EMPLOYEE VOICE AND WORKERS’ COMMITMENT IN PRIVATE HOSPITALS IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

Bethkaribo, M.

Department of Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, Rivers State University,

Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Don-Baridam, L. Q.

Department of Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, Rivers State University,

Port Harcourt, Nigeria

and

Bekwe, H. G.

Department of Management, Faculty of Management Sciences, Rivers State University,

Port Harcourt, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The study examined the relationship between employee voice and workers Commitment in private hospitals in Rivers State, Nigeria an extant review of literature relevant to employee voice and workers’ commitment was ascertained. The literature highlighted the theoretical review, conceptual review, and empirical review. The study adopts a cross-sectional survey research design. The study population consist of three hundred and sixty (360) workers, obtained from the human resource departments of the twenty (20) private hospitals in Rivers State. A sample size of one hundred and eighty-six which was determined from the Krejice and Morgan (1970) table. After data cleaning, one hundred and seventy-seven (177) respondents were finally used for data analysis. The bivariate analysis was carried out to determine the strength and direction of the relationship between the dimensions of the employee voice and the measures of workers’ commitment with the use of Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient in order to test the stated hypotheses formulated for the study with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 26. The empirical findings revealed that there is a strong and positive relationship between employee voice and the measures of workers’ commitment in private hospitals in Rivers State, Nigeria, that were studied. The study concludes that, considering the acclaimed relevance of employee voice, with respect to employee performance, employers should wholeheartedly embrace employee voice systems and consciously encourage active involvement of employees, particularly those competent, knowledgeable and interested, in making decisions at work. The study recommends that management of private hospitals need to encourage employees’ participation in all aspects of decision making as a crucial determinant of employee functioning and job performance.

Keywords: Employee voice, employee commitment, affective commitment, normative continuance commitment, continuance commitment.