TABLE OF CONTENTS
Content Page
Title page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract v
Table of Contents vi
List of Tables x
List of Appendices xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0Backgroundto the Study 1
1.1Statement of the Problem 3
1.2Objective of the Study 4
1.3Research Questions 5
1.4Hypotheses 5
1.5Significance of the Study 6
1.6Scope of the Study 6
1.7Operational Definition of Terms 7
1.8Organisation/Plan of Study 8
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.0 Introduction 9
2.1 Concept of Workplace Spirituality 9
2.1.1 Sense of Community 11
2.1.2 Meaningful Work 12
2.1.3 Inner Life 13
2.1.4 Organisational Alignment 15
2.2 Differences between Workplace Spirituality and Religion 15
2.3 Employee Commitment 16
2.4 Employee Performance 19
2.4.1 Task performance 19
2.4.2 Contextual performance 20
2.5 Workplace Spirituality and Commitment 20
2.6 Workplace Spirituality and Performance 21
2.6.1 Human Resources Perspective 21
2.6.2 Philosophical Perspective 23
2.6.3 Community and Interconnectedness Perspective 24
2.7 Organizational Culture 25
2.8 The Nigerian Universities 26
2.8.1 Federal University of Technology Akure 27
2.8.2 Ajayi Crowther University 28
2.9 Theoretical Framework 29
2.9.1 Humanocracy 29
2.9.2 Theory of Psychological Ownership 31
2.9.3 Spiritual Leadership Theory 32
2.3 Empirical Review 36
2.3.1 Workplace Spirituality 36
2.3.2 Workplace Spirituality and Employee Commitment 38
2.3.3 Workplace Spirituality and Employee Performance 41
2.3.4 Commitment and Performance 43
2.4 Appraisal and Gaps in the Literature. 45
2.4.1 Appraisal of the review 45
2.4.2 Gaps in the Literature 45
2.5 Conceptual Model 47
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction 48
3.1 Research Design 48
3.2 Population 48
3.3 Sample size and sampling Technique 50
3.4 Research Instrument 53
3.5 Pilot Study 54
3.6 Validity of Research Instrument 54
3.7 Reliability of Research Instrument 54
3.8 Sources of Data collection 55
3.9 Method of Data Analysis 56
3.10 Ethical Considerations 56
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS, RESULTS AND
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
4.0 Introduction 58
4.1 Presentation of Data 59
4.1.1 Demographic data of respondents 59
4.1.2. Data on Sense of Community 61
4.1.3. Data on Meaningful Work. 62
4.1.4 Data on Inner Life 63
4.1.5 Data on Affective Commitment 64
4.1.6 Data presentation on Continuance Commitment 66
4.1.7 Data presentation on Task Performance 67
4.1.8 Data on Contextual Performance 68
4.2 Data collected through interviews 69
4.2.1 Responses from the Head of Administration, Technical, Secretariat and Human Resources. 69
4.2.2 Responses from the Focus group in ACU and FUTA 71
4.3 Analysis of data: Test of Hypothesis 73
4.3.1 Decision rules 73
4.3.2 Data From Private University 74
4.3.3 Hypothesis Test One 74
4.3.4 Discussion. 74
4.3.5 Hypothesis Test Two 75
4.3.6 Discussion 75
4.3.7 Hypothesis Test Three 76
4.3.8 Discussion 77
4.3.9 Hypothesis Test Four 78
4.3.10 Discussion 78
4.3.11 Hypothesis Test five 79
4.3.12 Discussion 80
4.4 Data From Public University 81
4.4.1 Hypothesis Test One 81
4.4.2 Discussion. 82
4.4.3 Hypothesis Test Two 83
4.4.4 Discussion: 84
4:4:5 Hypothesis Test Three 86
4.4.6 Discussion: 86
4:4.7 Hypothesis Test Four 87
4.4.8. Discussion 88
4.4.9 Hypothesis Test five 88
4.4.10 Discussion: 89
4.4.11 Hypothesis Test Six 90
4.4.12 Discussion 91
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION
AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary 93
- Conclusion 96
- Recommendations 97
5.4Contribution to Knowledge 98
5.5 Limitation of the Study 99
5.6 Suggestion for Further Studies 99
REFERENCES 101
APPENDICES 111
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
- Population 50
- Sample sizeand sampling Technique 52
- Instrument Source 53
- Reliability Test 55
4.1 Response Rate 58
4.2 Demographic data 59
4.3 Issues of Sense of Community in Private University 61
4.4 Shows the Data on Meaningful Work Private University 62
4.5 Shows Data on Inner Life 63
4.6 Presents Data on Affective Commitment 64
4.7 Showing Data on Continuance Commitment 66
4.8 Showing Data on Task Performance 67
4.9 Presentation of Data on Contextual Performance 68
4.10 Responses from the Head of Administration, Technical,
Secretariat and Human Resources 69
4.11 Responses from the Focus group in ACU and FUTA 71
4.12 Summary of the Hypotheses Results for Private University 73
4.13 Summary of the Hypotheses Results for Public University. 81
4.17 Perceptual difference between Public and Private University 90
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page
1 Raw Data of Regression of Analysis 112
2 Questionnaires 117
3 Informed Consent 122
4 Sources of Data for Interviews 123
5 Raw Data of Reliability Test Result 124
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Organizational spirituality elicits workers’ self-imposed willingness to act and perform their task productively in an organisation. This is orchestrated by workers’ judgment and perception with reference to their job meaningfulness, growth oriented, and fulfillment in the context of a social and egalitarian community (Kinjerski & Scrypnek, 2006, Tagavi & Hamid, 2014).
