Influence of Academic Staff Empowerment on Service Delivery in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

This paper examined the influence of academic staff empowerment on service delivery in Nigerian universities. The paper adopted the descriptive survey research design and the population comprised all the academic staff of both the University of Ibadan and Lagos State University; Nigeria, while simple random sampling technique was adopted to select 150 academic staff from each of the sampled universities respectively, this made a total of 300 academic staff. The research instrument used for the study was a questionnaire titled “Academic Staff Empowerment and Service Delivery in Nigerian Universities, ASEASD” with a reliability value of 0.82. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested. Multiple regression and Independent T-test were used to test hypotheses one and two and three and four respectively. The results showed that, training, promotion, incentive, job recognition and job security jointly contributed to service delivery in Nigerian universities. However, Job recognition is a more potent predictor. The results further indicated that, there was a significant difference between academic staff empowerment in federal and state universities. The results equally revealed a significant difference between service delivery in federal and state universities. Based on the findings of the study, it was therefore recommended that university management should not only recognize the job of academic staff but should also identify those who deserve promotion as well as incentives and accord them appropriately, for better service delivery. Continuous efforts should also be put in place by universities management to ensure academic staff empowerment  for better service delivery.

Keywords: Academic Staff, Empowerment, Service Delivery, Nigerian Universities

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-3-12