Exploring Work Motivation and Organizational Commitment on Work Effectiveness among Local Government Employees

This study examined work motivation and organizational commitment on work effectiveness among local government employees in Oyo State, Nigeria. The study adopted cross-sectional survey design while simple random sampling method was used to select eight local government areas across four zones in Oyo State. Data were collected using validated scales from 180 employees. Data were analyzed using t-test of independent samples and multiple regression analysis. The result showed that work motivation and organizational commitment jointly and independently predicted work effectiveness among


INTRODUCTION
Work effectiveness refers to the ability of workers to carry out the functions, tasks and plans of the organization as previously planned.By extension, worker effectiveness involves the physical and spiritual put in by employees to produce a desired result in their best possible way (Raja et al., 2020).It is associated with the ability to achieve set goals, which goes with the organizational goals.Management whether in business or bureaucratic organizations have always searched for factors that contribute to work effectiveness since their productivity and survival depend on their ability to implement programs that would enhance worker effectiveness.Even in the case of "domesticated organization" such as the local government administration where there is no competition for clients and where existence is guaranteed by laws, there is still a need to maintain efficiency and effectiveness (Chiu, 2018).
Some factors have been investigated as predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees.One factor considered in this study is work motivation which describes both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that make employees put in their best efforts to achieve organizational goals and objectives (Ndudi et al., 2023).Work motivation could be intrinsic in nature such as feeling of self-esteem, accomplishment, recognition, personal growth or extrinsic such as tangible or verbal rewards, pay, retirement benefits, healthcare plan, awards, respects and admiration of others as motivators to employees in the performance of their duties (Ackeman, 2021;Ndudi et al., 2023).Studies on work motivation and work effectiveness have been carried out using different populations and samples.For example, Fatehi et al. (2015) found work motivation to be a good predictor of work effectiveness and quality of life among sport coaches.Also, Almarshad (2015) revealed that work motivation contributed to employees' effectiveness leading to quality of work life among both public and private sector employees in Saudi Arabia.Other studies have equally reported similar findings (Kolawole et al., 2015;Onu et al., 2014;Yaghoubinia & Shahindokht, 2014).
The second factor considered to predict work effectiveness is organization commitment which is a multidimensional psychological state that defines an employee's relationship with the organization that has an implication on their decision to remain or leave the organization (Aidan, 2020).Organizational commitment consists of affective, continuance and normative commitment (Nizarwan& Fatwa, 2020).Affective commitment refers to employees' identification with, involvement in and emotional attachment to the organization.Continuance commitment refers to employees' awareness of the costs associated with leaving the organization (Nizarwan & Fatwa, 2020).Finally, normative commitment is employees' commitment to the organization based on a sense of obligation to the organization (Nizarwan & Fatwa, 2020).In order to demonstrate strong organizational commitment, studies have shown that employees must engaged in positive work behavior such as low levels of absenteeism, tardiness and turnover which results in organizational effectiveness (Aidan, 2020;Piotrowski et al., 2021;Soochang &Wooyeol, 2019).Some studies on the effects of organizational commitment and work effectiveness have been executed.For example, Jung et al. (2020) found organizational commitment to significantly predict employee effectiveness among their study participants.Similarly, Olaniran et al. (2016) found workers who were committed to their organizations to be among the top performers in their organization.Other studies have also revealed organizational commitment to be a significant predictor of workers' effectiveness across different populations and samples (Al-Jabari & Ghazzawi, 2019;Manzoor, 2012;Sabir et al., 2021).
Also, age is considered to influence work effectiveness.Results on the influence of age on work effectiveness are contradicting.Some studies have shown older employees coupled with experienced to perform some tasks more effectively than the younger employees (Igbolie et al., 2021;Umesi, 2021).Contradicting results have shown that employees who participated highly in organizational activities reported to be more effective employees than the less active participating employees (Umesi, 2021).
Finally, the work status of the employees is also considered to influence work effectiveness.The local government service has two types of work statuses.The Unified Staff who are those on grade level 07 and above whose promotion, advancement and discipline is the responsibility of the Local Government Service Commission.The Unified staff occupied the senior cadre in the administration of the local government affairs.The second group is the Junior Staff also called delegated staff are on Grade Level 06 and below and whose appointments, promotions and disciplines are the responsibility of the Local Government Council.These are the clerks, security personnel and other auxiliary staff in the local government offices.Amegayibor (2021) found work status to significantly influence employee effectiveness among owner-manager organizations in Ghana.Similarly, Ugwu and Ugwu (2017) found work status to significantly influence employee effectiveness among librarians in public universities in South-east Nigeria.
While in the developed and other developing countries, the local government level serves as the sole administrator for the grassroots in the provisions of the basic needs of the people, this cannot be said of other developing countries such as Nigeria.What occurred in the third tier of government demoralized civil servants who tend to lack motivation and effectiveness in the discharge of their organizational objectives.Studies that examined predictors of work effectiveness in the bureaucratic structures using different populations and samples have produced varied results which thus left gaps in knowledge that demand being filled.
Therefore, the main objective of this study was to explore work motivation and organizational commitment as predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees in Oyo State.The specific objectives of this study were to determine work motivation and organization commitment as predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees in Oyo State, Nigeria.Also, to establish whether age and work status would influence work effectiveness among study participants.
The study would bring fresh perspectives on work motivation and organizational commitment as predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees.Also, the results of this study would help local government administrators, planners and policy makers to put in place a robust reward system that would motivate employees to put in their best efforts to achieve organizational goals.It would also provide data for further studies.

