Participative decision making and organizational commitment : Comparing Nigerian and American employees

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between participation in decision making (PDM) and the organizational commitment of Nigerian and American employees working in the public sector environment. A focal concern of this study is the extent to which cultural differences or similarities between Nigeria and the USA impact this relationship. Design/methodology/approach – The study first examined the measurement equivalence across both American and Nigerian sub‐samples for scales assessing levels of PDM and organizational commitment. While the item weights for measures of actual and desired PDM were invariant, the weights for items measuring organizational commitment differed between Nigerians and Americans. These weights were subsequently used to calculate affective, normative, and continuance commitment for the Nigerian and American sub‐samples and to test three hypotheses derived from the theoretical implications of cultural differences between Nigerians and Americans. Findings – Taking into account measurement differences, both actual PDM and actual vs desired levels of PDM were related differently to the affective, normative, and continuance commitment of Nigerian employees compared to US employees. For Nigerian employees, both actual levels of participation and actual vs desired participation are related to affective and normative commitment. Neither measure of participation is related to continuance commitment. For Americans, only actual vs desired levels of participation were positively related with affective and normative organizational commitment. Actual levels of participation were negatively related to continuance commitment. Research limitations/implications – Future work should expand the sampling to compare employees working in Nigerian owned and managed organizations with American employees of organizations in similar industries and of comparable size. Practical implications – In addition to its theoretical value, this paper also has substantial practical value. Staff commitment is an organizational outcome variable critical to the success of international development agencies and implementing partners. For example, anti‐US sentiment has increased in the recent years up in the Islamic northern sections of Nigeria. Employee organizational commitment is critical in such challenging terrains, as employees who are more committed are more likely to help their organization weather such negative conditions. Originality/value – There have been very few previous studies on how Western management practices such as employee participation play out within the African context and how cultural differences affect the relationships between management practices and employee outcomes in Nigeria. Findings in this study may provide public sector managers in these contexts with an understanding of the possible impact of organizational cultures which include PDM.