Employee Participation and Organizational Performance in an Emerging Economy

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I. Introduction
The 21st century business environment is fast paced and dynamic.Organizations are under pressure due to stiff competition which means that they must come up with strategies that will give them a competitive edge, employee participation in decision making is one of such strategies.Employee participation refers to mental and emotional involvement of persons in a group with situations that encourage them to contribute to goals and share responsibility for them (Davis, 1981).Participation of employee describes the involvement of employee in decision making which is concerned with shared decision making in the work situation [Mitchell, 1973].Employee participation is the feelings and beliefs that largely determine how employees perceive their environment, commit themselves to intended actions, and ultimately behave in the work place.One of the main priorities of any organization is the attainment of high level of performance through productivity and efficiency.To attain this, highly satisfied work force needs to be put in place.A satisfied worker tends to extend more efforts to his job and one sure way of ensuring workers satisfaction is by allowing them participate in decision making within the organization.
Organisation is an identifiable societal entity whose members pursue multiple goals which is done side by side with their personal goals and aspirations through their coordinated activities and relationships.An organization exists to provide goods and services that people desire, these goods and services are the products of the behaviours of workers who occupy different level of the organizational structure.There is no gainsaying that some workers pay less attention to their work primarily because it is 'government business' and whatever happens, they will get paid at the end of the month, studies have shown that employees who behave this way are not particularly lazy (Rashid,Sambarivan, &Johari, 2003;Ho & Wu, 2006) but there are lots of factors responsible for their actions.
Emperical researches into the relationship between employee participation in decision making and organizational performance have received robust attention.However, most of the studies have been done in the USA and Europe (Bartel, Freeman, Ichniowski & Morris, 2011;Saari & Judge, 2004).This study is designed to fill this research gap in Nigeria, particularly in the public sector with the following objectives: 1.To find out the effect of employee empowerment in decision making on organizational performance.2. To examine the effects of employee involvement in decision making on organizational performance.3. To examine the effects of employee engagement in decision making on organizational performance.

Employee Participation
Employee Participation is generally defined as a process in which influence is shared among individuals who are otherwise hierarchically unequal (Locke and Schweiger, 1979;Wagner, 1994).Participatory management practice balances the involvement of managers and their subordinates in information processing, decision making and problem solving endeavors (Wagner, 1994).Most times, customers are given more priorities in an organization over the employees (Oyenuga, Andah, Marcus and Agabi,2019) whereas employees are also supposed to be allowed to take active part within an organization.
Employee participation is a process of employee involvement designed to provide employees with the opportunity to influence and where appropriate, take part in decision making on matters which affect them (Delery & Shaw, 2001).Participation can include representative participation, direct communication, and upward problem solving Gill (2009).Dimensions of participation include giving employees an opportunity to achieve their goals, seeking ideas among the employees and assigning responsibilities to employees (Gibson, 2004)

Employee Involvement
Employee involvement can be defined as the direct participation of staff to help an organization fulfill its mission and meet its objectives by applying their own ideas, expertise, and efforts towards solving problems and making decisions Gill (2009).It is a special form of delegation in which the subordinates gain greater control and greater freedom of choice (Noah, 2008).
Employee involvement is based upon the recognition that the success of any organization is determined to a significant extent by the contribution of its employees.Employee involvement programs therefore seek to facilitate the involvement of employees in the company (Nuhn and Wald, 2016;Sender et. Al 2021).The degree of involvement can either be high or low.A high degree of involvement will have all categories of employees being involved in the planning process while a low degree shows there is selectivity (Noah, 2008).
Forms of employee involvement can be classified as direct and indirect.Direct involvement involves immediate personal involvement, while indirect involvement involves some sort of employee representation Ojokuku(2014).Common forms of direct employee involvement include team briefings, suggestion schemes, job enrichment, job design, autonomous working groups, and quality of working life programs and attitude surveys while indirect forms of participation include works councils, quality circles, board representation, involvement groups and task forces.