LITERATURE REVIEW Hierarchy of Needs Theory
The theory was by Maslow (1954).The theory posits that human needs are arranged in hierarchy where the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, etc form the lowest needs and progresses to safety needs including work security to social need, sense of belonging needs then terminate in the self-actualization needs.Several studies have used the theory to explain human behavior with varying results (Taiwo et al., 2008).When applied to this study, the need to work progresses from the basic needs to that of selfactualization which takes life processes.While junior staff may not reach selfactualization, most workers are motivated to work to meet their basic needs.Maslow theory is relevant to the present study especially in Nigeria where workers are still battling with basic needs of life like food, clothing and shelter.
Hertzberg's Two-Factor Theory Closely related to Maslow theory is the twofactor theory by Fred Hertzberg who postulated that what motivates human being could be grouped into two factors: Hygiene factors (extrinsic job factors) or factors associated with the job's environment and motivating factors (intrinsic job condition) or factors associated with what the worker actually does.According to the theory, the hygiene factors are not motivators, they prevent dissatisfaction and they do not lead to satisfaction.The hygiene factors include company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relationships, work conditions etc. On the other hand, the motivators include work itself, responsibility, advancement, recognition and achievement and these are what motivate employees to contribute to the organization goals and objectives.This theory is relevant to this study since Hertzberg believes that if the task is well structured so that it becomes more exciting, meaningful, more challenging, and more intrinsically rewarding to the employee (job enrichment), then, there is tendency to become effective doing the work.

Expectancy Theory
The theory was propounded by Vroom and it has undergone several revisions (Wigfield et al., 2021).The theory states that the motivation to perform a particular behavior depends on a number of factors: whether the outcome of the behavior is desirable (valence), whether the individual has the ability, skill or energy to get the job done (expectancy), and whether the performance of the behavior would lead to expected outcome (instrumentality).Lloyd and Mertens (2018) explained how Vroom's theory has generated modern debates on employees' motivation and behaviors in both business and bureaucratic organizations.This theory is relevant to the present study since workers in the local government system feel cheated when compared with other employees or contemporaries either in the state or federal levels with the same educational qualifications and other attributes.

