Perceptions of and Reactions to the HR Implementation Process in Nigeria

Abstract

Leveraging attribution theories, this chapter examines the role of employees’ cognitions in the HR implementation process in Nigeria. This study relies on secondary sources such as journal articles, textbooks and public service reforms to review the current state of HR practice. This review shows that while there is a continuous evolvement of HRM practices in Nigeria, its effectiveness to contribute to the strategic value of both public and private sector organisations is countered by socio-cognitive factors. Moreover, the analysis reveals different patterns of causal attributions in how workers interpret the goals of HR practices due to socio-cultural and economic factors that are unique to the Nigerian context. This chapter contributes to the international debates about the integration of contextual factors and HR processes in the conceptualisation of HRM effectiveness. The limitations of this review are discussed as well as the implications for future HR research.

1. Introduction

The free movement of capital across nations bears within itself the cross-border transfer of management systems, especially from more developed economies (e.g. UK and USA) to developing economies like Nigeria [1, 2]. This could be to replicate the tangible results witnessed by using the management systems of the West in another geographical context. However, there are questions about the transferability of HRM practices formulated in the western context to disparate national context [3, 4, 5]. Typically, HRM research in developing countries like Nigeria has pointed to the intersection of local customs and values, institutions, economic conditions, and legislations in the evaluation of HRM in Africa [6, 7, 8]. Although examining these macro contextual factors (e.g. national cultures and regulative institutions, etc.) is useful in understanding the effects of HRM, it does not fully explain ‘how’ such effect is achieved. In particular, research has yet to investigate the (micro) socio-cognitive processes involved in how employees interpret HR practices in an African context. As such, the first objective of this chapter is to explicate the role of the employee attribution process in the evaluation of Anglo-American-developed HRM in the African context. This is likely to account for the salient cognitive complexities associated with how an employee formulate a belief about their organisation’s intent to select specific HR practices. Examining employee cognitions of HR practices in Nigeria is theoretically important, as they are critical in theorising the effect of HRM on organisational outcomes [9]. In addition, there are recent calls in the renowned Academy of Management Journal Proceedings (e.g. [10]) and Human resources Journals (e.g. [9]) to examine the role of HR attribution in the link between HRM and organisational performance to provide a nuanced understanding of the HR processes in organisation. As such, this chapter utilises attribution theories [11, 12, 13] to analyse the effects of contextual factors on the employees’ causal attribution of HR practices in Nigeria.

In addition, although initial research on HRM in the Nigerian context (e.g. [14, 15]) have reported a positive relationship between HR practices and organisation performance, little is known about the role of the line manager in the relationship in Nigerian context. Research on HRM devolution has suggested that line managers are the bridge between HRM strategy, policies, and practices and the bottom-line employees’ performance. Bos-Nehles et al. [16] defined a line manager as the (bottom-line) manager who manages a team of operational employees daily and is responsible for performing HRM activities (p. 256). Line managers, in comparison to HR managers/professionals, are considered better positioned in an organisation to understand employees’ competencies and concerns, and to implement HR strategy, policies, and practice more effectively for better motivational and behavioural outcomes [17]. Indeed, research reports have shown that line managers’ HR implementation influences employee perception of HRM practice and, in turn, leads to motivation, satisfaction, and performance [17]. As such, the second objective of this chapter is to highlight the role of line managers in organisation’s context with specific consideration of socio-cultural factors that influence the line manager’s leadership behaviour in the HR implementation process.

Based on the above objectives, this chapter has two main contributions. First, it presents a theoretical framework that has the potential to explain how the regulative and social-cultural institutions influence on employees’ perceptions and reactions to HR practices in Nigeria’s context. Secondly, it contributes to HRM research by acknowledging the role of line managers as well as the value of employee attributions to the understanding of the HR process and outcomes in a different national context.

