Reward Systems and Organizational Performance of Public Universities in South-South, Nigeria

The study examined the effects of reward system on organizational performance of public universities in South-South, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to determine the extent to which dimensions of reward systems (employee salary increase and promotion) affect organizational performance. The study adopted the survey research design and data was collected by structured questionnaire using five point scales. The study population consist 2,133 academic staff of three (3) selected public universities from South-South, Nigeria. The unit of analysis was academic staff of the selected public universities and the Bowley’s proportional allocation formula was used to draw a sample size of 337 respondents. Two research hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05% level of significance. Data obtained were analyzed using descriptive statistics (simple percentages, frequency counts, mean and standard deviation and Pearson correlation), diagnostic statistics (variance inflation factor) and inferential statistics (simple regression). Findings indicated that employee salary increase (f-value = 10.69; prob-value = 0.0001 0.05) insignificantly affects performance of public universities in Nigeria. In view of the findings, there is the need for government and universities authorities to formulate and implement policies that are employee-driven and recognizes the peculiarities of academic staff in terms of their physical and psychological needs; this includes amongst others, giving academic staff authority to seamlessly undertake core academic and administrative activities within public universities devoid of government interference. However, the study established that when employees are adequately rewarded, the goals and objectives of the institutions can be realized and hence performance will be increased.