THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY (A CASE STUDY OF IBOM MERIDIAN HOTEL AND GULF RESORT, UYO, AKWA IBOM STATE)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Every Organization, sect, household and business needs proper management to ensure smooth running of such Organizational set up. Any institution that is not properly managed, planned and controlled cannot achieve success. In a nutshell, good management needs to be established. Human, material and financial resources must be present to achieve managerial goals and objectives. If proper manpower budget is not well planned, the Organization would be faced with high risk of failure. Cole (2009) posits that Human resources planning are not just a number game, even though labour statistics are an important element in it. Human resource planning is as much, if not more, concerned with the quality of personnel and with their deployment throughout the Organization. Maxwell (2007) posits that managers should stop trying to grow Organization but rather work on people’s attitudes. If that is done, organizations will experience 10% growth overnight. In an Organization, people are the most difficult resources to be managed. With this reason, correct care must be established in choosing personnel to man sensitive positions among a company. Most Organizations in Nigeria especially in Public Sector, to achieve managerial success need set up an administrative department so as to have a proper coordination of the activities. An administrative office need plan to source for its manpower. The idea of selecting staff to man and occupy positions in most Organizations like the public sector is known as recruitment and appointment. Administrative functions also include discipline, promotion, training and the rest to achieve set targets. A housewife who plans her day to day domestic functions like getting the home tidied up, getting meals prepared at appropriate time, getting the children ready for school, ensuring that they are performing greatly in their academics and setting some control measures is already carrying out management act. There's a protracted standing concern that the strategy literature wants a more robust understanding of however structure structure and decision-making have an effect on structure performance. This concern goes back to what Cyert and March (2013), United Nations agency used the subsequent queries in motivating their theoretical enterprise: “What happens to information because it is processed through the organization?  What predictable screening biases are there in an organization? How do hierarchical groups make decisions?” But with a few exceptions, questions of this sort remain mostly unexplored in the strategy literature. This lack of knowledge regarding how decision making structure affects organizational performance continually resurfaces in different areas of management—for example, in the context of ambidextrous organizations, Raisch and Birkinshaw (2008) note that “far less research has traditionally been devoted to how organizations achieve organizational ambidexterity,” and in the context of Hotel organization, Argyres and Silverman (2004) show surprise “that so little research has addressed the issue of how organizational design affects the directions and impact of technological innovation by multidivisional firms.” These observations are congruent with the view that organization design—the field specifically devoted to studying the linkages between environment, organizational structure, and organizational outcomes—despite its long history, is in many respects an emerging field (Foss, 2011). Organizational structure is employed by numerous companies as an impression mechanism to have an effect on worker work outcomes, to make sure that the desired tasks square measure performed effectively and expeditiously, and to help the attainment of structure goals and objectives (Katsikea et al, 2011). Structure describes the inner characteristics of a company. These internal characteristics receive attention since they are critical to organizational failure and success (Zheng et al, 2010; Auh and Menguc, 2007), and one of these is organizational commitment. Organizational commitment will enhance the success of an organization by making employees dedicated to the achievement of its goals (Grawe et al., 2012). The success of any organization can be predicted by its success in raising and maintaining employees' commitment. High levels of commitment contribute to positive attitudes and behaviours in organizations (Srivastava, 2013). A review of the organizational structure and organizational commitment literature indicates that the vast majority of this literature is from western countries and aims to examine the direct relationship between them. Only a few studies compared the dimensions of organizational structure, and the levels of organizational commitment between different sectors or firms. Little effort was made to explore the relationships of organizational structure with work outcomes in Nigeria. This study will examine the effect of three dimensions (centralization, formalization, and standardization) of organizational structure on organizational efficiency.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The Hospitality industry like other industries in Nigeria is characterized with stiff competition and dynamic business strategies in the face of globalization which has exposed customers to highly differentiated products and services. Barney (2010) and others argues that organizational culture must be „valuable, rare, inimitable and not substitutable so as to serve a source of sustained competitive advantage. Pfeffer (2006) notes that many of the earlier identified sources of competitive advantage such as economies of scale, technological innovation, financial resources etc. have diminished in significance as a result of de-regulations, shorter product life cycles and need of flexibility in production as a result of more fragmented markets. Analysis and description of culture remains difficult as most management texts provide only superficial descriptions of culture. The problem of this research is to determine if the organizational design has an effect on organizational efficiency in the Hospitality industry with an aim of establishing if it can be further exploited and invested in by players in the Hospitality industry to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

1.3 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The major purpose of this study is to examine the influence of organizational design on the organizational efficiency. Other general objectives of the study are:

1. To examine organizational design of Ibom Meridian Hotel, Uyo.
2. To examine whether structure dimensions and organizational efficiency differ among employees working in public and private firms in Nigeria.
3. To examine the influence of organizational design on the organizational efficiency of Ibom Meridian Hotel, Uyo.
4. To examine the importance of organizational design in an organization.
5. To examine the relationship between organizational design and organizational efficiency.
6. To examine the role of organizational design in an organizations effectiveness improvement strategies.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How is the organizational design of Ibom Meridian Hotel, Uyo?
2. Does the structure dimensions and organizational efficiency differ among employees working in public and private firms in Nigeria?
3. What are the impacts of organizational design on the organizational efficiency of Ibom Meridian Hotel, Uyo?
4. What are the importance of organizational design in an organization?
5. What is the relationship between organizational design and organizational efficiency?
6. What is the role of organizational design in an organizations effectiveness improvement strategy?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

H01: There is no significant impact of organizational design on the organizational efficiency of Ibom Meridian Hotel, Uyo.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This research will personally help me to broaden knowledge on organisational structure and organizational efficiency. It will also give Ibom Meridian management, the Government of Nigeria and other stakeholders the relevant literature in reviewing the organizational design and efficiency of Ibom Meridian Hotel and Gulf Resort. Since to the best of my knowledge, no known investigative work has been done and documented in this area, it will add knowledge and scholarly literature to academic institutions, the Hospitality sector and other institutions worldwide by serving as a source of reference.

1.7    SCOPE OF THE STUDY 

The study is based on the influence of organizational design on the organizational efficiency, case study of Ibom Meridian Hotel, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

1.8 LIMITATION OF STUDY

Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Organizational Design: (James et al 2008) describes Organizational design as “the determination of the Organizational structure that is most appropriate for the strategy, people, technology, and tasks of the Organization”.

Organizational Efficiency: Is the organization's ability to implement its plans using the smallest possible expenditure of resources. It is an important factor in the firm's organizational effectiveness, this being the ease and degree of success with which the organization is able to accomplish its aims.

Management: The organization and coordination of the activities of a business in order to achieve defined objectives. Management is often included as a factor of production along with machines, materials, and money.