Nigeria is the most populous black Nation in the world, with an estimated population of 211 million people, of which 85.41% are of working age [18]. She gained her independence from British colonial rule in 1960 but plunged into civil war from 1967 to 1970. She has since interspersed between democratically elected civilian governments to military dictatorships until she gained a stable constitutional democracy in 1999. The country has the largest GDP in West Africa [18] and its economy is largely dependent on crude oil export, accounting for about 85 percent of government revenues. She has other natural resources like gold, cocoa, limestone, lead, coal and iron ore, etc. [19]. Over the years, Nigeria has instituted several neo-liberal economic policies and practices to diversify the economy and to create market-oriented systems through privatisation, deregulation, and liberalisation [20]. With its vast natural and human resources base as well as numerous economic reforms, Nigeria has become one of the most attractive destinations for foreign investors in Africa, especially in the sector of energy, banking, telecommunications, etc. Accordingly, Nigeria is the third host economy for foreign direct investments (FDI) in Africa after Egypt and Ethiopia [21]. Despite the negative effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the global economy, the total flow of FDI to Nigeria in 2020 was USD 2.4 Billion, which was a 3.5% increment compared to the previous year, which stood at USD 2.3 billion [21]. Some of the main investing countries in Nigeria are the USA, China, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France. The influx of these foreign investors into the local market has put indigenous companies under pressure to imitate the “best HR practices” to survive the strong competition posed by multinational companies [22]. For example, Anakwe [23] adopting convergence, divergence and cross-vergence perspectives [24, 25] reported that Nigeria has a cross-vergence HRM system, which is a blend of human resource management of both generalised western HR practices and localised practices. As such, Nigeria is an interesting national context to extrapolate the investigation of employee HR attribution because the country has both developed and rudimentary HR practices, which could offer new insights into how employees formulate their perceptions, interpretations, and beliefs about their organisation’s HR practices.

As HRM research in the Nigerian context often focused on the analysis of macro contextual factors, this chapter reviews the two main contextual factors. First, HRM research in Nigeria has examined the effectiveness of formal institutions (e.g. labour unions, economy, and legislation) to enhance human resource development and fair employee relations (e.g. [26]). For example, research has reported that legislative acts, such as Labour Act 2004 and the Workers Compensation Act, 2010, are poorly enforced because of endemic corruption that bedevilled the government institutions [22, 27]. Further, mass unemployment, which currently stands at 33.3% [28], has also hindered workers from demanding their basic rights from employing organisations [22]. Similarly, studies have reported that the trade unions that were established, along industry lines, to ensure that workers express their concerns and grievances are losing their bargaining power due to high levels of unemployment and corruption among trade union leaders [29]. Indeed, these contextual factors have created a work environment where stakeholders’ values are prioritised over employee needs. On another note, research has found that informal contextual factors such as culture, religion, ethnicity, and linguistic affinity influence employees’ perceptions and reactions to HRM in Nigeria [26]. There are three major ethnic groups in Nigeria namely Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, and over 200 minority ethnic groups. These ethnic groupings differ in culture, religion, and sometimes even in physical features [30]. In particular, research reports have suggested that ethnic, religious, and social diversity play significant roles in the rise of nepotism, corruption, tribalism, favouritism, and political intrusion affecting the quality of HR implementation in Nigeria [22, 26].

Given the contextual factors affecting HR practice in Nigeria, this chapter will organise the rest of the review into six sections. First, I will provide a clear overview of both formal and informal factors associated with five traditional HR practices in Nigeria. Second, I will discuss the role of the line manager in HR implementation in Nigeria. This will reveal the devolved HR practices in Nigeria’s organisations and shape our understanding of the implications of contextual factors in the HR implementation process. Third, I will present an overview of attribution theories to enable us to understand the basic assumptions of different attribution theories and their past applications in HRM research. In the fourth section, I will evaluate how attributions theories can be applied to explain employees’ perceptions and reactions to implemented HR practices in.

Nigeria. The fifth section will state the implications of this review for future HRM research while the sixth section will discuss its limitations. Finally, I conclude by reiterating how the employee HR attribution process shapes HRM practices.

2. HRM in Nigeria: an overview

HRM is rooted in the idea that ‘people’ are a valuable asset that when managed effectively can contribute to the strategic goals of an organisation. Indeed, it is argued that organisations can leverage people-focused management practices to achieve competitive advantage over their counterparts, especially when other sources of competitive advantage (e.g. technology) can be easily replicated [31]. However, there is a lack of consensus on what constitutes the human resource practices among management scholars. For this review, I will focus on the five traditional HR practices and evaluate the contextual factors that affect the application of each of them in Nigeria.

2.1 Recruitment and selection

In a study that examined HRM practices in Nigeria and Ghana, Arthur et al. [32] reported that newspaper advertisements dominated recruitment strategy for most organisations, followed by written notices in and around the organisations, employment agencies, announcements in professional/trade publications and visits to university and college campuses. HR managers also receive unsolicited applications because of the high employment rate in the country.

In terms of selection, the centralised HR department is responsible for designing and administering this process while a smaller percentage of the organisation relies on external agencies [32]. The selection interview is given much preference, followed by academic qualification, and a letter of recommendation. The decision to hire employees is normally made by the HR manager while the decision to hire a managerial-level employee is made by top management with the consultation of the HR manager [33].

