Workplace democracy and employee productivity in construction firms

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Abstract

The research looked at workplace democracy and employee productivity in a few construction enterprises in Edo State, Nigeria. The study’s population consisted of employees from four different construction enterprises in Edo State to meet the objectives. Yamane’s (1967) algorithm was used to generate a sample size of about 302 from the whole population, of which 261 were received but only 251 were legitimate, while 10 were rejected. A structured questionnaire that has undergone a reliability test was used to obtain the necessary information from the respondents. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to assess the information gathered from the respondents. The study discovered that the ideal workplace democracy feature that existed among the workforce of chosen construction enterprises in Edo State was justice. It also revealed that the workplace democracy characteristics of participation-criticism, transparency, and equality are negatively associated with employee productivity. Still, the justice and accountability dimensions are positively related to employee productivity. Concerning these findings, the study suggests that firms ensure that management is committed, visible, and accessible to employees at all levels, establish a grievance system through which employees can make complaints in a protected manner, and implement effective training programs to improve workplace democracy.

Keywords: Workplace Democracy, Organizational Democracy, Employee Productivity, Construction Firms, Organization, Justice, Edo State, Nigeria

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — W.O.O. and N.M.A.; Methodology — W.O.O., N.M.A., and P.E.E.; Investigation — W.O.O., N.M.A., and P.E.E.; Resources — W.O.O., N.M.A., P.E.E., O.E., S.O.A., F.O., and D.C.O.; Writing — W.O.O., N.M.A., and P.E.E.; Supervision — W.O.O., N.M.A., and P.E.E.; Funding Acquisition — W.O.O., N.M.A., P.E.E., O.E., and S.O.A.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: L22, L260, M16

Received: 19.03.2022
Accepted: 22.09.2022
Published online: 26.09.2022

How to cite this paper: Odiwo, W. O., Agol, N. M., Egielewa, P. E., Ebhote, O., Akhor, S. O., Ogbeide, F., & Ozuomode, D. C. (2022). Workplace democracy and employee productivity in construction firms. Corporate Governance and Organizational Behavior Review, 6(4), 43–56. https://doi.org/10.22495/cgobrv6i4p4