INFLUENCE OF JOB MOTIVATION, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-CONCEPT ON JOB PERFORMANCE AMONG LIBRARY WORKERS IN FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN NIGERIA
By
Aboyade, W. A.
B. Ed; M.Ed; MLAIS (Ibadan)
Mat. No. 34364
A Ph. D. POST-FIELD SEMINAR PRESENTED TO THE
DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY, ARCHIVAL AND INFORMATION STUDIES, FACULTY OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN
Supervisor
Dr. S. O. Popoola
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the study
The major concern of man has been work which has been a cogent and potent feature of both the old and modern societies. Work plays an important role in the daily lives of a person, in that it allows individuals to support themselves and others. It also takes a considerable part of the overall time at man’s disposal during his life time, and the economic benefits accruable to him become a major index of his standard of living. According to Vroom (1964), man works because he believes that his engagement in work certainly brings him to a state of being more satisfied than his present status. Work is of central significance to the lives of everybody, university library workers inclusive, in that it provides an individual with an inner creative joy and saves him from the dullness and boredom of life. For greater percentage of life of man, work brings out his pride and remains the activity that requires most of his time and effort and to some degree, helps him focus and anchor his lives. Work brings out the dignity of man and an individual’s status in life is contingent upon the work he does and what accrues to him. In addition, it puts human energies to a proper use because, unused energies may create disorders in a person and make him physically unhealthy and mentally unhappy. Work also provides man with money for livelihood by making life more meaningful and stress-free.
In any organisation, job performance of individuals becomes crucial to its survival. Saetang, Sulumnad, Thampitak, and Sungkaew (2010) opine that success or failure of an organization depends, to a large extent, on the job performance of the individuals in that particular organization. Furthermore, Wright and Noe (1996) see job performance representing behaviours that are relevant to the organisation’s goals and the indices of job performance can be measured in terms of each individual’s proficiency and level of contribution. In line with Muchinsky (2003), job performance is the set of worker's behaviors that can be monitored, measured, and assessed in terms of achievement at an individual level. Moreover, these behaviors must also be in tandem with the organizational goals. And according to Saetang et al. (2010), workers job performance remains an important factor to push forward to be an excellent organization. Therefore, psychological factors such as job motivation, emotional intelligence and self-concept remain potent constructs that may influence job performance of workers in any organisation, university libraries in Nigeria inclusive.
To get optimum performance from employees, there is the need to be some sort of motivation beyond the monthly salary. Motivated employees are essential for the survival of organisations (Smith, 1994). To Smith, motivated employees are needed in our rapidly changing workplaces like university libraries because they are more productive and help organisations to survive. Motivation is one of the characteristics required so as to achieve tangible things in life, and without it, an individual prematurely gives up at the first sign of adversity (Valez, 2008). It is also the desire or aspiration necessary for achieving a goal combined with the efforts to work towards that goal; as well as the driving force behind every action that is performed. Wright and Noe (1996) further see motivation as the combination of forces that lead people to behave as they do and underlying it is the energizing, directing and maintenance components. More specifically, it is the force that influences enthusiasm, directs employees’ energy towards attainment of an outcome, and maintains behaviour even when that behaviour does not lead to an immediate and extrinsic reward. Motivation could be positive or negative. Positive motivation appears beneficial in that it gives an individual a sense of achievement, drive and enjoyment. Conversely, negative motivation may lead to adverse consequences in case of failures. Motivation is very important in managing people and explaining organisational behaviour because, along with ability, it determines how well employees perform (Wright and Noe, 1996). It is therefore important that organisations such as university libraries, should bring abilities and motivation in line with the behaviours they need from their workforce so that library workers can put in their best in terms of job performance thereby leading to satisfied clientele in terms of meeting their information needs.
Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman (1959) categorized motivation into two factors, namely; motivators and hygiene. To them, motivators such as responsibility, achievement, recognition, promotion and various intrinsic aspects cause states of motivation. However, hygiene factors, which are extrinsic and in a category of supervision, salary, work environment and relationships may not necessarily increase job performance, however, their absence may cause dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction may lead to low or poor job performance among the university library workers. Job knowledge, skills, abilities of the worker, the situation in the work place, work environment, the technology and equipment available, all could have a greater influence on job performance of library workers. According to Paleologou, Kontodimopoulos, Stamouli, Aletras, and Niakas (2006), job satisfaction and motivation work together to increase job performance. Therefore, management of libraries in Nigerian universities can increase job performance of their work force, primarily by focusing on the motivating interests of existing and future staff. The reason being that inadequate motivation may lead to frustration and drudgery and the attendant results may be low job performance and turnover among workers in the university libraries. It can also affect the quality of service being rendered to the users of library collection as well as organisational commitment of staff and may also be associated with shortage of staff, poor service to library users and psycho-social stress. Also, university libraries and other organisations must understand what motivates their employees and under what conditions their employees will be motivated to put in their best and behave in ways that support implementation of strategic organisational goals.
However, in the present day university libraries, motivated employees are required because motivated library workers will help institutions’ libraries to grow and survive. Effective motivation can create a productive work force, but lack of motivating factors can leave workers searching for reasons to give their maximum effort. Thus, if the mission and vision of Nigerian universities are to be realized, then the 21st Century university library, especially in the developing nation like Nigeria, requires motivated workforce that will put in their best in terms of job performance. Furthermore, since motivation influences performance, it is therefore imperative that decision makers in the university libraries take into cognizance factors that motivate their workers to reach optimal job performance, and further consider how salient motivational factors such as individual differences, job characteristics, and organisational practices interact to enhance a worker’s performance on the job. In a nutshell, motivated employees appear more productive, and to be more effective, management of federal university libraries in Nigeria and other organisations need to understand what motivates employees within the context of the roles they perform so that maximum result can be achieved in terms of job performance.