However, due to poor institutional regulations, organisations sometimes rely on informal HRM practices such as recruitment based on social networks, and ethnic and personal affiliations [26]. This is prevalent in public sector organisations where the state of origin, hometown, and ethnic group of job applicants are considered of equal relevance with competency, qualification, and talent [27]. Even the entrenchment of the quota system of employment based on principles of inclusion (i.e. an expression of federal character) to resolve this skewed employment system has been poorly implemented. Hence, this has caused disharmony and infighting among workers and poor performance standards [27].

2.2 Performance appraisal

There is wide use of the formal system in evaluating employee performance in Nigeria. According to Arthur, et al. [32], most organisations in Nigeria use performance appraisal information for personnel decisions such as for promotion and transfer. Some organisations use it for employee feedback while few organisations use it for personnel research. Supervisors’ ratings of employee performance and personnel-based data (absenteeism and commendation) are largely used by organisations while some use objective performance data such as sales data [32]. Only a few organisations use self-rating, customer rating, subordinate rating, and peer rating. However, Nigeria is a high power distance [34], a cultural orientation that emphasises a top-down relationship between an employer and employees, and a collectivist culture, a cultural orientation that emphasises the value of utilising work groups to complete tasks and an expression of a communitarian spirit both in the workplace and in communities. Based on these cultural orientations, most performance appraisal processes in Nigeria assumed a top-down pattern and team-based systems [35]. Moreover, the traditional values of communitarianism make it difficult for line managers to give negative feedback or conduct a face-to-face appraisal as it may be considered an attempt to ruin someone’s career [36]. As such, some organisations like commercial banks use ranking methods, with a specific focus on employee financial performance in an attempt to maintain objectivity [35].

2.3 Training and development

Most organisations in Nigeria conduct training for their employees. In their study, Arthur et al. [32] reported that there is a formally stated policy on training, a separate training department, a separate training budget, and training facilities and use of external training specialists or consultants in most Nigerian organisations. On-the-job training is mostly used by organisations while lectures and discussions, and job rotations are minimally used [32]. Large organisations such as financial institutions are likely to combine these training methods to ensure an appropriate harnessing of human capital. For example, First Bank Nigeria established training schools across the country (e.g. Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, and Benin City). They structured their Training and Development Programme along with employee job-specific skills, knowledge-based training, and self-development [37]. After the induction of a new employee in which he/she learns about the policies, procedures, and practices of the Bank, he/she undergoes on-the-job training then he/she will go for external training at one of these training centres across Nigeria. At the training centre, the new employee goes through a series of training based on their job description such that a customer-contact employee will attend a Clerical Operations Course, Cashier Training Course, and IT and Customer Service Training Course. The bank also encourages the employee to take self-development programs with provision for reimbursement on tuition and examination fees. There is a prospect of promotion and increment of appropriate salary scale following these pieces of training.

In the public sector, government-training institutes such as the Public Service Institute of Nigeria, the National Institute for Public Information, the Foreign Service Academy, and the Institute for Labour Studies was established to provide capacity building for public service employees. There are also opportunities for senior managers to attend overseas training institutes funded by the government. In addition, the increase in global interest in human capital building in developing economies prompted international development agencies like United Nations Development programs, International Labour Organisation, and the World Bank to fund training programmes for public sector employees. However, Nigeria still suffers shortages in skill and human capital development. According to UNDP’s Human Development Index in 2021 [38], Nigeria with a 0.535 HDI value ranks 163 out of 191 against other countries. Scholars have traced this unfortunate situation to the adoption of neo-liberal policies, which exerted pressure on the government to cut down on their spending on critical areas of the economy such as education and health [26]. To compensate for this low human capital development, private organisations tend to invest huge resources in the training and development of their employees [22].

2.4 Pay and rewards

Performance or merit-based systems dominate the reward system in Nigeria [32]. However, there are variations in the pay and rewards system in the public and private sector organisations in Nigeria. The public sector operates a service-wide remuneration so that variations (including across gender) based on performance are non-existent. Rather, the national minimum wage (with fringe benefits) and legally mandated leaves such as paid maternity and annual leave are the basis of the payment and reward system. The minimum wage is the basis for negotiations between trade unions and employers. In the private sector, the pay and reward system is mostly determined by employees’ level of experience, educational qualifications, and skill sets. Workers also get some fringe benefits such as the allocation of company vehicles for senior staff, car loans, paid leave, and paid gym membership.