Employee Engagement
Employee engagement has become a widely used and popular term (Robinson et al., 2004).However, most of what has been written about employee engagement can be found in practitioner journals where it has its basis in practice rather than theory and empirical research.As noted by Robinson et al. (2004), there has been surprisingly little academic and empirical research on a topic that has become so popular.As a result, employee engagement has the appearance of being somewhat faddish or what some might call, "old wine in a new bottle."To make matters worse, employee engagement has been defined in many different ways (Sowe and Arslan, 2022) and the definitions and measures often sound like other better known and established constructs like organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (Robinson et al.,2004).
Most often it has been defined as emotional and intellectual commitment to the organization (Baumruk, 2004;Richman, 2006;Shaw, 2005) or the amount of discretionary effort exhibited by employees in their jobs (Frank et al., 2004).Kahn (1990Kahn ( , 1992) ) defines personal engagement as the harnessing of organization members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances whereby they have to be psychologically present.Rothbard (2001) also defines engagement as psychological presence but goes further to state that it involves two critical components: attention and absorption.Attention refers to "cognitive availability and the amount of time one spends thinking about a role" while absorption "means being engrossed in a role and refers to the intensity of one's focus on a role."

Employee Empowerment
Thomas and Velthouse (1990) stated that empowerment is a multidimensional concept.It is defined as increased task motivation and manifested in a set of four conditions: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact (Spreitzer,1995).
Meaning is the value of a work goal or purpose, judged in relation to an individual's own ideal or standards (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990).Competence or self efficacy is an individual's belief in his or her capability to perform activities with skill.Self determination is an individual sense of choice in initiating and regulating actions (Deci, Connell and Ryan, 2005), it reflects autonomy in the initiation and continuation of work behaviours.Impact is the degree to which an individual can influence strategic, administrative or operating outcomes at work (Ashforth, 2001).The four dimensions combine additively to create an overall construct of psychological empowerment.The lack of any single dimension will deflate, though not completely eliminate, the overall degree of felt empowerment (Amal, Muljadi, Puspo and Leny 2022).

Organizational Performance
The concept of organizational performance or effectiveness holds a central position (Nduji et. al 2023) in the management of private and public organizations as well as in the field of organizational research.Over the last decades, concerns for efficiency, productivity, excellence and total quality have become increasingly widespread in Western organizations (Lewin & Minton, 1996).These concerns are often motivated by the perception of threats to the durability of the organization which in turn affects employee performance (Bobby, Dewi, and Ocdy 2022).However, the concept of organizational performance is too often restricted to its financial facet Omale et. al.2022).As a matter of fact, most evaluations of organizational performance are based on indicators such as return on investments, sales, profit per share (Morin, 1999).Nevertheless, an organization has many other facets; among them are the people who work for it, the processes they use to achieve its objectives, and the environment in which the organization evolves (Omale et. al 2021) Consequently, one would expect that the organizational performance assessment would take these other dimensions into account.Unfortunately, this is not often the case.In this paper, we argue that the restriction of the concept of organizational performance to its financial dimension could lead to the loss of meaning at work through the kind of management practices that derive from this restricted perspective (Daula et.al.2006;Jones 2013;Ndonye 2022).

Theoretical frame work a. Kanter's Theory of Employee Empowerment.
Kanter believes that a leader's power will grow by sharing the power through empowering others and as a result, leaders will realize increased organizational performance.Furthermore, Kanter posits that with tools, information, and support, people's skill base will improve, they will increasingly make informed decisions and overall accomplish more, thereby benefiting the organization as a whole.
According to Kanter, two systemic sources of power exist in organizations, these being formal and informal power.Formal power is that which accompanies high visibility jobs and requires a primary focus on independent decision making.Informal power comes from building relationships and alliances with peers and colleagues (Wagner et al., 2010).The six conditions required for empowerment to take place according to Kanter include: 1. Opportunity for advancement 2. Access to information 3. Access to support 4. Access to resources 5. Formal Power 6. Informal Power These six conditions are what many organizational behaviorists have based their work and studies on.The basis of structural empowerment and psychological empowerment is derived from Kanters work in the 1970's.They are identified as distinct sources of organizational power (Wagner et al., 2010).
By providing these conditions to employees, it has been found that there is increased job satisfaction, commitment, trust and a marked decrease in job burnout.Kantor's theory has proven to have measurable impact on both employee empowerment and job satisfaction as well as organizational morale and success, especially in healthcare settings (Wagner et al., 2010).It has also been noted that retention rates of healthcare professionals improve when empowerment principles such as decreased work pressure, greater peer cohesion, support from supervisors, and staff autonomy are put in place.