University libraries, faculties, governmental agencies and parastatals, corporate bodies and private organisations are places where individuals are organized to work. Since working in a group requires interactions among individuals, emotions such as excitement, anger, fear, love, etc., are pertinent to facilitating cooperation and good working relationship. This is so because, in some work places such as university libraries, certain behavioural patterns are necessary in employees if they are to work harmoniously together. For instance, patience and tolerance are required in library workers; enthusiasm in sales men and women; perseverance in bill and money collectors; empathy in social workers; patience, empathy and love among hospital workers, etc., (Hochschild,1983; Sutton, 1991). It is therefore believed that emotionally intelligent employees will definitely be more efficient and effective in their interactions with the work environment and with their co-workers.
Emotional intelligence emerges, not from the musings of rarefied intellect, but from the workings of the human heart (Cooper and Sawaf, 1997). It is the emotional intelligence that motivates us to pursue our unique potential and purpose, and activates our innermost values and aspirations, transforming them from things we think about to what we like or dislike. Emotions are considered to be of such deep and power that in Latin, they are described as motus anima literally meaning the spirit that moves us. Emotion is what ignites creative genius, keeps us honest with ourselves, shapes trusting relationships, provides an inner compass for our life and career, guides us to unexpected possibilities, and may even save us or our organisation (university libraries in particular) from disaster. Therefore, it is not enough just to have feelings, emotional intelligence requires that we learn to acknowledge and value feelings in ourselves and others, and that we appropriately respond to them by effectively applying the information and energy of emotions in our daily life and work. Thus Cooper and Sawaf (1997) see emotional intelligence as the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence.
Goleman (1998), a co-pioneer of emotional intelligence, a psychologist and journalist, while summarizing the work of Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2000), defines emotional intelligence as the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others and for motivating oneself and for managing emotions well in oneself and on our relationship with others. Recent findings suggest that emotionally intelligent persons are better performers than their counterparts, and that an employee’s emotional intelligence is positively related to his/her job satisfaction and performance (Law, Wong, and Song, 2004). Emotional intelligence may contribute to work performance (as reflected in salary, salary increase, and company rank) by enabling people to nurture positive relationships at work, work effectively in teams, and build social capital. In addition, emotional intelligence may also contribute to work performance by enabling people to regulate their emotions so as to cope effectively with stress, perform well under pressure, and adjust to organisational change (Lopes, Grewal, Kadis, Gall and Salovey, 2006). Furthermore, Goleman (1998), Caruso and Salovey (2004) theorized that emotional intelligence contributes to people’s capacity to work effectively in teams and manage work stress. And when this is achieved, workers are likely to perform better thus resulting in improved productivity in the production organisation and enhanced services to users in the service industries like university libraries and information centres. It is therefore noteworthy that library establishments should evolve strategies through which they will know whether prospective employees possess the emotional competencies required to work in a university library setting or not. This is important because, work in the university libraries involves essentially coming in contact with users of diverse background. Therefore management of university libraries should not just concern themselves with employing workers with the right skills and qualification alone, but people who possess the required emotional balance that will enhance performance on the job.
Business organisations experts and consultants as reported by Oketola (2009) indicate that “beyond passing aptitude tests and interviews, organisations worldwide have turned to ascribing preference to emotional intelligence over intelligence quotient”. According to his report, many organisations now design strategies through which they know whether prospective employees possess the emotional competence required for their jobs or not. This translates to the fact that university libraries, corporate organisations, government and private agencies do not just want to employ people with the right skills, qualifications and high intelligence alone but employees who possess the required emotional intelligence to recognize and manage emotions when they occur for enhanced job performance.
Research findings linking emotional intelligence to high quality social relationships have implications for the performance of employees in organisations (Sala, Druskat, Mount, 2006). To them, emotionally intelligent individuals may engage in more extra-role behaviours such as helping co-workers and spreading goodwill about the organisation than their counterparts. Furthermore, they are of the views that people may generally have favourable attitudes about emotionally intelligent individuals, and as a consequence, emotionally intelligent individuals may receive better advice, more social support, and higher performance evaluations than their counterparts. In another development, Sala et al (2006) further opine that emotionally intelligent individuals may be more successful in producing and communicating, inspiring visions or generating enthusiasm and hope for their ideas. Thus, it is not the possession of certificates by workers that really matters in the new millennium workplace, but rather workers who, in addition to excellent skills, possess self management skills and ability to relate well with others so as to engender good working relationship.
In another development, Cote and Miners (2006) are of the views that individuals with low cognitive intelligence may reap relatively large returns from high emotional intelligence, because job performance that is not attained through cognitive intelligence may be attained through emotional intelligence. To them, an employee who accurately detects colleagues’ emotions may facilitate coordination and interpersonal functioning that may, in turn enhance task performance (Law, Wong, and Song, 2004). Hence, the contemporary millennium university libraries require workers, who have strong background, not only in educational knowledge, but also in inter-personal skills such as responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self management, integrity, effective collaboration, trust building, ability to handle confrontations constructively, treating one another in a caring manner, and honesty. All these form the bedrock of emotional intelligence. Therefore, it is pertinent to note that, low morale, intimidated workers, arrogant bosses, emotional instability are indices of emotional deficiencies and their attendant effects become evident in decreased job performance leading to decreased productivity, mistakes, absence, ill health, unnecessary transfer request, lack of organisational commitment and reputation, loss of key staff and depleted bottom line.