ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND EMPLOYEES’ PERFORMANCE

Background of the study: Organizational structure across the world has attracted widespread attention in terms of research and debate among organizational managers and academia. Managers who set out to design an organization structure face difficult decisions. They must choose among a countless of alternative frameworks of jobs and departments. The Structure of an organization may comprise different departments within the organization for effective management and administration of the Organization. In a Public organization or Private organization, to oversee the different sections or department of the Organization, Limited Liability Company structure begins with the Board of Directors of a company, to the Company Secretary’s Office and Executive Management Team and Management Committee which consist of the Head of Departments or Units Heads. Organizational structure has become an important factor to examine as businesses compete for a competitive advantage (Cantner, Joel, & Schmidt, 2009). The relevance of Knowledge management on organizational success is increasingly recognized, there is little empirical research that particularly tackles the impact of organizational structure on knowledge management.

Organizational structure is a way or method by which. organizational activities are divided, organized and coordinated. The organizations created the structures to coordinate the. activities of work factors and control the member performance.  Organizational structure has sparked great interest in terms of research and debate among business leaders and academics all around the world. Managers who are tasked with creating an organizational structure must make difficult choices. They must choose from a variety of different employment and department structures. The researchers' desire to understand the structure of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) and the performance of the workers led to the selection of this project's topic: organizational structure and its influence on worker performance. Organizations are not a fresh development included in modern society; they existed in pre-industrial societies as well. Organization has been defined in a variety of ways by various authors. It is therefore up to the individual to decide which is more suited for the concept of organization. Aghajani and others (2013) found the significant relationship between organizational structure and employee creativity in Saveh Pars Company.

A good structure, on the other hand, does not guarantee that the intended results will be achieved. As a result, an organization's structure influences not only employee performance but also the organization's overall performance and efficiency. Nowadays, industrial, commercial and even service organizations are trying to increase the professional capability, satisfaction, attachment of their human resources to enhance their productivity and have associated productivity with improvement of employees‟ performance and the quality of their job life (Felipe, 2011). The Structure of an organization may comprise different departments within the organization to oversee the different sections or department of the Organization for effective management and administration of the Organization. In a Public company or Private Limited Liability Company the structure begins with the Board of Directors of a company, to the Company Secretary’s Office and Executive Management Team and Management Committee which consist of the Head of Departments or Units Heads.

In the Educational Institutes or Government Parastatals, the structure consists of the Governing Council, Executive Management Staff led by the Registrar & Chief Executive. To enable the effective performance of important operations and to support staff effort, the structure provides the framework of an organization and its pattern of management. It represents a formalized framework within which management operates. It is by means of organization structure that the purpose and work of the organization can be carried out (Olajide, 2015).

Empirical evidence by Weir in his effort to establish the relationship between organizational structure and corporate performance concludes that firms that adopt appropriate structure yield higher profits than those that do not. This is when people are asked to communicate, willing to act and share a purpose. Informal organization, is personal activity without consciously joint purpose, even though contributing to joint result. The formal organization can be people that walk down the street, group of people in a boat etc. in this research we are concentrate on formal organization in the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers.

1.2 Statement of the problem

The year 2015 was a very difficult and challenging one for most economies of the world, especially the developing countries’. The major factor being the slump in commodity prices, including crude oil which is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. Unfortunately, the Institute was also seriously affected by the pervasive financial and economic downturn. The debt profile of their members continued to be a source of serious concern, standing at N163.6 million at the end of the year.  Despite the fact that the institute had severally postponed action on the Resolution of Council that defaulting members be barred from trading, preferring instead to dialogue and adopt continuous moral suasion, the situation did not change significantly in terms of payments by defaulting members. Furthermore, the harsh economic climate made it a lot more difficult to access grants from benevolent bodies as they did the previous year. Also, being a transition year, the Institute could not host most of its self-financing programmes.  Consequently, the operating surplus of the Institute dropped significantly to N4.72 million.

The capital market, which had been struggling with the problem of local investor apathy in recent years, had its challenges compounded as quoted companies battled with several issues; from difficulties in accessing foreign exchange to import raw materials, to shrinking demand arising from worsened purchasing power of the average consumer. Both domestic trading activity (56.79%) and foreign investment (69.79%) recorded massive declines during the year. The primary market, meanwhile remained comatose with no new public offering, while The Nigerian Stock Exchange was able to establish a correlation between the widening gap between official and parallel market exchange rates and declining investor activity in the equity market. To sum it all up, the all share Index took another tumbling with a 6.17% drop in 2016.

In the face of this bleak reality, members of the Institute struggled to survive. Many left the market completely to seek other means of livelihood, while those that remained had to contend with sharply reduced income. Consequently, the financial position of the institute, which was further worsened, as the rate of financial default by members continued to grow while access to grants by benevolent institutions also became more difficult due to the general economic situation. Income from Self-financing activities decreased by N2.37million or 1.41% from N 167.84 million in 2019 to N 165.47 million in 2020. The decrease was as a result of the following:

The negative impact of Covid-19 outbreak on the cash flow of corporate organizations thereby reducing income from donations, employees’ training and seminars.

Reduction in the number of students that enrolled for the Institute’s examinations as the Institute could only conduct only one diet (September diet) examination in the year.

There were several on-line MCPD, Training Courses and Seminars for members during the year in addition to the Mandatory Pre- Induction Training for new Associate members. However, income from MCPD was boosted by arrears of MCPD levy which were received during the year as a result of the debt recovery program of the Institute. CIS-CISI(UK) membership collaboration continued to be attractive during the year.

The response to the Special Membership programme which was introduced during 2019 slowed down in 2020. This is not unconnected to the negative impact of Covid-19 outbreak on the cash flow of individual thereby reducing their purchasing power. This resulted in a decline in the number of applicants for the Special Membership programme.

The Annual Conference for the year generated lower income. The reduction is attributable to the negative impact of Covid-19 outbreak resulting in a reduction in the number of donations, advertisements and sponsorship received for the 2020 Annual Conference. However, the reduced income was mitigated by the successful debt recovery campaign undertaken by the Institute, which contribute immensely to the reported income for Annual Conference as a result of payment of arrears of program levy during the year. Moreover, the Annual Conference was organized as a hybrid program, combining physical and virtual attendance. This led to an overall reduction in the cost of putting the event together.