External Environmental Correlates of Performance in Publicly-Owned Organizations in Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The Government-owned companies in Benue State, Nigeria have been operating under turbulent and randomized environment over the years. This thesis examined the “external environmental correlates of performance in publicly-owned organizations in Benue State Nigeria.”  The methodology used was a correlational design with descriptive survey   method involving the use of questionnaires designed on ‘five-point’ Likert Scale which were distributed to 213 respondents comprised of both staff, major distributors of the companies’ products, and some staff of the State Controlling Ministry. While Cronbach’s Alpha Co-efficient ( ) was used to test the reliability of instrument, the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient (r) and the t-test were used to test the hypotheses. The results led to the rejection of the four “null” hypotheses. The study found that, technological changes, regulatory policies, cultural influences and market competitions highly influenced the performances of publicly-owned organizations in Benue State of Nigeria, and that community culture moderated the associations between leadership style and top-management decision-making thereby affecting organizational performance negatively. The implications of these were that the top-management and the Board of these organizations in their bad decisions resisted adapting to new technologies when it is obvious to do so thereby forcing the organizations to struggle with obsolete production system. Similarly, the companies’ staff did not know how to integrate with community culture due to lack of management guidance on management of cultural diversities. This had given rise to staff misbehaviours, which had contributed to inefficiency and lack of effectiveness in the organizations. It also had implication for top-management perceptions of the external environmental variables, which exerted pressure on organizational mortality that had negative effect on the organizations’ workforce due to frequent downsizing. The study recommends that the organizations should make frantic effort towards cultural adaptation and integration than control. They should equally do away with obsolete equipment and deploy latest technologies into their operations. The study concluded that Trilogy Model of Organizational Success that incorporates ambidextrous learning be adopted by the organizations as a mediating trajectory for new product and process innovations as key variables for competitive advantage.

Keywords: Environmental Correlates, Performance, Trilogy Model, Public Organizations