METHODOLOGY
The study adopted cross-sectional survey design while data were collected from study participants using validated questionnaires.The independent variables were demographic variables, work motivation and organizational commitment while the dependent variable was work effectiveness.
A formal letter of introduction was collected from the Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria to identify the researchers by the respective LGA authority for the permission to carry out the study.After the presentation of the letter, the researchers were allowed to meet with the potential participants who were briefed on the purpose of the study and their consent to participate were sought for.They were told that participation was voluntary and that they can decline to complete the questionnaire at any time.No financial incentive was given for participation.Potential participants who agreed to participate in the study were given the questionnaire to fill.It took less than 18 minutes to complete the questionnaire.A total of 186 questionnaires were administered across the eight LGAs and were collected on the spot.During data screening, six questionnaires were either halved or wrongly filled and were removed thus left with 180 that were used for the final analysis.
Simple random technique was used to select 8 out of 33 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Oyo State for the study.Convenience sampling was used to select participants for the distribution of the research questionnaires.
Three instruments were used to collect data in this study.Work Motivation was determined using a10-item Work Motivation Scale by Popoola (2005) using a 5-point Likert's format ranges from strongly agree to strongly disagree.Sample items are: "Local government deserves my loyalty" and "I do not feel like a part of a family in the local government".Popoola (2005) reported Cronbach's alpha of 0.82 and in this study, Cronbach's alpha was 0.81.
Organizational Commitment This was assessed using a 20-itemOrganizational Commitment Scale developed by Mowday et al. (1982).The scale is presented in 5-point Likert's format that ranges from strongly agree to strongly disagree.Sample items include: "I develop a new skill at work" and "I have sense of adequacy on the job".The authors reported Cronbach's alpha of 0.85 while in this study, Cronbach's alpha of 0.81 was calculated.
Work Effectiveness This was measured using a13-item Work Effectiveness Questionnaire developed by Akinfe (2002).The scale is presented on a 5-point Likert's format ranges from strongly disagree to strongly agree.Examples of items include: "I have a high manpower capacity" and"I always make use of effective delegation".Akinfe (2002) reported Cronbach's alpha of 0.85 while in the current study, Cronbach's alpha computed was 0.79.
SPSS version 23 was used for data analysis.Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis.Hypothesis 1 was tested using multiple regression analysis while hypotheses 2 and 3 were tested using t-test of independent samples.All the hypotheses were accepted at p< 0.05 level of significance.

Demographic data A total of 180 employees across the eight
LGAs participated in the study.Descriptive statistics revealed that 107(59%) of the participants were males while 73 (41%) were females.In terms of marital status, 106 (59%) were married, 69(38%) were singles while 5(3%) were separated.The result further showed that 79 (44%) of the participants were junior staff while 101 (56%) were unified staff.The educational qualifications of the participants indicated that 27(15%) were holders of West African School Certificates,35(19%) were holders of Ordinary National Diploma, 32(18%) were holders of National Certificate of Education (NCE), 68(38%) were BSC/HND graduates, 18(10%) were holders of Professional Certificates.H2: There would be a significant difference between age and work effectiveness among local government employees.The hypothesis was tested using t-test of independent samples and the result is presented in Table 3. H3: There would be a significant difference between work status and work effectiveness among local government employees.This was tested using t-test of independent sample means and the result is presented in Table 4.

