**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 [3–5]. 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 [6–8]. 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 [11–13] 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

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

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.
