Predicting the Impact of Managerial Competencies on the Behavioral Outcomes of Employees in the Selected Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria

Abstract

The effective utilization of a company’s precious human resources is critical to its success. Organizations are increasingly relying on management competencies to ensure the optimal utilization of their human resources. However, due to a plethora of problems, businesses, particularly industrial firms, are behind in realizing the benefits of managerial competencies. To address the inadequacies mentioned above, the current study explored the influence of management abilities on employee behavioral outcomes in selected Nigerian manufacturing enterprises. The notion of diffusion of innovation was used to explain the unavoidability of management competencies. Managers and supervisors from selected Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) in Nigeria formed the target population. More specifically, the purposive sampling technique was used to pick participants for this study. Copies of the questionnaire were distributed to a varied cross-section of managers and supervisors to collect data. The data gathered were analyzed using structural equation modelling. Global awareness, communication, self-management, and strategic action competency were discovered to be predictors of employees’ behavioral outcomes. The study discovered recurring barriers that prevent managers from learning and developing, such as a lack of leadership drive, awareness, little or no performance feedback, insufficient cost-benefit analysis, insufficient budgets, and resource allocation, ineffective communication, a lack of specificity of competencies, and a rigid bureaucratic structure. According to the findings, individual managers should take greater responsibility for their learning, superiors should play a more prominent role in management development, and senior leaders should implement processes to strengthen managing competencies. As businesses and society advance, people at all levels should learn and adapt to function in changing situations. Performance will suffer if this learning and alignment are not implemented. It is plausible to argue that the same factors that promote organizational transformation impede managerial competencies.