CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Organizations globally are embracing working in geographically segmented markets to enable a diverse of more established workforce. This is done through the formation of very strong teams with both local and the global expertise. Organization have discovered that embracing the spirit of team work across all the business functions eventually lead to improved performance where employees feel motivated. Team building is the process of working collaboratively with group of people in order to achieve a certain goal. The external factors of team building are the political, economic, social and technological factors that affect team building whiles the internal factors of team building constitute communication, leadership style, diversity (culture, talent and personalities) and cohesiveness etc. which affects team building. Team building is as old as mankind, and many organizations use the term team building in either one sense or the other, such as in the production, marketing processes, management team, production team or the entire organization can be referred to as a team. Cook (2015) claimed that there is a growing agreement among scholars in the world that organizations may be getting work done through individuals, but his super achievement lies in the attainment of set goals through team development (team building). It is a well-known an undeniable fact that team building is not only the foundation of all successful managements, but the means of improving overall results in organizational productivity. Wage (2010) described Team building as an idea of working together in a group to achieve the same goals and objectives for the good of the service users and organizations so as to deliver a good quality of service (productivity). Ruth (2007) claimed that employees’ team building is seen as constituting a larger group of people than what job position describes. The essence of team building is that workload is reduced and broken into pieces of work for everyone to take part. Davis (2007) claimed that employers always stress the need for employing those (Employees) that can be able to work with a team and they (Employers) generally talk of team building when they want to emphasize the need to various talents possessed by different employees. The organizations however, coordinate the employees into different teams, such as management team, production team, etc. Organization is a social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need or to pursue collective goals or organization is a systematic arrangement of people to accomplish the same specific purpose. Every organization is composed of three elements i.e. people, goals and system. The purpose is expressed as goals generally. Each organization has a systematic structure that defines members and some members are managers and some are operatives. According to Caroline (2008) organization is a social entity whose goal is directed, deliberately structured activity systems with a preamble boundary. In order for the work environment to be very conducive, mutual trust and respect from all the team members is very key. Aydin et al., (2009) concluded that the basics of employees’ relations in organization do not depict teamwork. For teamwork to thrive well among the staff members, effective communication, resolving conflicts and resolutions becomes very key across the whole organization which on the return helps improve the organization performance. According to Wilson, (2008) a team is described as a group of people working jointly to drive certain results thus desired results will be achieved when the right team selected. To improve the organizational performance the individual must succeed first to enable match well when it come the group’s performance. Alan (2008) claimed that productivity is the rate at which an employer, company or country produces goods and the amount, produced compared with how much work, time and money is needed to produce them. Productivity on the other hand is about how well people combine resources such as raw materials, equipment, land, intellectual property, labour, skills, capital, managerial capability and financial capital to produce goods and services. This study concentrated specifically on the use of the term team building which involves reshaping the way work is carried out. The interest of the study is to understand or know how team building in organization has and can contribute to the improved productivity of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The impact of team building on organizational productivity involves internal and external factors that contribute to high productivity. The internal factors have to do with team norms, ground rules, interpersonal and rational skills or qualities that determines how individual’s teams will function whiles the external factors are the organizational culture, systems and structures within which all teams perform determines the level of team building within an organization. Therefore creating a culture of team building is dependent on how the management communicate clearly the expectation that team building and collaboration are expected; modelling team building in their interaction with each other and the rest of the organization; members talking about and identifying the value of a team building culture; rewarding and recognizing team building; people discussions within the company emphasizing team building and the performance management system emphasizing and valuing team building. Hence the need to conduct a research on the impact of teamwork on organizational productivity in manufacturing firms in Nigeria.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE ROBLEM

