Leadership Styles and Personality Traits as Predictors of Job Embeddedness among Employees of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, Nigeria

Abstract

The incessant change in ownership status of what was formerly known as National Electrical Power Authority (NEPA) and owned by government, but now being controlled by private company has given rise to the need for examining work attitude of employee who were retained in the service. The study, therefore, examined the extent to which leadership styles and personality traits independently and jointly predict job embeddedness of employees. This was with a view to determining factors that could predict job embeddedness among employees of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company. Primary data were used in this study. Data were collected from employees in four purposively selected regional offices. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in the study. Four regional offices of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company in Oyo, Ogun, Osun and Kwara States were purposively selected for the study. A proportionate stratified sampling technique was used to select respondents, which consisted of 261 participants (167 males and 94 females), using the classification of regional offices as the basis for stratification. The age of the participants ranged between 30 to 50 years, with the mean age of 43.27 years and standard deviation of 7.71. Three standardized psychological scales comprised of Leadership Style Scale (LSS), Big Five Personality Inventory (B-5PI) and Job Embeddedness Scale (JES) were used for data collection. Data collected were subjected to simple linear and multiple regression analyses. Results showed that both leadership styles and personality factor significantly and independently predicted job embeddedness among employees of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (R 2 = 0.24.9; p<.05) and (R 2 = 0.24.8; p<.05) respectively. The result also revealed that leadership style and personality factors significantly and jointly predicted job embeddedness among employee of Ibadan Electricity distribution Company, Nigeria (R 2 = 0.31; p<.05). The study concluded that both leadership styles and personality traits independently and jointly predicted job embeddedness among employees of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, Nigeria.

Job crafting, a bottom-up job characteristic of academics with an embeddedness potential

“…Organizational related forces are known as on-the-job forces, while those that are community-based are called offthe-job factors. On-the-job-embeddedness refers to how attached the employee is to an organization, while off-the-job-embeddedness refers to how connected the employee is to the general community where the firm is situated (Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018). This study, however, focusses on on-the-job factors as it has been found to be responsible to predict factors that will make an employee stay than do off-the-job factors.…”

“…These things could be categorized into financial and non-financial, physical or psychological as the case may be. Oladeji and Ayinde (2018) state that sacrifice has to do with the perceived cost of financial or psychological interests that may be lost when an employee leaves his job. To Holtom et al (2006), what could be lost by a departing employee could be both financial and social.…”

Fuel the service fire

“…Self-determination theory argues that the extent to which support for psychological needs fulfillment can induce motivation varies among individuals (Deci and Ryan, 2000, 2002). Building on self-determination theory, we argue that employee neuroticism, which is defined as a continual level of emotional adjustment or emotional instability (McCrae and Costa, 1997; Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018), may strengthen leader’s humor influence on HP and the mediating effect of HP between leader humor and employee service outcomes. Research on neuroticism indicates that highly neurotic employees tend to perceive more negative emotions that may reduce their control over work and threaten their need for autonomy (Lanaj et al , 2016; Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018; Young et al , 2018).…”

“…Building on self-determination theory, we argue that employee neuroticism, which is defined as a continual level of emotional adjustment or emotional instability (McCrae and Costa, 1997; Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018), may strengthen leader’s humor influence on HP and the mediating effect of HP between leader humor and employee service outcomes. Research on neuroticism indicates that highly neurotic employees tend to perceive more negative emotions that may reduce their control over work and threaten their need for autonomy (Lanaj et al , 2016; Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018; Young et al , 2018). Moreover, to relieve their negative emotions, highly neurotic employees often require more social support and thus have a stronger need for relatedness (Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018).…”

“…Research on neuroticism indicates that highly neurotic employees tend to perceive more negative emotions that may reduce their control over work and threaten their need for autonomy (Lanaj et al , 2016; Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018; Young et al , 2018). Moreover, to relieve their negative emotions, highly neurotic employees often require more social support and thus have a stronger need for relatedness (Oladeji and Ayinde, 2018). Accordingly, frontline hospitality employees who are highly neurotic are more likely to value leader humor as it not only induces positive emotions, increasing their control over their work but also signals personal care and appreciation, fulfilling their strong need for relatedness (Cooper et al , 2018; Yang et al , 2015).…”