ABSTRACT

Organizations are commonly defined as instruments of propose. They are seen ascoordinated by intentions and goals. Organizational performances in this waytypically devote little attention to complications of using such formulation tocharacterize that the casual of performance phenomena. This study had concentratedon the effect of working environment on organizational performance of SME’s in Buea. The aims of the study are to examine the performances of the Organizations andthe most significant working factors that influence the performance of SME’s. The researcherhad analyzed three factors that influence organizational performance which is staffmotivation, training and skill, and management involvement.

A total of 40 questionnaires were distributed to 40 staffs at SME’s by hand and all 40 questionnaires were returned for analysis. The data had been analyzed by using Statistic Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Research findings revealed there was significant relationship between staff motivation, training and skill, and management involvement with organizational performance of SME’s. The multiple regression results had shown that the independent variable which is staff motivation, training and skill, and management involvement are a significant predictor for organizational performance of SME’s. Based on the findings, it was recommended that organizations should develop more actor influence organizational performance such as HRM practices and also can include performance measurement such as organization innovation.

Keywords: Working environment, Organizational performance, staff motivation, training and skills and management involvement.

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

• Background of the Study

Business organizations all over the world are environmentally dependent because they do not exist in a vacuum, and they depend on their environment for plethora of issues ranging from input resources such as information, ideas, raw materials, finance and labour among others, to the consumption of finished goods or services by the environment. Besides, their activities are also influenced and shaped by such environmental forces as social, economic, technological, competitive, and regulatory forces (Abdulsalam and Mustapha, 2013). To succeed and achieve organizational objectives, organizations adopt strategies that align them properly with operating socio-cultural factor, the aim of which is to avoid any mismatch between the organization and its environment. So, for business firms in general and small and medium scale enterprises particular to succeed in their operating environment, they need to formulate and adopt appropriate policies and marketing programmes (Abdulsalam and Mustapha, 2013).

Business operates in a more dynamic environment. The change in the environment has been rapid and unpredictable. Consumers and clients show complex behaviours both in local and international markets. The most dramatic change has been that exhibited by competitive pressures. Competitors have been applying one strategy or the other to adapt to the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the business environment (Adeoye and Elegunde, 2012). Currently, business environment is perceived to have been rarely exceeded in complexity, turbulence and rapid in change.

To understand organizational performance, one must know the elements inside and outside organizations known as Environmental factors. This refers to different forces or surroundings that affect business operations. Such forces include customers, competitors, suppliers, distributors, industry trends, substitutes, regulations, government activities, the economic, demographic and social and cultural factors. Others are innovations and technological steadfast and unchanging, it is change itself. Change is inevitable and those organizations unstable, with long-term survivability in question. There are things, events, or situations that occur that affect the way a business operates, either in a positive or negative way. These things, situations or events that occur affect the organizational performance in either a positive or negative ways are called driving forces or environmental factors.

Working environment plays an important role towards the organizational performance. Working environment is argued to impact immensely on organizational performance either towards negative or the positive outcomes (Chandrasekar2001).In the world, there are international organizations who debate the rights of employee. Most people spend fifty percent of their lives within indoor environments, which greatly influence their mental status, actions, abilities and performance (Dorgan, 1994). Better outcomes and increased productivity is assumed to be the result of better workplace environment. Better physical environment of office will boosts the employees and ultimately improve their productivity. Various literature pertain to the study of multiple offices and office buildings indicated that the factors such as dissatisfaction, cluttered
workplaces and the physical environment are playing a major role in the loss of
employees’ productivity (Carnevale 1992,Clements- Croome 1997)

Every organization should have a strategy, organizational strategy can be defined as the process or set of processes by which organizational goals and objectives are to be achieved. Organizational strategies are influenced by the feedback of the organizational various function and factor regarding the ability to provide the resources and inputs as well as produce the outcome necessary for the function that contribute to the attainment of the goals and objectives of the organization as a whole. That will be reflect the view of firm’s leader and also emerge from organizational culture (Bailey & Johnson, 1995: Lumpkin & Dess, 1995).

According to Paul & Anantharaman (2003) the most important of the organizational performance are to achieve higher performance or maximization of wealth for the shareholders. Performance also as the ability of an object to produce results in a determined a priority, in relations to a targets or goals (Laitinen, 2002).

Organizational performance includes strategic planning, operations, financial, legal, and organizational development. Organization may achieve its goals when each of the employee understand their roles and responsibilities for the organization, and there should be continues communication between management, leader and employee to set performance expectations, monitor program and achieve a good results (Katou, 2008).

Performance of the organizational can be measured and it can be defined as all aspects of performance that are relevant for the existence of organizational as a whole’ and success as the way the organizational carries its objectives into effect (Flapper, Fortuin, & Stoop, 1996).
Effective performance measurement must be covered for all aspects of performance that are relevant for the existence of an organizational, which means the organizational achieve successful and growth (Kaplan & Norton, 1996: Hillman & Keim, 2001). Performance measurement system always include more than financial measurement, this have been established as many competitor orientation encompasses the extent to which firms are oriented toward and understand the strengths, weakness, tactical, strategy and potential of the organization (Day & Wensley, 1988: Narver & Slater, 1990: Noble, Sinha, & Kumar, 2002).
The organization consists of a set of resource employed in a productive way to generate wealth and resource of the company such as building, equipment, skills and competencies of employees, procedures of norms, culture and value (Bruno, John, Maria, 2005). Base on that the researcher has listed out the factor are relevant to develop organizational performance. Factor that influence organizational performance which is staff motivation, working environment, training and development and management involvement (Arnold,1985: Srivastava,2003: Khan,2010: Bill & Steven,1990)

• Statement of the Problem

Organizations are commonly defined as instruments of purpose. They are seen as coordinated by intentions and goals (James & Robert, 1997). Purpose of organizational success and failure in fulfilling those purposes are conspicuous part of conventional discourse. Business firm are compared in terms of profits, sales, market share, productivity, debt ratios, and stock prices.