Nigeria’s cultural values play a considerable role in the payment and rewards systems. Based on the principles of communitarianism, there is a tendency for workers to view organisations as an extension of their extended family, where their material and socio-emotional needs as well as family and personal circumstances are considered when making personnel decisions [36]. In keeping with this focus, some organisations have introduced burial allowances and compassionate leave for employees who are bereaved of their loved ones to help them cope with the expenses of elaborate burial ceremonies. Similar gestures are shown to workers who are getting married to help with their wedding expenses [36]. In most cases, the organisation also appoints fellow employees to attend these ceremonies in a show of solidarity and support for the concerned employees.

2.5 Employee involvement

In Nigeria, the management systems adopted by the public and private sectors differ in the degree of employee involvement in the work process. Public sector organisations follow a unitary system and a bureaucratic model of employment whereby the organisation’s employment decisions are centralised and the administrative system follows strict bureaucratization of procedures. As such, employees’ inputs are not considered in the decision-making and work processes. Rather, the organisation’s policies dictate the employees’ behaviour, with line managers expected to implement and enforce the rule-governed policies. Although line managers could hold meetings to discuss emergent issues with the employees, they are mostly to provide clear directions about employee performance expectations and goals.

In the private sector context, employee involvement varies based on organisational type, size, and employee position in the organisation. While consulting firms and other medium-size organisations may consider their employees’ input in the decision-making process, large organisations rarely require their employees opinions in making decisions about the work process. In most cases, employees at the lowest level are expected to follow the directions of their line manager in executing their tasks while team leaders’ opinions may be considered. However, as Nigeria is a high power distance culture [34], there is a tendency for managers to resist employee involvement in the decision-making process as this may reduce their power of influence in the organisation [15].

The next section evaluates the role of line managers in the HR implementation process. Line managers are closest to employee experience in the HR implementation process. As such, presenting an overview of the role of line managers in HR implementation in Nigeria will clear the path for a good understating of the HR implementation process in the country.

3. Line manager role in HRM implementation in Nigeria

As HRM continued to evolve in the Nigerian context, HR practices are increasingly devolved to the line managers across different types of organisations. In small enterprises, the owner-manager is responsible for HR implementation. This informal HR system the approach is most evident in the Igbo (a tribe in Nigeria) apprenticeship the system, “a communal enterprising framework where successful businesses develop others and overtime provides capital and gives away their customers to the new business” ([39] p. 1). Typically, a business owner recruits an apprentice, mainly through family and social connections, and provides vocational training through peer mentoring, rewarding the apprentice based on traditional values of communitarianism. This system is considered to ensure the stability and longevity of family business networks and performance. On the other hands, large corporations such as energy, banking, and the telecommunication sector, etc., have a formal approach to HR implementation, with HR departments and line managers playing key roles in HR enactment. For example, Jimoh, and Danlami [40] reported that, in Nigeria’s manufacturing sectors, HR practices such as employee training, recruitment, and selection of new employees, performance appraisal, and design job roles are increasingly devolved to the line managers (with the coordination of the HR department) because they consider HR devolution as part of their HR strategy. In the banking sector, however, line managers’ role in the HR implementation is limited to on-the-job training, employee relation, performance appraisal, and individualised pay awards while the HR department is responsible for administrative functions such as recruitment, payroll, and external training [41]. HR departments also provide clear direction and adequate training the line managers to execute their ‘newly’ devolved HR practices, as a lack of HR-related competencies and skills is likely the affect their effectiveness in the HR implementation process [42].

However, the high level of unemployment in Nigeria and the pressure to meet competing business (e.g. quality and productivity) demands alongside HR activities may affect the way line managers implement HR practices [42] For example, line managers may enact HR practices with a focus on short-term goals over the long-term strategic vision of their organisation. They also may behave inconsistently and thus, deviates from the strategic goals of their organisation. Under this circumstance, scholars have suggested HR department HR specialists/HR departments and line managers should form a partnership in developing and managing HR practices to achieve a unitarist approach to people management [42].

The next session draws from attribution theory to evaluate employees’ perceptions and reactions to the context and line manager in the HR implementation process in Nigeria. Before that, it is important to present an overview of attribution theories in HRM literature. This will help organise our thoughts about key factors that are involved in attribution processes.

