, employees experience fewer training courses and at other
times, modules are drastically reduced and these adversely affect the ability
to acquire skills and competencies required for knowledge and skills
impartation to pupils.
Lack of communication or inadequate dissemination of
information between supervisors and subordinates give rise to conflict
situations and where this subsists, the organization is unable to accomplish
its set goals and objectives (Yawe, & Akighir, 2014). The ineffective
communication of tasks to be executed by teachers and lack of feedback of
completed tasks, make employees feel alienated and unimportant in the scheme of
things in the school, indeed giving rise to conflict situations where mutual
trust and respect between supervisors and subordinates substitute official
decorum. Poor communication therefore obstruct efficiency, decrease innovation,
lower consumer rating and eventually, income.
Lack of incentives and
other motivation factors reduce the interest and drive of employees to
accomplish organizational goals. Organizations fail to decipher what employees
respond to with regards to motivation factors, unduly concentrating on the
intrinsic aspect of motivation to the detriment of cash payments and
perks. The inability of proprietors of British-curriculum
elementary schools to meet the Nigerian employees’ demand for increased
salaries and allowances to be at par with their expatriate counterparts has given rise to low
morale, poor performance, poor products/services, poor customer service and
decreased income.
Innovation produces ideas that translate to new
products/services or improvement of existing ones. Stagnation is synonymous
with organizations lacking in new processes and technology. Untrained employees
do not have the solutions to tweak existing products/services or confront the
external environment let alone contribute to the growth of the organization.
Given the stiff competition in the industry, schools lacking new ideas become
redundant and experience loss of business and income.
Lack of adequate rewards for work accomplished
reduce the impetus for further work and encourage high employee turnover (Yawe,
& Akighir, 2014). The remuneration of expatriate teachers far outstrips
those of Nigerian teachers in the British-curriculum elementary schools in
Lagos. This breeds discontent, adversely affecting the ability of employees to
function as required. Also, biased and unfair appraisal
of performance accomplished by employees, create
low morale. The schools are of course worse off as teachers are constantly
moving to redress these injustices. Lack of rewards therefore, creates low
morale, employee dissatisfaction and poor performance resulting in deceased
pupil enrolment and diminishing income.
Multi-tasking is a common phenomenon in the world of
private elementary schools in Nigeria (Akpa, Udoh, & Fabgamiye, 2015). For
the British-curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State, this is especially
rife because fewer teachers and other employees are required to take on
additional responsibilities, in view of the dearth of quality staff. This gives
rise to inadequate appraisal of all the employee’s performances and inaccurate
appraisals leave employees disappointed to seek better recognition and
compensation elsewhere, leaving their current schools short-staffed and unable
to achieve the organization’s goals.
The inability of the schools’ management to provide
the platform for employees and supervisors to engage in performance feedbacks
contributes in no small measure to a friction-prone work environment
(Abdulwahab, 2016). Most schools experience lack of feedback and non-exposure
to dialogues, coaching and performance evaluations and these produce
discontentment amongst employees on the one hand and rumour mills on the other.
These cause damage to the organizational culture and psyche and seriously
reduce the chances of increased income and profits.
Low examination scores spell reduced patronage and
income for schools, since examination results form the basis on which most
enrolment decisions of parents rest (Yawe & Akighir, 2014). Low result
scores obtained by pupils give rise to low ratings by the foreign educational
supervisory boards and this translates to reduced patronage, shrinking
enrolments and finally, reduced income and profits.
Private elementary schools in Lagos State operate in
a buyers’ market, where the number of schools far outstrips the number of available
pupils (Yawe & Akighir, 2014). Managers are therefore under constant
pressure to increase their market share with regards to pupil enrolment. This
scenario gives rise to unorthodox methods of increasing pupil intake, for
example helping pupils write their online examinations to increase average
school scores.
1.3 Objective
of the Study
The general objective of
this study is to determine the effect of performance management on the
organizational performance of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos
State. The specific objectives are to:
1. investigate the effect of goal setting on firm survival of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State;
2. assess
the effect of training and development on firm survival of British
curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State;
3. examine the effect of communication on employee satisfaction of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State;
4. ascertain the effect of motivation on employee satisfaction of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos
Stateand
5. determine
the combined effect of performance management on organizational performance of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos
State, Nigeria.
1.4 Research
Questions
To investigate these
problems and achieve the set objectives, relevant research questions have been
derived and these are:
1. What is the effect of goal setting on firm survival of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State?
2. What is the effect of training and
development on firm survival of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State?
3. How does communication affect employee satisfaction of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State?
4. What
effect does motivation
have on employee
satisfaction of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos Stateand
5. What
is the combined effect of performance management on organizational performance
of British curriculum elementary
schools in Lagos State, Nigeria?
1.5 Hypotheses
Considering the objectives of this study stated above, and the research
questions, these Null hypotheses were proposed:
H01: There
is no significant effect of goal setting on firm survival of British-curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State.
H02: There is no significant effect of training
& development on firm survival of British-curriculum
elementary schools in Lagos State.
H03: There is no significant effect of
communication on employee satisfaction of British-curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State.
H04: There is no significant effect of
motivation on employee satisfaction of British-curriculum
elementary schools in Lagos State.
H05: There is no significant effect of
performance management on organizational performance of British curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State.