The ability of an organization to sustain the delivery of quality product and service is essential to its long-term success. They have observe three major deterrents to sustaining high performance which is firstly leadership or management of an organization has an inaccurate understanding of the marketplace in which the organization must compete, secondly behaviour required to successfully implement the business strategy are out of alignment with customer and market place requirement and lastly organizational system and process often fail to support the
organizational version and strategy (Owen, Ron, Will, & Robert, 2001).

According to James & Roberts (1997), many of the cognitive and affective factors that seem likely to influence performance such as investor, customer, and worker confidence in the organizations. The resulting self-confident among successful individuals is likely to contribute positively to organizational performance, whereas the disassociation from failure restrains the loss of self-confidence among individual who are not successful. As results, the motivations generate by performance and its attributes are likely to accelerate success more than failure among current leaders (James & Roberts, 1997).

Hence motivation is very important to the determine employees ability so do other factors such as the resources given to an employee to do his or her job. Successful work performance can arise from ultimate companion limited which could achieve through appropriate motivation. Therefore employee motivation will be a condition necessary to achieve these goals (Wiliam, 2010).

Nowier Mohammed Al-Anzi (2009) argued, it is felt in general that improving the work environment increases productivity. Any quantitative proof of this statement is sparse and conventional. There are number of interacting factor which affect productivity, including privacy, communications, social relationship, office system organization, management, as well as environmental issues. It is a much higher cost to employ people who work than it is to maintain and operate the building, hence spending money on improving the work environment may be the most cost effective way of improving productivity.

Apart from that, most managers will sent their employees for training due to performance problem which arise in organizations as they expecting to see them to come back, a day or later and able to perform satisfactorily. But the manager not aware of the purpose of training nor he was given tools to help in coaching the employees in applying what they had learned in training on the job and thus will affect the organizational performance.

Noble (2009) states that more attention should be paid in identifying and dealing with working environment because when employee have negative perception to their environment they sometimes suffer from chronic stress. Opperman (2002) stated that, working environment means those processes, systems, structures, tools or conditions in the workplace that impact favorably or unfavorably individual performance. The working environment also includes policies, rules, culture, resources, working relationships, work location, internal and external environmental factors, all of which influence the ways that employee perform their job functions.

Stoffels (1994) in his model of the firm and its environment suggested that management’s enlightenment begins with the recognition that a firm is not isolated from the environment but interactive with it. External environment plays a significant role in the growth and profitability of firms. A better understanding of the external environment would enable organizations obtain more accurate market and industry insights, and hence more likely to satisfy current customers and explore new market segments, successfully develop and market new products/services based on trend analysis (Ahituv et al, 1998; Kohn, 2005), establish better brand images, all of which would ultimately contribute to the financial performance. With sufficient environmental intelligence, organizations would be able to manage strategic surprise and response quickly even to weak signals (Ansoff, 1965). The environmental conditions currently facing firms are different from those of past decades. Many companies now compete in global, rather than domestic markets. Firms must be aware of and understand the implication of these environmental realities to compete effectively in the global economy (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 1997).

While, a number of organizations have made attempts to manage organizational performance using dimensions such as financial performance such as customer service, shareholder return, social responsibility such as employee stewardship, community outreach, corporate citizenship among others, most of management strategies are aimed to gain competitive advantage in the external environment thus forgetting internal environment factors such as staff motivation, working environment, training and development, management involvement,  recruitment, employee performance appraisal and many others. When these internal factors are under looked they result to various obstacles such as labor disputes and un rest amongst organizations and their representatives or decreases in constrain because of the move of work seaward which damages industry notoriety by low wages and not as much as attractive working conditions, notwithstanding quality-control issues. There seems to be a gap between external environment factors that enhance organizational performance and internal factors that enhance organizational performance. The researcher is of the opinion that internal factors have been given less attention thus the need to establish the effect of working environment on organizational performance in Buea.

• Research Questions

After considering the contradictions in views of previous authors in relation to the effect of working environment on organizational performance, it is therefore necessary for this study to provide answers to the following questions.

Main Question

• What is the effect of working environment on organizational performance of SME’s in Buea?

Specific Questions

• What is the relationship between staff motivation and organizational performance of SME’s in Buea?
• What is the relationship between training and development and organizational performance of SME’s in Buea?
• What is the relationship between management involvement and organizational performance of SME’s in Buea?
  • Objectives of the Study

To provide answers to the research questions, we are guided by the research objectives.

The Main Research Objective

• To examine the effect of working environment on organizational performance of SME’s in Buea.

The minor objectives to the attainment of our main objective are

• To examine the relationship between staff motivation and organizational performance of SME’s in Buea.
• To investigate the relationship between training and development and organizational performance of SME’s in Buea.
• To examine the relationship between management involvement and organizational performance of SME’s in Buea.
• Research Hypothesis

Abubakar (2004) said, “Hypothesis is a theoretical conceptualization or guess about how the researcher thinks the result should look like or as statement that was usually linked to the theory being treated and it was tested in a testable form to predict the relationship between two variables”. For the purpose of this study, the following research hypothesis are generated or formulated and shall be tested using the multiple regression linear analysis.

• Null (H_o): There are no significant effects of working environment on organizational performance of SME’s in Buea.
• Alternative (H₁): There are significant effects of working environment on organizational performance of SME’s in Buea.

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