A study of cross-national and sub-cultural differences in job attitudes of Nigerian employees

This study reports the results of two studies that examined the influence of culture on job attitudes. It is postulated that organisational theories developed in advanced nations are not applicable in developing nations because of the variations among different countries in cultural values which the worker brings with him/her to the workplace and which consequently affect his orientations to work.

The first study which is exploratory in nature, focuses on cross-national differences using a sample of 31 British and 43 Nigerian subjects. The results provide evidence for cross-national differences in job attitudes. Content analyses of the critical incidents collected from the two national samples show that, the British subjects display a relationship of `motivator' and `hygiene' factors to `high' or 'low' job attitude which are compatible with the motivator-hygiene theory, whilst the same is less true of the Nigerian sample.

The second (main) study concentrates on job attitudes of Nigerian employees (N =350) and in particular, among the three sub-cultural groups dominating the entire population. Critical incident themes obtained among the Nigerian sample in the exploratory study are used to construct a questionnaire for the study. The results show that (i) job motivation in Nigeria is influenced by seven factors that showed some support for the components of some process and content theories; all but two of the seven factors appear to affect job motivation both positively and negatively and therefore contradicts

Herzberg position on the unilateral influences of motivational factors, (ii) there exists similar pattern of antecedents of organisational commitment between the Nigerian employees and their counterparts in other cultures. Across the three sub-cultural groups studied, the overall results seem to indicate that employees' cultural background has little impact on their perceptions of job motivation and commitment. However, a number of different organisational and personal variables were found to affect responses.

Taken together, the results of both studies indicate that job attitudes differ from one country to another due to cultural variations in frames of reference, orientations and values prevailing in different countries. However, employees' job attitudes do not significantly differ among various sub-cultural groups in a given country. Practical and research implications of the findings are discussed as well as directions for future research.