1.6 Scope
of the Study
This study focused on
performance management and organizational performance of British curriculum
elementary schools in Lagos State and covered the 24 British-curriculum (COBIS) elementary schools
operating in Lagos State. These 24 schools are members of the council of British international schools
(COBIS), Lagos State chapter.
Data was collected through
the administration of a questionnaire which extracted information for the
period under review. Sourced from the Administrative offices of the Schools
under study, the combined staff strength of the 24 schools as at 19th December
2016 stood at 3,458. The study focused on the senior academic and non-academic
(administrative) members of staff of the 24 schools, which stood at 1,572 as at
19th December 2016. This population was targeted because the performance
management function of this group is of critical importance to most
organizations’ quest for attainment of their goals. The sample size for the
study is 305 which was arrived at by using the formula developed by Krejcie
& Morgan (1970) and shown in the relevant heading in chapter three.
1.7 Significance of the Study
It is expected that when this study is concluded,
the results derived would uncover reasons why organizations in general and
British-curriculum elementary schools in Lagos State, in particular, do not
attain set objectives and seek for ways on how performance management can
improve this position. This study is expected to impact positively on the
following areas:
1.7.1 Management
The management of educational organizations would
find this research work very useful in designing performance management systems
that would engage employees and teams to offer performances that would enhance
the organization’s overall performance.
1.7.2 Industry
The stakeholders in the educational sector would
find this research work an important reference material to be utilized when
making decisions concerning performance manage systems and organizational
performance. The turnover of teachers experienced in the industry, especially
professionals seeking greener pastures outside the industry will be abated. An
enhanced knowledge of the workings of performance management and their impact
on organizational performance would be embraced by the industry to enable professionals
contribute their best to the industry. This research project would also
constitute an important body of knowledge for students and potential
proprietors of private elementary schools in Nigeria in general and Lagos State
in particular, especially those seeking to operate the British curriculum.
1.7.3 Regulatory Authorities
The significance of this study to all tiers of
government include the assurance of a workforce that not only produce the best
pupils that would assume leadership roles in the future, but also socially
responsible organizations that contribute to good governance, compliance to
laws and provision of steady income to government coffers.
1.7.4 The general society
The society benefits from this study as pupils get
the best out of the educational system, given that better performance
management systems ensure employees perform better towards the attainment of
organizational goals. Confidence in the educational system is assured and
parents would keep their children in the Nigerian school system instead of
shipping them abroad or even to Ghana. Also, better educated pupils contribute
better to the development of the society.
1.8 Operationalization
of Variables
Independent variable (X) =
Performance Management (PM)
Y = f (X)
X = (x1, x2, x3, x4)
Where:
x1
= Goal Setting (GS)
x2
= Training and Development(TD)
x3 = Communication (COM)
x4 = Motivation (MOT)
Dependent variable (Y) = Organizational Performance
(OP)
Y = f(y)
Y = (y1, y2)
Where:
y1
= Firm survival (FS)
y2
= Employee satisfaction (ES)
Therefore:
y1 = f (x1)
......................................................................Equation
1
y1 = f (x2)
......................................................................Equation
2
y2 = f (x3).......................................................................Equation
3
y2 = f (x4).......................................................................Equation
4
Y = f (x1, x2, x3, x4)..........................................................Equation
5
Regression
Analysis
H01 y1
= α0 + β1x1
+ µ...............................................Equation 1
H02 y1
= α0 + β2x2
+ µ………………………….......Equation 2
H03 y2
= α0 + β3x3
+ µ...............................................Equation 3
H04 y2
= α0 + β4x4
+ µ...............................................Equation 4
H05 Y = α0+ β1 x1
+ β2 x2 + β3 x3
+β4 x4
+ µ………Equation 5
Where:
Y
= Dependent variable (Organizational performance)
y1
– y2 = Components of the dependent variable, Y
α0
= Constant of the equation
β1
– β4= Coefficient of the independent variables
x1
– x4 = Components of the independent variable, X
µ
= Error that account for change but are not part of the survey at present
The
above signify the working equations for this model
1.9
Operational Definition of Terms
Stakeholder:
A person or group that has an interest or concern in an organization.
Performance:
Refers to the act of doing or carrying out an activity.
Organization: An
assemblage of human and other resources working in a planned manner to achieve
specific goals.
Activity/Task: Work performed to produce results in terms of
inputs, final goods or services.
Competencies: Skills, abilities or knowledge possessed or required
to perform a task/job.
Effectiveness: The extent to which a task or job is executed to
produce desired result.
Efficiency: The use of standard materials to produce more than
planned output.
Human Capital: The combined skills of the management and employees
of an organization.
Objectives: Milestones to be achieved over a stated period
Performance measurement: Scales utilized to compare standards and actual
tasks execution
Performance Management: The process of aligning individual/group
performance with the organization’s for the achievement of organizational
goals.
Goals/Goal Setting: General statements expressing an
organization’s/individual aspirations or intended effects, often stated without
time limits.
Training & Development: The empowering of an employee to obtain specific
skills to execute specific tasks. Development is the general improvement of an
employee usually linked to a senior employee
Communication: The process of exchanging information between two
or more people or organizations through a medium.
Motivation: What influences a task to be performed at a
particular time.
Organizational Performance: Effectiveness of an organization in the achievement
of its goals and objectives.
Firm Survival: The growth of an organization. It is the most basic
measure of firm performance
Employee Satisfaction: Refers to the contentment of employees with and in
their jobs
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