Job Characteristics and Employee Performance in Private Equity Firms in Kenya
Loading...
Date
2018
Authors
Ngari, Evelyne
Kilika, James M.
Muathe, Stephen M. A.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International Organization Of Scientific Research (IOSR)
Abstract
Organizations are always in pursuit of finding ways to enhance their performance. One of the ways is to enhance employee performance by incorporating job characteristics that contribute to employee motivation, satisfaction and commitment of the employees. The job characteristics necessary for better performance of employees are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of job characteristics on the performance of employees among Private Equity Firms in Nairobi City County in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to determine the effect of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback on the employee performance among private equity firms in Nairobi City County in Kenya. The theories used in the study were the Job Characteristics model, Herzberg’s two-factor theory and the Demand control model. The study adopted a descriptive research design and involved a census of all 210 employees in 25 different private equity firms in Nairobi City County in Kenya. Questionnaires were used for primary data collection. The data collection process took place between July and September, 2016. To ascertain the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, a pre-test and pilot survey was conducted on one of the private equity firms where the cut-off for Cronbach alpha was taken as a value of 0.7 and the aggregate alpha value in this study was 0.817. The quantitative data in the study was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive analysis comprising the means, frequencies, percentages and standard deviations while inferential statistics which included test of hypotheses using stepwise multiple regression. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used to conduct the analysis. Tables were used for ease presentation of the analysis. 116 questionnaires out of the 210 distributed were used for analysis, which is 55% of the total expected and was adequate for the study. From the findings, variety of skills, task identity, autonomy and feedback were found to affect the performance of employees. The study unveiled the significance of the relationship that exists between skill variety and employee performance with a P value of 0.005. Task identity was also found to be significant at a P value of 0.006 while was found to be significant at 0.028. Feedback was also found to be significant at a P value of 0.001. However, task significance did not significantly affect employee performance as it had a P value of 0.468. The study recommends job rotation in the Private Equity firms as this can increase the variety of skills that every employee possesses as a form of employee motivation. Recommendations were made for further research on the Organizational performance and the influence of demographic factors on employee performance.
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Autonomy, Employee Performance, Feedback, Skill Variety, Task Identity, Task Significance
Citation
IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM) Vol. 20, Issue 1. Ver. II (January. 2018), PP 60-70