INFLUENCE OF INFORMAL GROUPS ON PRODUCTIVITY (A CASE STUDY OF UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA TEACHING HOSPITAL, ENUGU.)

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 THE BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

        The organization development is a vital exercise that must be carried out with a successful conclusion if technological bondage is to be avoided in the nation. In our society today there is need for adopting a creative approach for our technological take off. The reason is to encouraged employees to cultivate the ability of making maximum use of resource available to them, develop new ways of resources utilization that may come in the course of their job.

          Since Nigeria independence, the nation has gone through a gradual rise in the level of industrialization and the evolution of both small and complex organization. An organization as defined by Griffin (1984:86) is a combination of people, or human efforts, working in pursuit of certain common purposes called organization goals. It is any group of two or more people working to achieve a goal or goals.

Organization range from the small business units to the very large and complex corporate bodies. There are two groups the formal and informal groups.

The formal group come into being as a result of organizational hierarchy which defines expected relationships among its workers in most cases, a group of people come together and discuss about the problems of the company, individual problems and how the problems should be handled. Also, talk about those with different opinion from other and how such people should be treated or handled. Furthermore, this kind of group will usually have its mission or area of activity spelled out.

          Informal groups, on the other hand, Michael (1985:1990).develop in response to the needs of the people making up the group. As a result they do not have an explicitly stated set of goals nor are there institutionally defined in and position of authority. These aspects of an informal group develop as a result of group of individual with the same objectives. Hence, informal groups are not set up by the management of the organization but arise as a result of people with similar interest interacting and also as a result of friendship association. Most cases, group of people come together and discuss about the company’s problems, some individual problems and how they should be dealt with, does who have contrary opinion from others would be convinced, are forced to accept the opinion spell out by other members of the groups. 

          The above comment succinctly shows the existence of informal groups in an organization. These groups although not created by the management of the organization are very powerful and have considerable influence on individual members. Members are observed to be often committed to the achievement of the group objectives. These objectives of the informal groups sometimes go contrary with organizations objectives.

          Therefore it is very important for the management to be aware of the existence of these groups and understand how they work. Some managers fail to realize the fact that informal groups work under certain conditions which dominate the formal organization and neglect the efforts of management.

          Moreover, they can be pervasive with some managers themselves belonging to the informal groups. Depending on whether they are favourable or unfavourable, this may result to the increase or decrease in the productivity of the organization. Improper management of the informal groups may also lead to dissatisfaction of workers, absenteeism, personal turnovers, grievances and conflicts and these may adversely affect the stability of an organization.

          As a matter of fact, there are potential benefits to be tapped from the existence and activities of the informal groups. The management can only tap the benefits when it is willing to work with them effectively without engaging in measures to suppress the informal organization.

1.2 The Statement of Problem

Management of organizations have been trying to improve individual productivity through researches and product development, employment of high skilled and experienced workers. Despite these efforts, productivity is declining in a organization who is to be blamed is still declining or has remained low and unimpressive.

What is actually responsible for the continuous decline in productivity despite serious efforts by the management, who have control over these group is yet to be achieved from the above assertions, it become imperative or necessary to research and conduct an assessment on the influence of informal groups on organizational productivity.

Do informal group activities influence organization decision-making?

To provide answers to this problem motivated the researcher to carry out this project.

It become imperative or necessary to research and conduct an assessment on the influence of informal groups on organizational productivity.

1.3 The Objective of Study 

The objectives of this research are:

1.      To determine the effects of informal group activities on organization productivity.

2.      To find out the actual relationship between the informal groups and management in the organization.

3.      To discover the concern and contribution of informal groups towards the realization of the organizations objectives.

1.4 Research Questions

The researcher formulated under listed questions to provide a guide in the course of this research.

1.      To what extent do informal group activities affects organizational productivity?

2.      What is the actual relationship between  informal groups and management in the organization?

3.       To what extent informal group influence the organizational productivity?

4.      To what extent do informal group activities contribute to the realization of the organizational objectives?

1.5 Significance of the Study

        The existence of informal groups in organizations have negative or positive influence which may pronounced or silent but vital to the achievement of organizational objectives.

Understanding and controlling the informal group activities might become possible when an empirical study has been conducted and some facts about the relationship existing between these factors informal groups, formal groups and the management within an organization are revealed the identification of the needs of the individual workers will help the management to motivate the workers better for improved productivity.

          Thus, the research would be useful to organizations, academia and consultants to organizations. If also provide a platform for further work on the topic by other scholars.

1.6 Limitation of Study

          Research works are subject to one form of limitation or the other especially during a period of economic meltdown. Thus the researcher was financially constrained to elaborately, thus this research was limited to University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu.

During the course of the study, the respondents got a lot of information concealments.

          Equally time constraints affected the research considerably as the period was too short for submission of this research.

1.7      Scope of The Study

The scope of this study was limited to cover type of groups, reasons for joining groups, activities of informal groups informal group leadership roles, problems of informal groups and the effects on the productivity in the organization.

1.8      Definition of Special Terms

For easy understanding of this work the following technical terms are necessary to be interpreted by the researcher:

UNTH: University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital

WAEC: West African Examination Council

HND: Higher National Diploma

OND: Ordinary National Diploma

BSc: Bachelor Degree of Science