ABSTRACT
The level of
motivation received by an employee as reflected in the satisfaction with the
base pay package and other incentives goes a long way to influencing the
employees’ attitude to work, loyalty, performance and job satisfaction.
Employee’s motivation and organization performance has been investigated across
different fields and economic sectors. This study takes it further by examining
incentive package, employees and organization productivity in real estate firms
in Nigeria. Panel survey approach was adopted and three questionnaires
administered in each of the twenty five (25) staff of First Bank and Union Bank
both in Okigwe L.G.A of Imo State. Findings showed amongst others that there is
strong positive correlation between incentive and employee productivity,
employees are largely dissatisfied with the incentives offered by majority of
estate firms and that incentive package is not the most important determinants
of performance in real estate firms. The study therefore concludes that
employers in real estate firms pay attention to other factors identified and
review remuneration and incentive package to boost the morale of their
employees for better performance.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
OF STUDY
A suitable organizational structure
may assist the project management team to achieve high performance in the
project through gains in efficiency and effectiveness. Specific project
objectives are set to be achieved at the end of each project. The objectives
may vary from one project to the other. Time, cost and quality objectives are
however basic and common to almost all projects; they are discussed in the
success subject matter of most projects (Belassi and Tukel, 1996).
Crushed Rock Industries is a quarry
and construction with its headquarters Portharcourt, Rivers State. There are
about 20 departments ranging from human resource, training, various mining
sectors, processing, various engineering departments, projects etc. Even though
there is a project department not all the projects are handle by them, some are
by wholly contractors, others are handle through the corporate office, separate
task force are also set up to handle projects and the various department do
handle some of the projects internally. In addition to this the project
department itself have a structure supporting it, which mostly depend upon
other departments resources like equipment and expertise to execute its
projects hence there are scramble for resources, projects delay, overspending
on projects budgets and poor quality of works prevails (Asare,2010 ). In the
modern day and age, almost all products and services are based on the
combination of human know-how, statistics, software and hardware, which is a
blend that a single person cannot entirely grasp to help attain the production
thereof. Consequently, organizations in the form of specialists’ teams are
fashioned to compete in today’s cut-throat markets. Organizations intended to generate
goods and services, despite being old as the existence of humankind, need a
synchronized labour of many individuals to accomplish a set out objective/goal.
The philosophy of division of labour and specialization are basic to many
organizations in contemporary society as they were in antique.
1.2 STATEMENT
OF PROBLEM
Project performance can be affected
by a range of things; of these is the organisational structure of the business
(Paul, 2010). As mentioned, it has been observed that the most successful way
of exploiting a strategic opportunity or implementing a change in a company is
through a temporary process or structure i.e. a project team focused on the
project task and objectives in order to solve a problem or implement a new
strategy (Partington, 2000). Many organizations encounter a lot of challenges
in its projects implementations. It is faced with complex oganisational
structure, weak project structure, scramble for resources, projects delay,
overspending on projects budgets and poor quality of work prevails (Asare,
2010). Due to the above named challenges the study intend to investigate the
effect of organistional structure on its project performance with focus on
Crushed Rock Industries in Ishiagu because, organisations that manage multiple
projects at the same time requires to keep a good monitoring and controlling
project performance, and to create the best project governance structure
(Dinsmore and Cabanis-Brewin, 2006). Again many organisational flaws can be
related to an inappropriate structure chosen in order to reach a desired goal.
An appropriate structure is contingent upon both the type of work to be
performed as well as the environment in which the organisation conducts
business (Bolman & Deal, 1997).
Different structures provide different
strengths and weaknesses to the work to be performed and it is therefore
important to find a structure suitable for the desired outcome on stability and
predictability (Mintzberg, 1983).
1.3 OBJECTIVES
OF THE STUDY
The main of objective of
this study is to investigate the influence of organizational structure in its
project performance with Crushed Rock Construction Company, Ishiagu, Ebonyi
State as a study. The specific objectives include to:
1.
Determine
the basis of the organisational structure put in place for projects in the
study area.
2.
Measure
the performance of the project key performance indicators (KPI’s) at the study
area.
3.
Identify
the problems of implementing projects at Crushed Rock.
4.
Examine
the relationship between organisational structure and the performance of a
project in Crushed Rock.
1.4 RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
1.
What
is the basis of the structure put in place for projects in Crushed Rock?
2.
What
is the measure of performance of the key project indicators at Crushed Rock?
3.
What
are the problems of implementing projects at the study area?
4.
What
is the relationship between organisational structure and performance of a
project in Crushed Rock?
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY
This research will personally help me
to broaden my knowledge on organisational structure and project performance. It
will also give Crushed Rock Construction Company management, the Government of
Ghana and other stakeholders the relevant literature in reviewing the
performance of projects in Crushed Rock Construction Company. Since to the best
of my knowledge, no known investigative work has been done and documented in
this area, it will add knowledge and scholarly literature to academic
institution such as KNUST, the mining sector and other institutions worldwide
by serving as a source of reference.
1.6 SCOPE
OF STUDY
This
thesis was a case study based on Crushed Rock Construction Company. Numerous
are the factors that affect project performance, although project performance
is influenced by several factors as stated by Blismas et al., (2004),
the focus here is on the effect emanating from oganisational structure. Project
performance is considered in the context of achievement of a project’s Time,
Quality and Cost objectives; it does not include other emerging performance
metrics used in the measurement of project performance.
1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Organizational
structure: Is the formal system of task and authority
relationships that guides how people are to cooperate and use resources to
attain organisational goals.
Decision-making:
This
is the process of arriving at a viable choice(s) among alternatives available.
The process comes up with the best choice for adoption, and that which can best
steer the projects’ performance to the desired outcome.
Organizational
size:
This refers to the expanse or the geographical coverage of an organization.
Project
performance: As used in this research, refers to
the ability of an organization to deliver the mandate bestowed upon it. That
is, the deliverability of an organization.