ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES’ PERFORMANCE OF SOME SELECTED MONEY DEPOSIT BANKS IN NIGERIA.
Abstract
Organizations across the globe are reorganizing their operations in order to conquer competitive forces in the global market consequent upon inherent change in the market environment (Babalola & Adesanya, 2013; Eruemegbe, 2015; Gomez-Meija et al., 2016; Gotcheva et al., 2013 Faloye, Oladimeji & Kazeem 2020). This is in consonant with the general agreement that the only variable that is constant in the contemporary world is change. Organisational change represents technology development, rightsizing labour force, rescheduling operations, and partnerships (McNamara, 2011). In the 21st century, one of the biggest challenges of the world is the accelerated rhythm of change confronting organisations. This trend has made organisations to go through major transformations in their operations, having identified it as the best strategy to weather the turbulent environment associated with changes (Todericiua et al., 2013).
However, opposition to organisational change seems to emanate from organisation or individual levels. At individual level, resistance by employees occur because of the perceptions resulting from fear of the unknown, financial losses, loss of privileged positions, insecurity of job and uncooperative attitude towards change (Ala et al., 2013; Katsaros et al., 2014; Paoletta, 2020; Todericiua et al., 2013). One strategic approach available to every organization that has been identified by scholars is change management (Kassim etal., 2010; Barbaroux, 2017).
In the banking sector, change has become a common phenomenon year in year out. Banking laws and Regulations have witnessed massive change, customer behaviour are not predictable and significant challenges to financial sector are some of the issues common with bank’s operations (Kaiser & Ringlstetter, 2018). In reaction to the changes, some banks have had to adopt specific strategic moves like mergers and acquisition, technological changes and organisational re-structuring. In the global scene, financial sector has undergone external and internal pressures occasioned by global economic crisis, re-capitalization policies, market deregulation, government policies and technology development such as ICT.
The Nigerian banking sector has not spared. The sector has gone through significant changes since it was reformed in 2005 by Central bank of Nigeria CBN). The reforms carried out by CBN began in 2004 with a promise to help banks become stronger players and ensure stability and hence generate higher returns to shareholders over time and by and large contribute significantly to Nigerian economy (Soludo, 2004). Prior to the banking reforms, Nigerian banking industry had been overwhelmed by series of turbulent times leading to liquidity crisis. Specifically, the period 1995-2005 was spectacular for the Nigerian banking industry; because of the rate at which banks were becoming bankrupt reaching a monumental unprecedented level. This thereby became an issue of interest not only to the regulatory authorities but also the policy analysts and the public at large and the necessity to effect a drastic re-engineering of the industry became inevitable (Elumilade, 2010).