4. The overview of attribution theory

The basic premise of attribution theory is that people have an innate desire to control the events around them and to understand the causality of their behaviour and that their attribution influences their responses to them and future behaviour [43]. Attribution theory has been applied, inter alia, to understand the HRM process [9] and the leadership process [44]. There are three foremost contributors to the theoretical development of attribution theory. First, Heider [11] argued that people’s attributions are dependent on whether the locus of causality for their behaviour is dependent on the person, the environment, or both. The internal locus of causality consists of both motivations and ability while the external locus of causality includes situational factors such as opportunity etc. For example, when an employee misses his/her performance targets, the manager will use the information about his/her motivation, ability, and situational factors (lack of requisite physical resources) to infer the causality of the employee performance failure. In addition, Heider [11] extended the attribution theory by examining errors that may occur during the attribution process. The first is the fundamental attribution error, which occurs when individuals ascribe the causality of an individual’s behaviour to internal factors, rather than external factors. The second attribution error is the actor-observer effect. This error describes the inclination for an actor to ascribe the causality of their behaviour to external factors while an observer makes causal inferences of the same behaviour to internal factors [45]. Lastly, self-serving bias is the tendency for an actor to attribute the causality of their behaviour for positive events to internal factors while negative events are ascribed to external factors [46]. This attribution perspective has been applied to explain interpersonal dynamics and attribution of behaviour/event within several specific HR functions, such as performance management, grievances, disciplinary actions, recruitment and selection, training, and occupational health and safety (see [10]).

Kelley [12] expanded on Heider’s attribution theory by evaluating the information pattern that people use to make causal attribution, known as the covariation principle (e.g. consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness information). Distinctiveness refers to the extent to which a person behaves in a similar way across identical situations. Consensus refers to the extent to which there is a collective agreement in the observation of different people about a person’s behaviour. Consistency refers to the extent to which an individual behaves in the same way over time. Kelley [12] noted that when people have access to multiple cases of similar behaviour and events, they would use a different combination of information patterns to infer whether the individual behaviour is caused by internal (disposition) and external (situation) factors [43]. An observer is likely to infer the causes of a person’s behaviour to internal factors when there is low distinctiveness, high consistency, and high consensus [47]. Bowen and Ostroff [48] adopted this Kelley’s [12] covariation principle (and Michel’s [49] situational strength) perspective to conceptualise how consistent, distinctive, and consensus HRM messages affect the strength of the relationship between HRM and organisational performance, conceptually framed as HR system strength.

Finally, Weiner [13] extended Heider and Kelley’s works by examining the consequences of causal attributions as well as how dimensions (e.g. locus of causality, stability, and controllability) of attributional explanation (e.g. effort, ability, luck, and task difficulty) could affect emotion and behaviour. He argued that different combinations of locus of causality, stability, and controllability in an achievement context is associated with attributions of ability, effort, task the difficulty, and luck [13]. Nishii et al. [50] partly adopted Weiner’s [13] attributional theory explains how employees’ subjective interpretation of HR practices influences their attitudinal and behavioural reactions towards it. Nishii et al. [50] noted that employees could make either internal or external attributions about the purpose of HR policies and practices, which could result in the attachment of different meanings and behaviours.

Accordingly, when employees make positive internal HR attribution that their management’s intent for designing HR practices is to enhance service quality and well-being, they are likely to develop positive perceptions, attitudes, and behaviour towards their management’s goals. Conversely, when employees make negative internal HR attribution that their management’s intent for designing HR practices are to reduce cost and for exploitation, they will develop negative perceptions, attitudes, and behaviour towards their management goals. Similarly, when an individual makes an external HR attribution that the management intents for designing HR practices to comply with union requirements, they will also develop a negative perception, attitude, and behaviour towards the management goals [50].

