Social Support and Productivity of Academic Staff of Polytechnics in Ogun State

Abstract

Abstract Employees’’ productivity remains the basis for organisational survival, growth and sustainability. Organisational relationship culture, concern for people, people-oriented ideals and notions in work organisations, among others, emphasise the importance of social support. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of social support on the productivity of academic staff of Polytechnics in Ogun State, Nigeria with particular focus on supervisors and organisational supports. A total of 300 academic staff of Polytechnics in Ogun state were randomly selected using systematic sampling technique. Data were collected with a 5-point likert scale questionnaire tagged “Social Support and Productivity Questionnaire (SSPQ). Two hypotheses were formulated and tested with multiple regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. It was found that supervisors and organisational support engender different levels of variations in productivity of the academic personnel as organisational support accounted for higher productivity of the academic staff than supervisors support. It was concluded that the two forms of social support examined are essentially important to engender desired level of academic staff productivity in terms of job morale, commitment, good work attitude, qualitative teaching, research efforts, etc. It was recommended, among others, that Polytechnics in Ogun State and other institutions of higher learning, government and other employers of labour should adopt workers-oriented policies and practices, offer appropriate and adequate support to their academic and other categories of staff with a view to improving their productivity.