III. Research Methods
This study adopted cross-sectional research design.The total population for the study is 862 respondents, ranging across senior, middle, and junior level staff of the head of civil service in Abuja, Nigeria while the total sample size of this study was 400 derived using Taro Yamani's formula.
Data was collected from primary source using questionnaires.Questionnaires administered to employees of the office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federal Republic of Nigeria based on drop and pick later basis.The questionnaire is divided into three main parts.The first part is designed to collect demographic information from respondents.The second part is designed to collect information about the measures of employee participation.The third part is designed to collect information about measures of organizational performance.The questionnaire was close ended, adapted from LeVar (1998) and was designed using the 5-point Likert Scale design.
A descriptive analysis was carried out for demographic information collected through statistical measures such as percentages and frequencies.Linear regression was used to analyze the effect of employee participation on organizational performance using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences).

Data Presentation and Analysis a. Response Rate
The study targeted a sample size of 400 respondents.Out of all the issued questionnaires, only 216 were duly filled and returned.The researcher only considered the dully filled questionnaires for analysis.This accounted for approximately 54% response rate thus ideal for the study analysis to progress.The response rate is represented on In respect of questionnaire items on employee empowerment, the findings on Table 2 show that the respondents indicated that they "strongly agreed" that they feel valued within the organization and that there is a more positive approach towards implementation of policies and supporting colleagues in their work with a mean of 4.27 and 4.13 respectively and standard deviation of 1.02 and 1.16 respectively.In addition, the respondents revealed that they "agree" that they have a great sense of importance achievement in their workplace with a mean and standard deviation of 4.04 and 1.17 respectively.In respect of questionnaire items on employee involvement, the findings on Table 2 show that the respondents indicated that they "strongly agreed" that they fully contributing to strategic and operational planning with a mean and standard deviation of 4.13 and 1.03 respectively.Also, the respondents indicated that they "strongly agreed" that the decisions in their department are made through consultation with members of the department, with a mean and standard deviation of 4.15 and 1.16 respectively.Moreover, the respondents revealed that they "agree" that they are given the opportunity to solve problems connected with their work, with a mean and standard deviation of 4.07 and 1.15 respectively.
In respect of questionnaire items on employee engagement, the findings on Table 2 show that the respondents indicated that they "strongly agreed" that they he trade agreement between them and their employer is always taken into cognizance with a mean and standard deviation of 4.27 and 1.14 respectively.Similarly, the respondents specified that they "strongly agreed" that engagement on disputes leads to formulation of more fair policies for employees with a mean and standard deviation of 4.20 and 0.94 respectively.Likewise, they "strongly agreed" the duty and function to their union is properly acknowledged by their organization with a mean and standard deviation of 4.15 and 1.11 respectively.
In respect of questionnaire items on organizational performance, the findings on Table 2 show that the respondents indicated that they "strongly agreed" that the current way the organization allocates resources is effective with a mean and standard deviation of 4.31 and 1.07 respectively.Similarly, the respondents specified that they "strongly agreed" that the organization meets its annual targets in terms of profit with a mean and standard deviation of 4.16 and 1.07 respectively.However, the respondents indicated that "agreed" the daily objectives of the organization will ultimately lead to the achievement of its goal in the longrun with a mean and standard deviation of 3.87 and 1.17 respectively.

b. Data Analysis
The data collected was further subjected to simple regression analysis in order to test the hypothesis generated.The tables below show the results of the regression analysis between the independent and dependent variable.

