Originally published here.

Workers attitude to work is a thing of concern to all management of organization. The present study investigated the influence of four socio-demographic variables (gender, work environment, length of service and age) on attitude to work of academic staff in two universities. The study employed an ex-post facto research design using accidental sample to select 100 participants for the study. Questionnaire on the attitude to work self report was used as an instrument to collect data and response from the participants. Four hypotheses were tested in this study and data collected were analyzed using independent test and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results showed that socio-demographic variables have no significant influence on attitude to work. Findings were discussed in line with the existing literatures. Based on findings, it is concluded that socio-demographic variables are  important in attitude to work of academic workers.

Discussion

Findings from this study shows that gender did not have significant influence on attitude to work. This indicates that male participants were not significantly different from female participants in attitude to work. The plausible explanation for this is that both male and female academic staffs performs the same tasks of teaching, research and community development, and same performance measurement and indices are used to promote them. Also, both male and female academic staffs are exposed to equal opportunities in terms of benefit and work load. Therefore, being male or female does not influence their attitude to work. This finding is in contradiction with previous research findings of Johansson (1991) and Ellingsæter (1995) who reported significant influence of gender on attitude to work. Furthermore, finding from this study revealed that environment did not influence attitude to work significantly. The finding indicates that participants who perceived work environment averagely were not significantly different in attitude toward work from those who perceived work environment as good.

A possible explanation for this finding may be due to the learned helplessness. The work environment of the institutions studied may not be too conducive for the academic staff but they tend to accept it and make do with what they have. Finding from this study contradict previous findings of Yusuf & Metiboba (2012) and Akinyele (2007) who reported that environment influences workers’ attitude to work. From this study, workers with short length of service did not report significant positive attitude to work than workers with long length of service. This suggests that workers with short length of service were not significantly different in attitude to work from workers with long length of service. An explanation for this finding may be that workers with short length of service imbibe the culture and norms as laid down by the workers with long length of service who are seen as role models and mentors, thereby having no reason to exhibit more positive attitude to work than the long tenured workers. As such, if the long tenured workers do not exhibit positive attitude to work, the short tenured ones would not exhibit positive attitude to work.

The study concludes that gender, work environment, length of service and age have no significant influence on attitude to work. It is therefore recommended that demographic factors should be effectively managed in work organizations because they are important factors in work management.

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