It is the role of every organization, either large or small, to improve on its productivity to enable achieve the success of the business landscape hence maintain the valuable image and reputation in the dynamic market environment. The total population of workers in every organization may be large yet that organization achieves poor productivity with no improvement in their products and services as observed in a research by (Saari, 2011). However, this might not be the case as a result of absence of teamwork in the organizations, and as a result of the failure of the organization in coordinating works into specific work groups in order to tap from the organization human resources. Poor Leadership of the various teams in the manufacturing company has a major impact on which in the overall affect the organization performance. Therefore, in this research, various variables that impact productivity in Pamol Plc, Calabar: are highlighted as team communication, team leadership, team compensation and team cohesiveness which will be discussed in details in the later chapters. Studies conducted recently show that employees working within the team can exceed the expectation than when employees work as individual. This is as a result of a study conducted by Boddy (2010) on improving productivity management in modern organization. Further study on effectiveness of teamwork showed that individuals have the tendency of hiding inside a group. Similar study by Riki (2013) reviewed how effectiveness of a team impact on high productivity in an organization. As results, this has necessitated the importance of investigating the factors that impact on the effectiveness of team building on productivity in Pamol Plc, Calabar. Vincent (2011), concluded that, in order for organization to improve on its productivity, effective teamwork is necessary across all the departments. Most of the research from the available literature done on organizational performance, there is very little evidence on any efforts done towards improving the employee performance. For instance in Nigeria there are no documented studies any researcher have done on team building with reference to a Manufacturing company. Hence the need of this study which helped to examine the impact of team building on productivity in manufacturing company which was a case study of Pamol Plc, Calabar.

1.3AIMS OF THE STUDY

The major purpose of this study is to examine the impact of team building on productivity of manufacturing company in Calabar. Other general objectives of the study are:

1.   To examine whether communication has an impact on productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar.

2.   To identify the impact of leadership of teams how it can affects productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar.

3.   To examine the impact of compensation on team productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar.

4.   To determine if cohesiveness has an impact on team productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar.

5.   To examine the essentiality of team management in organization’s productivity

1.4 Research Questions

1.   Does communication has impact on productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar?

2.   To what extent does leadership impact on productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar?

3.   To what extent does compensation impact on productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar?

4.   To what extent does cohesiveness impact on productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar?

5.   What is the essentiality of team management in organization’s productivity?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

Hypothesis 1

H0: There is no significant impact of leadership on productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar

H1: There is a significant impact of leadership on productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar s

Hypothesis 2

H0: There is no significant relationship between employee compensation and productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar.

H1: There is a significant relationship between employee compensation and productivity in Pamol Plc Calabar.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study findings will be very significant to the employer, employees, students, managers and future researchers. Results collected from this study will serve as an input for the Management of Pamol Plc Calabar in improving the effectiveness of teamwork in the manufacturing company. This will also help to refocus on ways of motivating staff and increasing training budgets as this will help in improving the performance of the workforce and taking any corrective action for the future. The study will be of great help to the researchers because after the completion of this study, information collected will be used for future studies in this field. HR professionals will also benefit from this study since they will be able to reorganize the gaps that can affect the organizational performance. The policy makers will also benefit from this study as driving teamwork to improve on the set organizational objective will require the top level management support. The government will also benefit from this study as the findings will help influence teamwork as they are also suppliers in the organization especially on the employee taxation.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The study focused on impact of team building on the productivity of manufacturing company in Calabar, a case of Pamol Plc, Calabar.

1.8 LIMITATION OF STUDY

Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Cohesiveness of the Teams: According to Wheelan, (2010), cohesiveness of teams is realized when team members stick together to enable achieve specific organizational objectives.

Communication in Teams: Yusuf (2011) argued that, communication is the process of relating information from the sender to the receiver using various mode of communication in teams.

Compensation in Teams: Kettenring (2012) described compensation as a form of appreciation or recognition to someone who has rendered a service in a certain field.

Job Satisfaction: Aristovnik, (2013) described job satisfaction as fulfilling the persons hopes, desires and expectations in an organization.

Leadership of Teams: According to Leigh (2011), leadership of teams comprises of the influence of all the necessary skills to the team members to enable improve on productivity hence increase on organizational profitability.

Motivation: (Pritchard & Ashwood, (2008) described motivation as both the internal and external factors that stimulate the desires and energy to enable an individual gain the strength to enable exceed expectations expectation.