Empirical Validity of Operational Effectiveness of Managerial Factors in Multi-Campus Tertiary

Empirical validity of Operational Effectiveness of Managerial Factors in Multi-campus Tertiary Institution in Ogun State, Nigeria

By

Johnson FEJOH, PhD

Academic Affairs Office,

Olabisi Onabanjo University

Ogun State, Nigeria.

Abstract

A multi-campus university system sets its goals mindful of social, economic, cultural, and political environment on which such campuses are located. Evidences have shown that certain managerial factors within the institution may impact on the desirability and objectives of such multi-campus institutions. However, there is a dearth of studies on the extent to which these factors affect effective operation of such institutions. The survey research design of ex-post facto type was adopted. Stratified and purposive sampling techniques were used to select 1,678 respondents (students, 618; academic staff, 366; and non-academic staff, 694). Data were collected using Management Effectiveness Scale (r=0.86) and Institutional Effectiveness Scale (r=0.78). Three research questions were answered and data were analyzed using multiple regression and analysis of variance. Managerial factors jointly contributed 30.0% to effective operation of multi-campus tertiary institution. The variables made significant prediction in the following order; corporate governance (=0.27, P<0.05); decentralized system of administration (=0.14, P0.05); flexible work design (=0.12, P<0.05); decision-making process (=0.12, P<0.05), and participatory leadership style (=0.06, P<0.05).Managerial factors effectively enhanced the operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution. Therefore, all stakeholders in multi-campus institutions should employ appropriate managerial skills that are environmental friendly for the achievement of institutional goals.

Background to the Study

The multi-campus university system in Nigeria owes its evolution to the impact of astronomical increase in candidates base or student enrolment. Previous facilities no longer capable of sustaining the system as enrolment witnessed a sharp increase in staff needs, students’ needs, instructional demand and equipment. The limitation of land space available for expansion of the existing and conventional uni-campus system compounds the situation. There is also the fact of programmes diversification dictated by changing career and labour market trends. Time there was when graduates of liberal arts held sway in public sector employments and constituted themselves into the catalysts of societal development. Today, things have changed, as direction of development is now dictated by scientific and technological encumbrances which, oftentimes, are out of the local control of individual constituents but marshaled by the dynamics of globalization.

Affecting programmes diversification will be the identification of areas or regions providing the most efficient and benevolent modus operandi of implementation. Hence, the need, mutatis mutandis, to locate programmes in areas or regions with optimum resources, that will assure easy operationalisation and promote fulfillment of aspiration – both of government or sponsors, the public(s) and the direct beneficiaries (the students).

Structure of a multi-campus system will be sharpened depending upon philosophy and origin of system. Adigun (1995) presented the under listed sample structure:

• Potential chicken (i.e. embryo campus to mature to autonomous institution). The feature is predominantly loose association, but strong policy control system e.g. the old University of Ibadan/University College, Jos arrangement, Lagos State Polytechnic, the Polytechnic, Ibadan.
• Perpetual embryo- “once an appendage, always an appendage”. There is a centralized authority/operational control system, e.g. the Polytechnic Multicampus Arrangement – having the same Governing Council which is ultimately accountable to the funding Government, and formulates central policies for the system or carries out same on behalf of Government.

While working on multi-campus universities in Australia Ewers (2000), confirms that there had not been enough of studies of multi-campus universities before year 2000, although universities work in ever more locations. He contends that analysis of geographically dispersed organisations will help identify mechanisms required to assure quality in more than one location and associated issues. He further identifies four distinct models and characteristic issues and ways to address them. The issues of multi-campus institutions may include fragmentation, duplication, inconsistency and in equitability over a range of areas of activity. These issues are similar to those attributed to autonomous or devolved structures. They are exacerbated by the forces of locale.

Shoemaker et al (2000) describe five objectives to guide selection of a model for a multi-campus university namely; around program quality, student service, efficiency and cost, and then, the model should also strive to weaken the bureaucratic silos that often are a part of the academic world. Reducing barriers or deconstructing silos is therefore a major challenge for all multi-campus universities.

Empirical Evidences on Multi-campus Institutional Management

Past studies on multi-campus institution management are relatively few in the context of operational effectiveness using different managerial styles. However, studies have focused on specific areas of management issues that relate to efficiency in funding and expenditure profiles, learning and teaching outcomes among others (Scott, Grebennikov and Johnston, 2007).

