European Journal of Educational Studies 3(1), 2011
European Journal of Educational Studies 3(1), 2011
ISSN 1946-6331
© 2011 Ozean Publication
ROLE EXPECTATIONS, THE ACTUAL ROLE PERFORMANCE AND
ADMINISTRATIVE EFFECTIVENESS
FADEKEMI FUNKE OMIRIN* and ISAAC ABIODUN AJAYI**
*Ipetu-Ijesa Campus, Osun State University
**University Of Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria
*E-mail address for correspondence: dfadeomirin@yahoo.com
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Abstract: This study investigated the influence of administrative effectiveness on role expectations and the
actual role performance of the academic staff of the south west Nigerian Universities. The study also
examined actual role performance and administrative effectiveness as it affects the achievement of the
university’s goals and objectives. Samples were taken from six universities made up of three states
universities and three federal universities. The Expectant role and Actual role performance Questionnaire
(EAPQ) was administered on 200 academic staff on administrative positions while the Administrative
Effectiveness Questionnaire (AEQ) was used on 400 staff of both academic and administrative staff
members. 600 subjects were therefore used as sample, using the stratified and random sampling techniques.
T-test was used to test the 2 hypotheses generated for the study. Data were analysed at .05 level of
significance. Major findings revealed that there is significance difference between role expectation and the
actual role performance between the lecturers and the academic staff on administrative position and there is
significant difference between the academic staff on administrative position and the administrators. It is
recommended that more teaching staff be employed to handle available programmes, academic staff from
senior Lecturer position be given administrative training and lecturers be motivated through incentive and
promotion to ensure effectiveness and achievement of set goals and objective to move university education
forward.
Key words: Role expectation, role performance, administrative, effectiveness, universities.
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INTRODUCTION
As the pinnacle of the nation‟s education system, the Nigerian University has emerged a complete
organization over the years. The University is seen as the factory for producing the high level man – power
in every conceivable field in the country. The university is populated by three major sections which are the
bureaucat (administrators) the academics (lecturers, tutors/instructors) and the students (Odoweye 1995).
These three sections are generally referred to as the university community. Each of these sub population has
its own dynamics that defines relationships within its structures and perceives interactions with others.
These intra and inter groups relationships cannot be devoid of stresses and strains which on many occasions,
cannot but give rise to ineffectiveness.
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It is the concern of this study to investigate whether the roles expectant conforms with the actual roles
performed and to investigate the influence of these roles on the administrative effectiveness in the
universities. For example, an academic staff having administrative role serves dua purposes. He has to attend
to lectures, administer exams, mark exams, collation of result supervise project works/thesis as well as
perform the role of the Head of Department, Dean of a faculty, serve as a senate member, council member,
committee member, Directors of Institutes, provosts college etc. It is observed that such an officer may not
be able to cope effectively with the dua duties as one is likely to influence the other negatively.
Nigerian universities are established through legislation in the form of Laws, Acts, Decrees, Edits,
Ordinances, Status and Regulations which specify in broad terms, roles of the institutions, the officers of the
institutions and their power and functions. It will be generally observed . However, that such delineation of
powers, functions or even goals is rather vague and open ended.
It is necessary to note that it is possible for a university staff to find himself at different decision making
level thereby performing different functions or roles. Notable among this class are the academic staff who
find themselves performing both academic and administrative duties such as the Vice – Chancellor, Deans of
faculties and Heads of Departments. Many of them are caught up between the expectations of their staff and
the demands of their Faculty Board or the Senate which (Kelly 1969) referred to as „Sandwich theory‟
Every institution has laid down functions for various arms as contained in the Act/Law or in the structural
allocation of duties and responsibilities. However, when one unit trespasses on another area of
responsibility, the insulation between units break down and ineffectiveness sets in. There are sometimes a
great role strain in university governance as each level of administration exerts strong and sometimes
contradictory pressures on the role occupants. This may eventually lead to negative influence on the
administrative effectiveness. This happens when „two or more inconsistent patterns of role expectations and
behaviours are attached to a single position in the system‟ (Grusky 1958).
The academic roles of the University are geared towards achieving the university as stated in the National
Policy of Education (2004 revised) which are :
1. Teaching
2. Research
3. Dissemination of existing and new information
4. Pursuit of service to the community and
5. Being a store house of knowledge.
The university professor or academic is expected to impart knowledge to his students, assist them in writing
research reports, offer public services to his community by public lectures, extra – mural lessons, etc. and
above all, he is to publish original research of which he is evaluated for productivity/promotion. The
cumulative pressures from the role sender then, might create internal and external structural tension which
undoubtedly effect the administrative effectiveness of the universities. Role performance must therefore, be
geared towards efficiency and effectiveness. It is the level of performance that determines and differentiates
institutions that are surviving from the dying and the effective from the ineffective.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of the administrative role over role expectations
and the actual role performance towards the achievement of goals and objectives.