5. Analyses of employee perceptions and reactions in the HR implementation process in Nigeria

As already stated, Heider, Kelly, and Weiner’s attribution theories provide a theoretically an informed understanding of the cognitive complexities associated with the HR implementation process in Nigeria. One notable HR practice that can be explained using these attribution theories are the recruitment and selection strategy. The purpose of recruitment in organisations is to inject new ideas and creativity into the work and productive process of organisations. In Nigeria’s context, the ethnic, economic, religious, and tribal bias may have implications on how employees make causal attribution about the goals of their organisation’s recruitment and selection practices. Specifically, there is a the tendency for an applicant to ascribe the causality of his/her success in a job application to an external factor (e.g. social affiliations), and may perceive it as a form of social obligation on the part of the employer, who in the communitarian spirit is responsible to care for his/her family and acquaintances. This cognitive formulation may instil a high level of affective trust between the employer and the applicant but may negatively affect the quality of the human resource base of the organisation. On the other hand, an applicant that ascribes the causality for his/her successful job application to internal factors (ability e.g. qualifications) may view the recruitment strategy as an effective organisational practice and feel appreciated for having the relevant skills for the job. This causal analysis is more informative due to the stability and controllability (internal factors) of the cause for the successful job application. In another scenario, an applicant, though possessing the relevant skill for the job may ascribe their success to external factors (luck or divine intervention) because of the high level of unemployment, poor institutional regulations, and the highly competitive labour market in Nigeria. These type of applicants normally express their joy by giving testimonies/thanksgiving in religious centres to celebrate their newfound jobs. In this context, applicants can make a fundamental attribution error, which is, ascribing the causality of their success to external factors (luck), rather than internal factors (qualification). There is also the possibility of error of the actor-observer effect to occur because the applicant ascribed his/her success to an external factor (luck) while the employer hired him/her based on an internal factor (qualification). Self-serving bias may also occur because the applicant may attribute their success to an internal factor (qualification) while their lack of success may be attributed to external factors (e.g. lack of social affiliations to the employer).

These variations in the applicants’ causal attribution is likely to be exacerbated based on the information pattern they applied in the attribution process. In keeping with Kelly’s [12] covariation principle, an applicant that observes the recruitment and selection strategy to be distinctively low (low distinctiveness), that is, the organisation hires people based on their ethnic and social affiliation with the employer (or other top executives) across different times; high consensus – applicants, during socialisation, collectively agree on the skewness of the recruitment and selection strategy towards ethnicity; high consistency – the organisation always hires people from the employer’s ethnic group, they are likely to ascribe the cause of their success to external factors. This causal analysis is likely to cause disaffection among employees, cause poor performance standards, and high turnover intention. In practical terms, this attribution process is likely to be more evident in Nigerian civil service as people from the family and ethnicity of the incumbent heads tends to dominate departments [51]. It is noted, “In some places, ‘the ethnic tongue’ of the boss (i.e. his local language) is the de facto lingua franca in the office” ([52], p. 184). Personnel of the same ethnic stock as the boss are prioritised to occupy strategic positions in the department even before his/her seniors. They are also selected over their peers to attend overseas training and are recommended for special recognition without following standard procedure and practice. Thus, Olugbile [53] observed that ‘nepotism had shaded into ethnicity in Nigeria’ (p. 13) and this has resulted in maladministration, absenteeism, tardiness, inefficiency, and discontent among workers in the Nigerian public sector.

A similar trend exists in the private sector but not on the same magnitude. Private organisations exist to maximise profit unlike the public sector - which is focused on efficiency, value, and quality [54]. As such, they are under pressure to recruit, select and develop their human resource capability to meet their market and economic goals. As such, prioritising ethnic and familial affiliations over qualifications (and capacity) in their recruitment and selection strategy may adversely affect the quality of their human resources base, and eventually their business outcomes. Given this hindsight, the information pattern applied in the attribution process in the private sector employees may be different compared to the public sector. There might be low distinctiveness – organisation hires people based on their ethnic and social affiliation with the employer (or other top executives) across different times; low consensus – applicants, during socialisation, do not collectively agree that the organisation hires them based on their ethnicity; low consistency – the organisation does not always hire people from the employer’s ethnic group. In this context, they may ascribe the cause of their success in the job application to internal factors (qualification/capability). This cognitive expression is likely to cultivate the belief in employees that the organisation prioritises their human resource capacity over ethnic/social factors, which in turn, translates to better motivational and performance outcomes. Another contextual stimulus that may shape an employee’s causal attribution is the line manager’s leadership behaviour at the operational level [17]. Leadership behaviours are considered responsible for the discretionary application of specific HR practices to individual employees [17]. For example, the line manager’s leadership behaviour considers the employee’s job experience and skill level in the allocation of a task. Leadership behaviours also signify an interpretive filter that aligns HRM messages to employee actual employee experience, attitude, and behaviour [48, 55]. However, cross-cultural research in leadership has suggested that cultural differences could hinder an individual’s perception of leadership effectiveness in Nigeria [56]. The concept of leadership in the West African context, like Nigeria, is deeply embedded in the collectivist orientation that is manifested in familial, paternalistic, and communitarian dispositions [57]. An expression of this culturally endorsed leadership style is likely to spill over to how employees perceive the effectiveness of HR practices, and their motivation and performance. Therefore, a line manager’s leadership behaviour that emphasises paternalistic orientation with a focus on the humanistic view of human value is likely to signal to employees more culturally fit HR practices, design for their development, and career success as well as meeting performance-driven goals. Paternalism refers to a simultaneous display of authoritarian and benevolent styles of leadership; it is characterised by centralised decision-making, with subordinates expected to implement those decisions if they are to be favoured by the leader [58]. However, as Nigeria is a socially dependent society, line managers’ selective display of authoritarian and benevolent leadership in the enactment of HR practices across individuals in a team is likely to send mixed signals about the goal of HR practices [59].

