EMPLOYEES' PARTICIPATION IN DECISION-MARKING AND ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIAN PUBLIC HOSPITALS

Abstract

The involvement of employees in the decision making process in any organisations grants them some level of control in order to determine how they work and under what conditions they work. Thus, the goal of this study was to examine the influence of employees‘ participation on decision-making process and performance of two selected public hospitals in Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 350 respondents. 284 copies of questionnaire representing 81% were returned and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings showed that improvement in the performance of public hospitals is a function of employee involvement, consultation, delegation and joint decision-making. However, the significance level differs relatively as all the variables considerably influence the performance of the two public hospitals used. The study confirms that workers have a favourable disposition toward decision-making and desire to participate in management decision-making process anytime the opportunity arises. The study concludes that organisations will benefit more from their employees taking part in the decision-making process. It also recommends that more internal communications channels be established to facilitate better information flow and that, organisations should invest in the professional development of their employees so as to improve their ability to make sound decisions.