The study also investigated how the academic staff holding administrative positions were able to cope with
the stresses and strains of these dual functions to achieve effectiveness of the university goals and objectives.
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UNIVERSITY AS ORGANIZATION
The Nigerian Universities, like their counterpart anywhere else, are complex organizations, with their goals
as the distinctive feature. They are characterized by multiple goals and objectives, often conflicting. These
goals are pursued through their main functions and activities of learning, teaching, research and public
service (Sanda, 1992). Thus, the primary goal of the university system is the advancement of knowledge.
In more practical and specify terms, the functions internal to the university system include the task of
admission of students, examination administration, course administration, welfare services and certification
of studies. Also important are the recruitment and retention of high quality teachers and administrators
(Staffing). The external functions of Universities concern their role as a source of scholarly and scientific
knowledge, as well as service to the society. However, as confirmed by Alabi (1999), graduate level remain
the fundamental purpose of Universities, making the students the central focus of university life. Invariably,
Role Expectation
The university education is established to fulfill the national objective of education which include:
(a) A free and democratic society;
(b) A just and egalitarian
(c) A limited, strong and self reliant nation;
(d) A great and dynamic economic;
(e) A land full of bright opportunities for all citizen (NPE 2004)
The philosophy of education is therefore based on:
i. The development of individual into sound and effective citizen
ii. The full integration of the individual into the community; and
iii. The provision of equal access to educational opportunities for all citizen of the lonely at levels of
education both inside and outside the formal school system.
The university is expected to play a major role in the fulfillment of these objectives through training and
skill development. (Akinwumi et al, 2005). According to Oladejo (2002), the university education should
make optimanum contribution to national programmes by:
(a) Intensifying and diversifying its programmes for the development of high level manpower within the
context of the needs of the nation.
(b) Making professional course contents to reflect our national requirements.
(c) Making all students as part of a general programme of all round improvement in university education, to
offer general study course such as history of ideas, philology of knowledge and nationalism. All these make
the university to stand out of the unique.
The role theory states that organizations are social systems in which people occupy various positions. That
is, each position is expected to be occupied by a specific individual who should behave in a particular way.
Such expectations called roles, affect people‟s behaviour in their respective positions. Each role within an
organization has a status which may be achieved or ascribed. The status of a position or role is the rank or
prestige it has with the social structure. Ascribed status refers to the ran assigned to an individual because of
his position, regardless of his qualities and attitude, while achieved status is the prestige earned by the „role
incumbent‟ as a result of his special qualities and performance. This may be earned through the level of
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education or training and experience. An example is the achieved status of a vice-chancellor or the principal
(Oduwaye 1997).
A role has certain normative obligations and responsibilities which may be termed „Role Expectation‟. Thus
role expectation may be described as a set of evaluative standard behaviour anticipated from a role
incumbent. For example, the role expectations for the librarian is quite different from that of the typist or the
gardener. The expectations defined for the incumbent what he should or should not do as long as he remains
the incumbent of that particular role. When a role incumbent behaves according to expectation, he is said to
be performing his role.
It is essential to note that role do not exists in vacuum. It always exists in relation to other roles. This idea of
complementarily of roles fits into the law or “Ethical Reality” propanded by Lonsdale which asserts that a
man‟s behaviour is conditioned by the opinions and the activities of others. Thus, the role of the teachers and
the pupils in a school cannot be well performed except in relation to one another. It is this element of
complementarily which fuses two or more roles together into a coherent, interactive unit and which makes it
possible to think of an organization as having a characteristics structure. To facilitate being defined as a
focal role, (Key personnel). The other members of the group who significantly affect the behaviour and
attitudes of the person occupying the focal role are described as role senders. This set focal role is described
as the role set. How the individual interprets his role usually involved questions of personality. The actual
role behaviour which is how he caries out his role is the function of both role and personality. It is sufficient
to grasp the notion that every person in an ogranisation represent a particular role which is monitored by his
role sender and which has a particular status which defines the esteem or prestige accorded to that role by
other members of the organization. Variation may be due to the special interests of the various role sender
and this increases when senders include outsiders. (Gross, et al 1958; Kahn et al 1964). Individuals having
such a role are assigned responsibility for contacts with people and groups outside the organization and so
become vulnerable to pressures from outside as well as inside. The interaction of the focal person with other
factors that affect his behaviour like organizational, personal and interpersonal factors are best illustrated in
the diagram overleaf adapted from Kahn et al (1964).