Following Nishii et al. [50] HR attribution, a line manager that displays differentiated autocratic/benevolent leadership behaviour towards an employee during the HR implementation at the operational level is likely to trigger different attribution processes regarding the purpose of HR practices. Typically, the ‘favoured’ employee may interpret the HR practices to focus on the positive internal factor (e.g. employee wellbeing and development) or a form of social obligation [60]. For example, line managers may provide informal mentoring to the ‘favoured’ employees to boost their career success. In turn, ‘favoured’ employees will reciprocate by providing cover-ups for line managers’ unethical behaviours (e.g. utilising the organisation’s resources to seek favours or build relationships). This uneven implementation of HR practices is likely to diminish the strategic value of HRM, which is utilising ‘the people to meet both the short and long-term vision of organisations. On the hand, when the line manager displays autocratic tendencies (e.g. monitoring) towards a certain the employee in a team, he or she may interpret the goal of the HR practices to focus on the negative internal factor (e.g. productivity) than the positive internal factor (employee wellbeing).

Similar to the above analyses, this variability in causal attribution is dependent on whether the line manager’s paternalistic leadership behaviour is distinctive, collectively interpreted by all team members, and consistent across different situations. High distinctiveness will signal to employees that their line manager does not express paternalistic leadership behaviour across a similar situation. Low consensus will show that employees do not collectively agree those line managers’ paternalistic dynamics follow the same pattern. Low consistency will reveal that the line manager does not express paternalism consistently over time. In this context, the employee is likely to ascribe the causality for leadership behaviour in the HR implementation process to external factors (e.g. social affiliations). On another note, when there is low distinctiveness, high consensus, and high consistency, employees will ascribe the causality for the leadership behaviour to internal factors (e.g. line manager’s HR dispositions). The latter is likely to occur when line managers display paternalistic leadership behaviour (autocratic and benevolence) in a synergetic manner, whereby autocratic leadership behaviour will be interpreted as an HR cue for quantity-focused outcomes while the benevolent side will be ascribed to positive HR cues for the reward for outstanding performance. In Nigeria’s cultural context, this attribution pattern is likely to be interpreted as a more prototypical leadership style capable of implementing HR practices for stronger motivational and organisational outcomes.

6. Implications for future HR research

HRM research in the African context has adopted either a content approach [15, 57] or a contextual approach [22, 57] to analyse the effects of HR practices on organisational outcomes. However, not much is known about the process approach to HRM in the African context. Process approach connotes how HR is transmitted to the employees and how employee’s perceptions and cognitions of those HR practices influence uniform understanding (the HR strength) and execution of HR goals [48]. Scholars have reported that the employee HR process is crucial in determining the effectiveness of HR practices to predict positive outcomes [60, 61]. Specifically, employees’ perception and interpretation of implemented HR practices are more salient to positive employee attitudes, behaviour, and organisational outcomes than intended HR practices (e.g. content HR approach) [9]. This is because employees, as the final ‘consumer’ of practices, are responsible for translating HR strategy, policies, and practices into tangible outcomes.

As such, the first implication of this review for future HRM research in Africa is adopting process theories such as attribution theories to examine the employee’s cognition of HR practices. Pursuing such research will contribute to the theory development of HRM in the African context as well as uncover the roles of employees’ cognitive processes in the evaluation of Western-developed HRM in the African context. For example, scholars might gain particularistic cues (e.g. employees) needed for designing contextualised HRM policies and practices capable of yielding positive organisational outcomes in a disparate national context. To achieve this, I suggest integrating the three main attribution theories to capture broader cognitive complexities that influence employees’ HR attribution process. Moreover, future longitudinal HRM research could investigate whether and how employee HR attributions may change over time in the African context. This may be due to a change in HR strategy and policies, government regulations, social exchange at work, line manager’s leadership behaviour, etc. Conducting this research is likely to help gain a better understanding of the HR attribution process as an unbounded cognitive process based on the informational resources at the employee’s disposal at a time [43].

