BUREAUCRATIC ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND INTERACTIONAL JUSTICE AS PREDICTORS OF LECTURERS’ JOB COMMITMENT IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH EAST, NIGERIA

Prof. Emenike Obi & Ezechukwu, Oluchukwu Charity
Department of Educational Management and Policy
Faculty of Education,
Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka

Abstract

The study investigated bureaucratic organizational culture and interactional justice as predictors of lecturers’ job commitment in colleges of education in South East, Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions and null hypotheses which were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a correlational research design. The population of the study comprised all the 3,072 lecturers in all the five State and four Federal Government-owned Colleges of Education in South East, Nigeria. A sample size of 519 lecturers was drawn for the study using multistage sampling procedure involving simple random and proportionate sampling techniques. A researcher developed questionnaires titled ‘‘Bureaucratic Organizational Culture Scale (BOCS)’’, ‘‘Interactional Justice Scale (IJS)’’ and ‘‘Lecturers Job Commitment Scale (LJCS)’’ were used for data collection. The instruments were validated by three experts, two from the Department of Educational Management and Policy, and one from the Department of Educational Foundations, Nnamdi Azikiwe University. Cronbach alpha was used for a test of internal consistency of the instrument and it yielded overall reliability co-efficients of 0.81, 0.79 and 0.80 for BOCS, IJS and LJCS respectively. The researcher together with five research assistants collected data for the study using the direct approach method and 97% return was recorded. Simple regression was used to answer the research questions and hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed among others that bureaucratic culture is a moderate predictor of lecturers’ job commitment in Colleges of Education in South East, Nigeria. It was also found out that interactional justice is a strong predictor of lecturers’ job commitment in Colleges of Education in South East, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that National Commissions for Colleges of Education should organize annual training programmes on management of bureaucratic cultures for provosts to equip them with skills and knowledge of modifying the culture in such a way to improve the job commitment of lecturers.

Key words: Bureaucratic Culture, Interactional Justice, Lecturers, Job Commitment