Role Senders
Role
Expectation
Organizational
Factors
Structural Level
Role requirement task
Physical setting practices
Focal Person
Sent
Role
Experience
Response
Personal Factors
Interpersonal
Factors
Status
Need
Vales
Education
Ability
Age
Sex
Tenure
Mode of Communication
Frequency of Interaction
Importance of Sender
Mode of Interaction
Physical Location
Visibility
Feedback
Participation
Figure 1: The Role Episode Mode (adapted form Kahn et al 1964) Power and Conflict in Ogranisation.
London, Taristock Publications, P. 386.
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CONCEPT OF EFFECTIVENESS
The term „effectiveness‟ has continued to generate a lot of controversies. Organizational experts have not
been able to reach a consensus on what the term actually means and the search for a generally acceptable
criterion for measurement becomes more problematic. This consensus becomes more compounded when one
considers that organizations even pursue differing goals. Despite the scanty and poor inter-connected
literature on this concept, one can define effectiveness in a broad term, as the degree to which the
organizational goal is achieved.
Awoyemi (1986), in his work on teaching effectiveness says that “effectiveness of the teacher would be
assessed by the degree he has produced behaviour of students who go through him”. Heyel 91982), on work
effectiveness, believes that job enrichment concept is a means of making work experience meaningful for
people. It is based upon the premise that people are not motivated by what is externally done to them by the
management such as rewards, privileges or punishment, not by the environment or context in which they
work but that people develop lasting motivation only through their experience with the content of their job
i.e work itself. Oyebode (2000), in her work on teaching effectiveness say that “an effective person
concentrate in doing the right things irrespective of other things that are less important which he could do
better”.
Available literatures show that administrative effectiveness could be conceptualized in two ways-namely, the
relationship between the organization and the external environment or from the point of view of the internal
functioning of the organization.
Administrative effectiveness conceived as the relationship between the organization and the external
environment assume varying dimensions. Etizoni (1964) saw it as the achievement of organizational goals or
official goals. In contrast to Etizonio view, Perrow (1961) saw it as the achievement of operative goals as
revealed by the analysis of organizational practice rather than the stated or enumerated goals. All these tend
to focus on the external relationship of the administration.
Some authors in contrast to the earlier dimension see administrative effectiveness as internal functioning of
the organization. Georgiou (1973), saw it as the satisfactions of the organization. This meant that the focus
were on the human and structural relationships existing in the organization.
Anita (1976) came out with three dimensions of orgnaisational effectiveness, namely; role effectiveness
efficiency and future capability of the organization. Cameron (1978) focused on institutional characteristics
of effectiveness which he summarised as; external adaptation, morale, academic orientation, and extra
curricular commitment. Lindsay (1981) in her studies focused on issues relating to institutional evaluation
which is summarised as; academic, morale and service orientations.
Academic dimension include students academic development, professional development of staff, students
and staff qualify, ability to acquire resources, work load and academic freedom. Morale-the indicators of
morale include achievement of organization goals based on institutional management pattern, relationship
between staff, students and administrator, use of expertise, communication patterns, campus climate, staff
and administrator satisfaction. Service – these are services provided to the community of what Keeley
(1984) termed „social justice‟ community service of employees like use of members of the system to take
part in the other government services other than teaching and research.
Ogunsaju (1990) believes that in measuring effectiveness in schools, the following criteria should be taken
into consideration; clearity and acceptance of goals, adequacy of communication, optimal power
equalization, effective resource utilization, cohesiveness, good morale, innovativeness, autonomy and
problem – solving adequacy.
This study intends to investigate role expectation viz a viz actual role performance and administrative
effectiveness from internal functions of the university organization and the satisfaction of the organizations
members. To this regard, the following hypotheses were generated for the study;
1. There is no significant difference between role expectation and administrative effectiveness of academic
staff on administrative positions in the South-West Nigerian Universities.
2. There is no significant difference in the perception of administration effectiveness of the academic staff
and administrators in the South-West Nigerian university.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS
The descriptive research design of the survey type was used in the study. The population of the study
consisted of all the public universities in the South-West Nigerian universities. Stratified random sampling
technique was used to selected 6 universities, 3 state and 3 federal universities. Stratified random sampling
technique was used to select 600 subjects consisting of 400 academic staff holding administrative positions
and 200 senior administrative staff heading units.
A self designed questionnaire on role expectations, actual roles performance and administrative effectiveness
was administered to obtain information from the subject. Out of the 600 copies of questionnaire
administered, 546 copies were properly filled and returned, giving 91% rate of completion. The data
collected were analysed using frequency counts, percentages scores, standard deviation and t-test statistics.
The hypotheses formulated were tested at 0.05 level of significance.
