Organizational Structure and Employee’s Performance: A Study of Brewing Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

This study develops a research framework that examines relationships among various structural dimensions and employees performance in brewing industry in Nigeria. Four aspects of organizational structure are considered: The number of layers in hierarch of the organization, the nature of formalization, the nature of internal and external boundaries that exist in the organization and the nature of technology (appropriate) adopted by the organization. The employee's performance is represented by Supervisor's rating, Quality and quantity, Goal accomplishment, Efficient and effective, Dependable and enthusiastic, Ability and capability. Given the importance of structure to the performance survival, and sustainability of companies and contributions of the brewing sector to the economy, this research therefore deems it necessary to investigate whether appropriate structure is a critical success factor for success of brewing firms in Nigeria and the extent it has helped in the performance of its employees. Statement of the Problem The brewing sector is faced with mixed performance. Evidences from the subsector confirm that quite a number of brewing firms are performing very poorly, in some cases, they goes into liquidation, while few others are performing excellently well using all known performance indicators, for instance, Nigeria breweries and Guinness breweries have been paying dividend to its shareholders consistently for the past twenty years. Besides payment of dividend, almost all other performance indicators have been on the positive trend. However, the excellent performances of few of them are still worrisome as about 70% of brewing firms went under within the last twenty years. The essence of this study is to determine whether adopting appropriate structure is one of the critical success factors that supports those firms that are performing well in the sector and the extent to which appropriate structure has help the performance of its employee. However, studies have established that efficient and effective performance depend on the designing and adoption of a fitting structure by the organization, in other words, no effective and efficient organization if the structure of the organization does not support the people who work within the system that provide the key element to determine its success.