Many organisations in the world today are having challenges in building an environment that is community-oriented and capable of engendering the commitment of individual employees to express and demonstrate their inner capacity in the performance of duty. Employees long for a workplace that is conducive for their alignment of personal values with that of the organisation so as to experience a purposeful, meaningful and enjoyable responsibility. These categories of workers that find fulfillment and meaning in their work are the types that can help to accomplish and sustain the performance of organisations even within the current fierceness of competition among organisations in the world today. However, while competitive pressure has been discussed extensively in literature (Collins, 2002; Fred, 2006; Kaplan & Newton, 2006; Porter, 1980; 1985), the role of organizational spirituality and commitment to trigger higher performance is less investigated (Ajala, 2013; Dharmarajan, Kaushik, Nilari, Ruchika, & Israel, 2011; Karakas, 2010).
Nevertheless, scholars like McGregor, (1960); Armstrong (2006), Daniel (2010), and Tagavi and Hamid (2014), have explored several approaches to make organizational environment more humanistic and task-oriented. The old but relevant Hawthorne study of Mayo (1927-32), Maslow (1954), and other modern approaches have been used to treat employees for optimal organizational outcomes (Bullock, 2009; Harrington et al, 2001; Steele & and Daniel, 2010). Despite these approaches, it was keenly observed that organizational spirituality; organization’s spiritual practices, spiritual values, and commitment were absent in organizational research (Beheshtifar & Zare, 2013). The robustness of the aforementioned approaches was orchestrated by context construct with reference to team, group, motivation and organizational outcomes. Nevertheless, the inclusion and combination of workplace spirituality has been recently recognized as an essential area in academic research towards adding meaning and value to workers’ workplace effect, quality of work life, and meaningful work experience (Petchsawang & Duchon, 2009; Wainaina, Iravo, and Waititu, 2014).
Employees’ emotions, inclusiveness and felt-belonging are spiritual attributes that stimulate fulfillment and implicit satisfaction when brought to bear on the workplace. In the other way, a dispirited workplace manifests discontent, low morale, high turnover, low performance and non committed attitude to the organization (Rostami, Dini, & Kazem, 2015; Hira & Shilpee, 2014). Therefore, optimizing employees’ performance will necessitate total inclusion and involvement of one’s commitment in terms of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs (Petchsawanga & Duchon, 2012).
Interestingly, scholars like Daniel (2010); Nicou (2002); and Hira and Shilpee (2014) have observed through research that constructive attention to workers’ spirituality reduces work related stress, enhances creativity and improves interpersonal relationship and trust which Petchsawanga& Duchon (2012) sustained. Nicou (2002) added that beyond improved productivity, workers’ spirituality helps to boost employee well being and quality of life. It provides employees a sense of interconnectedness, social capital, interdependency, and community (Beheshtifar & Zare, 2013). Workplace spirituality, according to Geigle (2012) promotes individual feelings of satisfaction through transcendence and egalitarianism.
From its communal construct, organizational spirituality is a culture that enables the individual worker to fully understand the purpose and meaning of work and stimulates workers’ passion to work with others in order to achieve organizational goal. This perspective recognizes employees’ inner life that nourishes and been nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community (Ashmon & Duchon, 2000). According to Daniel (2012), employees want meaning and passion in what they do and not just the extrinsic settlement like fringe benefits and paycheck. Based on this premise, research studies outside the boundaries of Nigeria have been directly focused on relationships between various aspects of organizational spirituality; meaningful work, sense of community, and inner life and organizational outcomes such as commitment and performance (Ashmon & Dunchon, 2000; Bosch, 2009 Howard, 2002). Hence, there is need to improve the protracted declining status of employees’ performance in the Nigerian tertiary institutions. Thus, this study will be carried out by exploring the effect of the three aspects of organizational spirituality and commitment and their effects on employee performance in Ajayi Crowther University (ACU) and Federal University Technology, Akure (FUTA).
Ajayi Crowther University is a faith-based institution of learning privately owned by the Supra Diocesan Board of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). Though this university was established in 2005 in Oyo town, its origin, however, transcends beyond this period to 1853 when it started as CMS Training Institution in Abeokuta before it was relocated to Lagos between 1868 -1896. Similarly, Federal University Technology, Akure is a public university owned by the federal government of Nigeria. It was established in 1981 with the noble aim of encouraging both practical and theoretical knowledge of technologies in the universities. Therefore, carrying out this study in these two Universities with varied background and orientation will help to ascertain whether it will have an influence on the comparative outcome of this research.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