RESULTS
HO1
There is no significant difference between role expectations and administrative effectiveness of academic
staff on administrative position the South-West Nigerian Universities.
Table 1: T-test of Role Expectation and Administrative effectiveness of Academic Staff in Administrative
Positions.
Variables
N
X
SD
Role expectations
73
5.62
.064
Administrative effectiveness
273
4.78
0.92
DF
5.42
t-cal
12.68
t-tab
1.96
Decision
Significant
As shown in 1, significant difference exists between role expectation and administrative effectiveness of
academic staff in administrative positions in the universities. The null hypothesis is therefore rejected.
DISCUSSION
HO 1
As part of the numerous roles of academic staff of Nigerian Universities, academic staff in administrative
positions perform certain administrative functions which provide a lot of challenges in his life pursuit. The
type of valuable administrative services rendered include office management, budget making, purchase of
supplies and equipment, supervision and maintenance of human and material resources, curriculum
planning, public relations and programme evaluation.
It is observed that while lectures in purely academic work do purely academic assignment, the academic
personnel performing administrative functions are faced with the problems of sustaining a free flow
management of the university system. Most of the heads of Departments, Deans, Directors still programme
their teaching assignment alongside the process of sustaining a viable administration and managing conflicts
in the pursuit of their academic and administrative duties. Some of these principal officers have a number of
responsibilities for the smooth running of the various universities as they constitute essential committees of
the university like the committee of Deans/Provosts, Development committee etc. Heads of Department,
Deans, Directors all put together with the Deputy vice chancellor and the Vice Chancellor and members of
the Senate, the highest academic and administrative organ of the university. The roles they perform at these
various levels may run counter to the primary purpose of their employment which forms a major reason for
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the rejection of this hypothesis depicting that significant difference exist between role expectation of
teaching, research and public services and administrative functions.
HO 2
There is no significant difference in the perception of administrative effectiveness of the academic staff and
the administrators.
Table 2 Perception of Administrative effectiveness of Academic Staff and Administrators.
Variables
N
X
SD
Administrative
Academic Staff
Effectiveness
of
273
17.0
2.08
Administrative
Administrators
Effectiveness
of
273
15.22
2.01
DF
t-cal
5.42
89.21
t-tab
1.96
Decision
Significant
As shown in table 2, the t-calculated of the perception of administrative effectiveness of the academic staff
and the administrators is 8.21. The table value is 1.96 at 0.05 level of significance. Therefore, the null
hypothesis which states that there is no significant difference in the perception of administrative
effectiveness of the academic staff and the administrators is rejected. This means that there is significant
difference in the perception of administrative effectiveness of academic staff and administrators.
With reference to job schedule of academic staff most administrators felt they are putting much into the
system. It is argued that lecturers teach one or two or at most four hours of lecturers in a week.
Administrators felt that lecturers work-in-put in respect of lecture hours do not justify the position they
occupy in the university. Ironically, administrators in this school of thought had forgotten that hours put into
the preparation of lectures by the academic staff cannot be adequately quantified.
Academic staff spend endless hours in the laboratories, cyber-café, libraries and other resources places
searching for new trends and development in their various areas of fields. Administrators did not favour the
various allowances paid to the academic staff thinking that they are being unnecessarily pampered by the
government. Administrators felt that they are more involved in the production of graduates in the
universities than the academic staff and so that they are the sustainers of the system hence they are involved
in admission of students into the system, register them for courses, collect payments for whatever is charged,
conduct matriculation and keep records of all students as regards their performance. As a resort, the
administrators felt they are more effective in the university system than the academic staff.
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CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
There is significant difference between role expectation and administrative effectiveness of academic staff in
administrative positions in the universities as the academic staff on administrative positions are faced with
challenges of office management, budget making, purchase of supplies and equipment, supervision and
maintenance of human and material resources, curriculum planning, public relations and programme
evaluation coupled with lecture preparation and delivery. There is also significant difference in the
perception of administrative position and the administrators. Administrators felt that lecturers work-in-put do
not justify the position they occupy in the university. Most administrators felt they are putting much into the
system and felt they are more effective in the university system than the academic staff. It is therefore
recommended that adequate number of teaching staff be employed to handle available programmes to ensure
efficiency and effectiveness in role performance. To ensure effective administration, academic staff from
senior lecturer should be given professional training through capacity building, conferences, workshops and
seminars on administration and administrative procedure in preparation for taking up administrative posts
like Heads of Departments, Deans, of faculties, Directors, Deputy vice Chancellor, Vice Chancellor etc. for
goals and objectives of the university education to be adequately achieved, academic staff should be
motivated through incentives, regular promotion and support for research work and conferences.
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