c. Test of hypotheses
Hypothesis One.Employee empowerment does not have significant effect on organizational performance.The study conducted a regression analysis to establish the direction of the relationship between the independent and dependent variable.Table 3 shows the model summary which shows that the R 2 is 0.518 which means that 51.8% of variation in organizational performance is due to employee empowerment as an aspect of employee participation.  4 shows the ANOVA results of the linear regression analysis.The findings show that the significance level is < 0.005 (p = 0.000).This finding implies that the regression model is significant in explaining change in the study dependent variable.The regression coefficients show the size of the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable.Table 5 shows that an increase in employee empowerment leads to an increase in organizational performance in the office of the head of civil service of the federal republic of Nigeria.The findings further revealed that employee empowerment (β = 0.281, p < 0.005) had effect on organizational performance.The proposed regression model thus becomes: Y = 2.826+ 0.281X1 +ɛ Hypothesis Two: Employee involvement does not have significant effect on organizational performance.The study conducted a regression analysis to establish the direction of the relationship between the independent and dependent variable.Table 6 shows the model summary which shows that the R 2 is 0.569 which means that 56.9% of variation in organizational performance is due to employee involvement as an aspect of employee participation.7 shows the ANOVA results of the linear regression analysis.The findings show that the significance level is < 0.005 (p = 0.000).This finding implies that the regression model is significant in explaining change in the study dependent variable.The regression coefficients show the size of the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable.Table 8 shows that an increase in employee involvement leads to an increase in organizational performance in the office of the head of civil service of the federal republic of Nigeria.The findings further revealed that employee involvement (β = 0.258, p < 0.005) had effect on organizational performance.The proposed regression model thus becomes: Y = 2.976+ 0.258X1 +ɛ Hypothesis Three.Employee engagement does not have significant effect on organizational performance The study conducted a regression analysis to establish the direction of the relationship between the independent and dependent variable.Table 9 shows the model summary which shows that the R 2 is 0.446 which means that 44.6% of variation in organizational performance is due to employee engagement as an aspect of employee participation.10 shows the ANOVA results of the linear regression analysis.The findings show that the significance level is < 0.005 (p = 0.000).This finding implies that the regression model is significant in explaining change in the study dependent variable.The regression coefficients show the size of the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable.Table 11 shows that an increase in employee engagement leads to an increase in organizational performance in the office of the head of civil service of the federal republic of Nigeria.The findings further revealed that employee engagement (β = 0. 694, p < 0.005) had effect on organizational performance.The proposed regression model thus becomes: Y = 1.255+ 0. 694X1 +ɛ

IV. Discussion
Research objective one was to examine the effect of employee empowerment in decision making on organizational performance.The result of hypothesis one confirms that there is a positive effect of employee empowerment on organizational performance in the office of the head of civil service of the federal republic of Nigeria.The research findings gave answer to the research question and the alternative hypothesis one which stated that there is a significant effect of employee empowerment on organizational performance was accepted.The results may be explained by the fact employee empowerment which is an increased task motivation and manifested in meaning, competence, self-determination and impact (Spreitzer, 1995).Meaning involves a fit between the requirements of a work role and beliefs, values, and behaviours (Hackman and Oldham, 1994).Competence or self-efficacy is an individual's belief in his or her capability to perform activities with skill.Competence is analogous to agency beliefs, personal mastery, or effort performance expectancy (Bandura, 2003).Self-determination is an individual sense of choice in initiating and regulating actions.When these four dimensions are allowed to manifest in an employee, such employee performance could increase.It is based on the idea that giving employees skills, resources, authority, opportunity, motivation as well as holding them responsible and accountable for outcomes of their actions, will contribute to their competence and satisfaction.
Performance management is linked to employee empowerment in two ways; first, through goal setting.The more an employee understands his or her job, and how the job contributes to the overall organization, the better they will be able to make informed and expert decisions on their own.Employee empowerment requires this clarity, or the decisions that get made will often be the wrong ones.Second, empowerment implies accountability, along with the freedom to make decisions.One of the studies that provide direct support for the relationship between empowerment and firm performance is provided by Hechanova, Regina, Alampay, Ramon and Edna (2006).
Research objective two was to examine the effects of employee involvement in decision making on organizational performance.The result of hypothesis two confirms that there is a positive effect of employee involvement on organizational performance in the office of the head of civil service of the federal republic of Nigeria.This result could be explained by the fact that employee involvement is based upon the recognition that the success of any organization is determined to a significant extent by the contribution of its employees.Employee involvement programs therefore seek to facilitate the involvement (or participation) of employees in the company.The degree of involvement can either be high or low.A high degree of involvement will have all categories of employees being involved in the planning process while a low degree shows there is selectivity (Noah, 2008).Employees will happily get involved if they believe that there is true chance of their future growth.Recent studies of job involvement show that such involvement enhances the individual's satisfaction, while at the same time increasing productivity for the organization.
Research objective three was to examine the effects of employee engagement in decision making on organizational performance.The result of hypothesis three confirms that there is a positive effect of employee engagement on organizational performance in the office of the head of civil service of the federal republic of Nigeria.This result demonstrates that employee engagement is an effective employee participation tools.Organizational achievement mainly rests on its well planned, formulated and executed employee engagement strategy.Employee engagement is rightly viewed as the main aspect of productivity.A fully engaged employee brings enthusiasm ( Omale et. al, 2023) and zeal to their work which is directly related to cohesive workplace culture and the extra efforts, better ideas and innovations that make organizations succeed.In recent years due to a slow economic recovery and uncertain economic conditions many organizations have limit their hiring processes, making employee engagement even more significant.Taking these things into consideration it is important to understand the culture, management and other factors that influence employee engagement.The importance of employee engagement is clear when looking at the differences in performance between work teams with high and low levels of employee engagement.The finding is supported by other studies such as Nasomboon (2014) who found a positive relationship between employee empowerment and performance.