In a study of Australian multi-campus universities with respect to the link between various measures of profiles and performance, Scott, et al (2007) established that, the Australian multi-campus universities have different educational and funding profiles relative to other sectors in management of resources. Differences in cost profiles across multi-campus are reported to be more strongly associated with their age than with their campus structures. Besides, the study did not record any statistical significant differences in management performance as related to learning and teaching between multi-campus and other universities. The study by Scott et al (2007) concluded that multi-campus universities are achieving similar performance outcomes with fewer resources and that an objective measure of extent of multi-campus university operation should be recognized and used in government funding allocation formulae.

Meanwhile, Adigun (1995) reported a study on a contingency approach to effective management of a multi-campus institution of higher technical education. He established that the application of contingency approach to effective management has merits of being one of the management styles of higher technical education.

As established by various studies, effectiveness in organizational management is contingent to environment where the manager operates (Adigun, 1995; Akintayo, 2003; Holland, 2004; Clifford, 2004).Some theories of management that border much on such effectiveness had been advanced by various scholars. These theories include Bolman and Deals (1999) four frame management theory and Quinn (1988) competing value theory. These two theories emphasized that, for managerial and leadership effectiveness, a multi frame or balanced leadership orientation may be adopted. However, other studies have been concluded on management styles and organizational goal achievement, job performance effectiveness and organizational commitment. Akintayo (2001) for example, reported a positive correlation between participatory management and effective management of organizational change. Similarly, Ebuta (1993) reported that school principals who adopted democratic style in managing the school systems are more effective in sustaining the teachers’ commitment and supportiveness with its corresponding effects on achievement of the educational goals in Cross-RiverState. In the same vein, Atata (1995) found out that the combination of both democratic and autocratic leadership styles had influenced community participation in developmental programmes in ImoState.

Considering gender difference in managerial style among the organizational leaders, Babajide (2000), Arowosharon (2002) and Oredein, (2004) all reported that female managers were found to be more subscribed to participatory management style than male managers and that both male and female managers were very effective in managing organizational resources towards organizational goals achievement. however, the influence of the working environment seems not to have been considered in their studies. Besides, Adigun (1995) reported that there was a strong correlation between effective management of a multi campus polytechnic, a technical institution and the administrative behaviour of those at the helms of affairs.

From the foregoing, it is apparent that a strong relationship exists between leadership style and organizational goal achievements as evident in the studies of Babajide (2000); Arowosharon (2002); Atata (1995) and Oredein, (2004). The present study is different from the previous studies reviewed since they focused on leadership style or behaviour as it affects goals achievement at the orgnaisational and community levels. Also, only Adigun (1995) study focused on contingency approach as it influenced effectiveness of multi-campus polytechnic, a technical institution for middle manpower development which is quite distinct from the scope of the present study.

Statement of the Problem

A multi-campus university system is a formal organisation with complex tasks and certain goals orientation. As an institution, it operates a definite structure and has specialized, delimited objectives often emanating from outside the structure. Also, the degree of effectiveness with which its tasks are carried out and its goals are achieved is dependent upon quality of leadership as evident in effective management vis-à-vis situational factors.

It is however challenging that there are limited empirical evidences on how management response effectively to the social, economic, political and cultural demands placed on multi-campus institutions for the collective interests of the stakeholders. Against the foregoing,the study sought to examine those managerial factors that serve as predictors of effective operation of multi-campus tertiary institution for educational service delivery in Ogun State, Nigeria.

The specific objectives are to:

(i) ascertain the composite and relative impacts of managerial factors

of (corporate governance, decentralized system of administration, work design, leadership styles and decision making process on effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in Ogun State;

(ii) determine if decision making process and time management have any impact on the effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in Ogun state;

(iii)ascertain the impact of management strategies of principal officers on effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in OgunState;

(iv)make appropriate recommendations on how to sustain effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in OgunState.

Research Questions

This study was guided by three research questions. These were designed to measure the impact of the factors of the independent variables as predictors on the dependent variables.

1. What are the composite and relative impacts of managerial

factors on effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in OgunState?

2. Do time management and decision-making process have any

impact on effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in OgunState?

3. Do management strategies of principal officers of the institution

have any impact on effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in OgunState?

Methodology

The descriptive research design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of the workers and students in OlabisiOnabanjoUniversity. These were members of academic staff, non-teaching staff and students estimated at three thousand, three hundred and fifty-eight (3,358) participants. The multi-stage sampling procedures of clustered, stratified and purposive sampling techniques were adopted to select 50% (1,678) of the participants for the study (see tables I & II.

