**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

#### *Perceptions of and Reactions to the HR Implementation Process in Nigeria DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110321*

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.