Summary
The study sought to establish the effect of employee participation on organizational performance in the office of the head of civil service of the federal republic of Nigeria.Specifically the study was guided by the following objectives; (1) to ascertain the effect of employee empowerment on organizational performance; (2) to ascertain the effect of employee involvement on organizational performance; (3) to ascertain the effect of employee engagement on organizational performance.The study adopted survey research design.The data obtained was analyzed using quantitative analysis.Simple regression models were used to test whether employee empowerment, employee involvement and employee engagement have any influence on organizational performance.It was found that employee empowerment had a significant effect on organizational performance in that all the identified factors are predictors of organizational performance.It was also found that employee involvement had a significant effect on organizational performance.And lastly, it was found that employee engagement had a significant effect on organizational performance.

V. Conclusion
Confirming the argument of the findings of this study suggests that employee participation through employee empowerment, employee involvement and employee engagement is one significant human resource strategies should give attention to in order to enhance their organizational performance.The findings of this research support the findings of previous researchers.Further it can be concluded that effective employee participation is a tool to enhance organizational performance.This study elicits the key determinants of employee participation which can be nurtured by the government to better influence effectiveness in delivering quality services to its citizens.Hence this study widens the scope of identifying measures that will enhance quality services delivery like employee empowerment, employee involvement and employee engagement.

Recommendations
From this study's findings and conclusion, it is recommended that government should invest in Employee participation to realize better its goal of quality organizational performance.The model can be used by organizations management to focus on key aspects of Employee participation that could result in improved financial performance.
Recommendations have been made about measures that could be taken to improve the practice of employee participation in civil service in Nigeria in order to influence organizational performance in local governments effectively.The following may be noted: Government must intensify the use of employee participation as citizens have shown great interest and are highly influenced by employee participation activities such as employee empowerment, employee involvement and employee engagement should be carefully applied as it can increase organizational performance.
Employee should be given the ownership of the processes by considering their input in the decision making and handing them over the responsibility of achieving their work related targets.This would create a sense of accomplishment among them enhancing their motivation level at work.In order to have proper participation of employees it is imperative that their goals are aligned with the goals of the organization.

Suggestions for Future Study
Future researchers are suggested to increase the sample size variety for the purpose of the generalizing result to a wider population.Secondly, future researchers may further the scope to duplicate the study in different environment and different geographical locations.Different environment played a significant factor that influence respondents behavior.Thirdly, future researchers are suggested to use interview technique in doing research especially at the place where transactions happen.This will enable the researchers obtain an accurate information based on the respondents' fresh memory.Last but not least, this research has only examines three employee participation on organizational performance.Future researchers are suggested to determine other employee participation.

Table 1 Table 1 .
Response Rate

Table 2 .
Descriptive Statistics for Employee Empowerment, Employee Involvement, Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance

Table 3 .
Model Summary Employee Empowerment and Organizational Performance

Table 4 .
ANOVA a Employee Empowerment and Organizational Performance

Table 5 .
Coefficients a : Employee Empowerment and Organizational Performance

Table 6 .
Model Summary: Employee Involvement and Organizational Performance

Table 7 .
ANOVA a Employee Involvement and Organizational Performance

Table 8 .
Coefficients a Employee Involvement and Organizational Performance

Table 9 .
Model Summary: Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance

Table 10 .
ANOVA a Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance

Table 11 .
Coefficients a Employee Engagement and Organizational Performance