DISCUSSION
The aim of this study was to explore work motivation and organization commitment as predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees in Oyo State, Nigeria.It also sought to establish the influence of demographic variables of age and work status on work effectiveness among study participants.Three hypotheses were tested and accepted at p < 0.05.
The hypothesis that work motivation and organizational commitment would jointly and independently predict work effectiveness among local government employees was supported.This result implies that workers who are motivated and are committed to their organizational goals would report higher work effectiveness as they would put every effort to make the organization viable and achieve the stated goals.This finding supported previous studies (Ackeman, 2021;Fatehi et al.,2015) that workers who are committed to their organizational goals would be motivated to work to achieve the goals of the organization.Also, the finding is in line with Kolawole et al. (2015).Ndudi et al. (2023) results that organization commitment significantly predicted work effectiveness among bank workers.Furthermore, Olabimitan et al. ( 2022) has also found support to the present study where they found work motivation among teachers lead to work effectiveness and satisfaction.Further support comes from extant study by Tella et al. (2007) who asserted that one way of motivating workers is to make them satisfied with initiatives to enhance their involvements and ownership in what they achieve.What this means is that the development of work effectiveness and reward management systems go a long way to stimulate commitment among employees in an organization.Finally, Oladunjoye (2002) had found motivation, commitment and work effectiveness to be significant predictors of work effectiveness.
The hypothesis that there would be a significant difference between age and work effectiveness among local government employees was confirmed.The result implies that work effectiveness of young staff would be different from work effectiveness of older staff.This finding supported previous results that age tends to be significant influence among employees effectiveness in different populations and samples (Matagi et al., 2022;Igbolie et al., 2021;Umesi, 2021).
Finally, the hypothesis that work status of the local government employees would significantly influence work effectiveness was confirmed.Employees in the higher management position (unified staff) tend to be more committed to the organization and therefore reported higher work effectiveness compared to the junior staff.This finding supported previous studies that work status significantly influenced work effectiveness in both bureaucratic and business organizations (Amegayibor, 2021;Ugwu & Ugwu, 2017).

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study sought to explore the predictive ability of work motivation and organizational commitment on work effectiveness among local government employees in Oyo State, Nigeria.Based on the findings of this study, the following conclusion was made: Work motivation and organizational commitment are excellent predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees in Oyo State.Also, age and job status were significant factors that influenced work effectiveness among local government employees.
This study found work motivation and organizational commitment as joint and independent predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees.It is recommended that local government administrators should introduce management by objective (MBO) which would lead to work effectiveness based on performance among the local government employees.Also, the finding that age and work status influenced work effectiveness among local government employees demand the administrators to pay attention to age and job specification of their employees in order to reduce redundancies and turnover of employees over time.

ADVANCED RESEARCH
Some of the limitations of this study need to be mentioned.The study used self-reported questionnaires to collect data from 274 local government employees which was not free of response bias and which would hinder generalization of study findings.Further studies should include focus group discussions with more participants from other local government areas in Oyo State.The independent variables studied were not exhaustive.Further studies should include social support, self-esteem and learned helplessness.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We sincerely thank all our participants for sparing us their valuable time to complete the research questionnaires for us.

Table 1 :
Zero-order Inter-correlation of the Study Variables

Table 2 :
Multiple Regression Analysis Showing Work Motivation and Organizational Commitment as Joint and Independent Predictors of Work Effectiveness among Local Government Employees Work effectiveness Table 2 shows multiple regression analysis of the joint and independent predictors of work effectiveness among local government employees.The result showed that work motivation and organizational commitment jointly predicted work effectiveness among local government employees [R 2 = .27,F(2,177) = 24.53,p <.05].This means that the independent variables accounted for 27% of the variance explained in the dependent variable: work effectiveness.The result further indicated that work motivation (ß = 0.785, t = 8.033, p <.05) and organizational commitment (ß = 0.163, t = 2.169, p <.05) independently predicted work effectiveness among local government employees in Oyo State.Based on this result, the hypothesis was accepted.

Table 3 .
T-test of Independent Sample Comparing Age and Work Effectiveness among Local Government Employees Employee effectiveness Table 3 shows t-test of independent samples for age and work effectiveness among local government employees.The result indicated a significant difference between age and work effectiveness among study participants [t(178) = 2.856, p < .05].Thus, the hypothesis was accepted.

Table 4 .
T-Test Comparing Work Status and Work Effectiveness among Local Work effectiveness Table 4 shows t-test of independent samples for work status and work effectiveness among local government employees.The result revealed work status significantly influenced work effectiveness among local government employees.The hypothesis was confirmed.