Table I: Summary of Staff Population and Sample Selection

Table II: Summary of Students’ Executive Population and Sample Selection

Instrumentation

Two main instruments were used for data collection namely “Predictors of Management Effectiveness Scale (PMES) and Institutional Management Effectiveness Scale (IMES). The “PMES” contained two sections “A” and “B”. section ‘A’ provided data on the demographic information of participants while section “B” contained 49 question items. It was drawn on a four point rating scale of strongly Agree (4), Agree (3), Disagree (2), and strong Disagree (1). This same scale was also applicable for the “IMES” except that the section “B” contained 28 question items that provided data for the measurement of the variables as contained in the study. Using the Cronbach alpha, a reliability co-efficient of .86 and .78 were established for “PMES” and “IMES” respectively after 50 copies of the two sets of questionnaire were pilot tested on similar respondents from similar institution. The data collected were analyzed using analysis of variance, and multi regression at 0.05 alpha level.

Results and Discussion

The demographic data as analysed using frequency count and percentage showed that male (1,059), 66.8% and female (531), 33.2% participated in the study. Most of the participants were within the age group of 26-35years (28.8%) and 669 (41.8%) were married. The holders of the General certificate of Education accounted for the highest (40.7%) among the distribution on highest education qualification of the respondents. Majority of the participants have spent between 2-10 years in the University system either as worker of students.

Analysis of Research Questions

Research Question One

What are the composite and relative impacts of managerial factors on effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution in OgunState?

Results

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis (MRA) provided the information needed to answer the question. The combined and relative impacts of the independent variables (corporate governance, decentralized system of administration, effective decision making process, participatory leadership style and flexible work design) on dependent variable (effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution) were obtained by regressing the dependent variable on the independent variables. Tables IIIa, IIIb, and IIIc present the results.

Table IIIa: Composite Impact of Managerial Factors on Multi-

Campus Tertiary Institution.

*Significant at P <0.05

Table IIIb: ANOVA test on the Composite Impact of Managerial

Factors on Multi-Campus Tertiary Institution.

*Significant at P <0.05

Table IIIc: Relative Contribution of Managerial Factors on Multi-

Campus Tertiary Institution.

*Significant at P <0.05

Interpretation and Discussions

The results shown in tables IIIa, and IIIb depict that significant composite impact existed. This is on account that with F(1,599)=50.49 at P<0.05, managerial factors had joint significant impact on effective operation of multi-campus tertiary institution. In other words, with an F-value 50.479 which is greater than the P value, it is of empirically established that, managerial factors had a joint impact on effective operation of a multi-campus tertiary institution. This is also explained by the Adj R2 value of 0.30 which when multiplied by 100 shows the total percentage contribution of all the independent variables to the variance of the dependent variable, that is 30.0% which is significant at p<0.05.

Table IIIc is explained below by learner regression equation, which Adesoji (2006) notes is synonymous with equation of a straight line thus.

Y=78.27+ 6.3X1 + 3.5X2 + 2.9X3 + 1.6X4 + 3.0X5

Where Y = Effective operation of multi-campus tertiary institution.

(dependent variable)

X1= Corporate Governance

X2= Decentralised System of Administration

X3= Effective Decision Making Process.

X4= Participatory Leadership Style.

X5= Flexible Work Design.

It is then obvious that all the five independent variables have significant t-values. Moreover, from table IIIc, it is also evident that managerial factors contributed significantly to the effective operation of multi-campus tertiary institution as all the five managerial variants contributed significantly to the achievement of the dependent variable (effective operation of multi-campus university system).

Given the order of hierarchical relative impact, it is evident from table IIIc that: corporate governance (Beta= .271; P<0.05); decentralized system of administration (Beta=.142; P<0.05); flexible work design (Beta=.119; P<0.05); effective decision making process (Beta=.166; P<0.005); and participatory leadership (Beta=.060; P<0.005) all contributed significantly to the effective operation of multi-campus university system.

From the results presented in tables IIIa, IIIb, and IIIc, it is empirically clear that the impact of managerial factors on multi-campus university system was significant. The result thus support the submission of Fiedlers’ (1965) research who established that, there are three critical dimensions of management that help to determine which approach of management best operate in a situation of complex organizational variants. These three critical dimensions are: position-power, task structure, and leader or manager-member relations. All these according to Fiedler are situational and classical oriented to management effectiveness. In other words, managerial factors are based on a cause-effect dependent. In that case, Wiehrich and Koontz (2005) maintained that managerial practices depend on the prevailing circumstances or situation. Obviously, management cannot be that mathematic or scientific without variants to human behavioural dispositions which are not specific but dynamic.