Secondly, there is a lack of research on the role of line managers’ leadership behaviour in the HR implementation process in the African context. As already stated, the concept of leadership in Africa is rooted in paternalism [57], a dynamic mix of benevolent and authoritarian leadership styles. Based on the ethnic, social, and religious diversity of Nigeria context, the line manager can display differentiated paternalistic leadership behaviour in the HR implementation process. As such, future research might benefit from this review by investigating the possibility of differentiated paternalism in the HRM process in the Nigerian context. One way to conduct this research is to examine the links between differentiated paternalistic leadership to employee perception of fairness in the HR implementation process. There is also an opportunity to examine whether differentiated paternalism accounted for differences in leader-member exchange within a team while accounting for the variances in ethnicity etc. Conducting this research is likely to contribute to leadership development programs with a focus on the enactment of HR practice at the operational level.

Third, there is a lack of research on employees’ HR attribution across the private and public sector organisations. Public sector organisations possess certain defining features, such as standardised employment practices, collectivised labour unions, etc. that differentiate them from the private sector organisations - the latter is characterised by profit maximisation, selective HR practices, and private ownership. Based on Kelly’s covariation model, future research might benefit from this review by investigating the type of information pattern (distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency) used by employees in making casual attribution about HR practices in both public and private sector organisations. Such the examination is likely to help detect the factors (e.g. organisational structure) that influences employee HR attribution in both organisational settings.

7. Limitation of this review

The first limitation of this review is the lack of empirical data to test the assumptions of HR attribution theories in the Nigerian context. Empirical data could provide a researcher with actionable evidence needed for evaluating the HR context for better motivational and organisational outcomes. To conduct this research and due to the nascent stage of HR process research in the Nigeria context, I suggest integrating both qualitative and quantitative research methods (mixed method). This will help to develop rich and broader insights about the nature of HR practices in the Nigerian context. Specifically, research may first adopt a qualitative research method (e.g. interview or focus group) to understand the HRM context and other emergent themes that could guide subsequent data collection. Then, supplement it with the quantitative method to formulate generalisable explanations about HR attributions to the wider organisation’s population in Nigeria. The second limitation is the lack of consideration for individual difference factors that may affect the employee HR attribution process. Hewett et al. [10] suggested that employee HR attribution is likely to be shaped by their values, personalities, goals, needs, social roles, and identities, as well as their past experiences, competencies, and expectancies. Considering these individual factors is likely to explain employees’ attributional process beyond the socio-cultural and economic contextual issues raised in this review. As such, future research might benefit from a study that considers individual factor variables alongside contextual factors to capture the multilevel factors affecting employee HR attribution in the Nigerian context. Lastly, this review considered only a singular HR practice (recruitment and selection) at the department level and the line manager’s leadership behaviour at the operational level. As such, there is an opportunity to consider other HR practices such as employee involvement at both department and operational levels. Differences in an employee’s perception of involvement may influence how they make sense of their organisation’s HR practices. Research could also examine whether an employee’s perception of involvement at the department level or their perception of involvement at the operation level matters more in the HR attribution process. This will help diagnose whether general HR practices are more important to HR attribution or the discretionary HR practices at the operational level.

In addition, there is also a tendency for an employee to interpret particular HR practices differently from other HR practices. For example, a particular HR practice (e.g. pay and rewards) that fulfils an employee’s personal needs and goals might be interpreted more positively than other HR practices (employee involvement). Such an HR attribution process may be present in the Nigerian context where there is a cultural expectation for organisational control and lower employee involvement than in the Western context. Moreover, the poor economic conditions in Nigeria means that employee may prioritise monetary rewards (extrinsic factors) over employment involvement (intrinsic factors). As such, research may consider examining different HR attribution processes across different HR practices. This will help the organisation streamline its resources to crucial motivational mechanisms in the organisation.

8. Conclusion

The one-size-fits-all rationale of western-developed HR practices has been criticised to overlook the particularities of the local business environment. More importantly, it failed to consider the role of people’s cognition of HR practices in disparate contexts. In this chapter, I reviewed the contextual factors and the implied meanings of HR practices in Nigeria. I evaluated different attribution patterns that may be at play among employees in the country based on their social and ethnic affiliations as well as the influence of line managers’ paternalism in the HR attributional process. Based on the analyses, I suggested that implementing a contextually fit HRM might trigger unique causal attributions among employees, which could have implications for their motivation, behaviour, and performance.