PERSONALITY TRAITS, LOCUS OF CONTROL, OPENESS TO SUCCESS, ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION AND MEDIATING ROLE OF PERCEIVED BULLYING ON QUALITY OF WORK-LIFE AMONG EMPLOYEES OF SELECTED MANUFACTURING ORGANISATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

Quality of work-life are workplace conditions associated with job security and reward to sustain andmotivate employees. Literature confirms that employees’ quality of work-life can be influenced bydispositional factors such as personality, locus of control and achievement motivation, and contextualfactors such as perceived organisational support and role ambiguity, and perceived bullying. Althoughthese factors have been previously studied, they were not collectively examined, neither were theyfocused on employees in the manufacturing sector of Nigeria. This study therefore, was designed toexamine how dispositional and contextual factors were mediated by perceived bullying, and the outcomeon quality of work-life among employees of selected manufacturing companies in the Southwest, Nigeria.The Human Needs, Humanisation of Work and Motivation theories guided the study. The ex-post factodesign was adopted, while the multi-stage sampling method was used. Lagos, Oyo, and Ogun stateswere purposively selected being the commercial hub of business in the Southwest, Nigeria. Stratifiedrandom sampling technique was used to select ten Fast-Moving Consumer Goods companies from themanufacturing sector that produces household items: Ogun (3); Oyo (3) and Lagos (6). The convenientsampling technique was used to select 572 participants across the three states, Ogun (152); Oyo (170);and Lagos (250). Instruments used for data collection include: Negative Act Questionnaire-Revised(α=.90), Big Five Inventory (α=.77), Role Ambiguity Scale (α=.90), Achievement Motivation Scale (α=.68),Locus of Control Scale (α=.76), Quality of Work-Life Scale (α=.70), and Perceived Organisational SupportScale (α=.76). Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses at α=0.05.Respondents’ age was 35±8.31 years and males were 65.0%. Dispositional factors significantly jointlypredicted quality of work-life (R 2 =.051, F(8;532)=3.555); personality factors (extraversion, neuroticism,conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness (R 2 =0.036); achievement motivation (motivation forachievement, and personal success (R 2 = 0.051); locus of control (R 2 = 0.051). Conscientiousnesspersonality (β=.099), and personal success dimension of achievement motivation (β=.124) significantlyindependently contributed more to quality of work-life. Dispositional factors significantly jointly predictedperceived bullying (R 2 =.269, F(8;538)= 24.719). Contextual factors significantly jointly predicted perceivedbullying (R 2 =.261, F(2;551)= 97.451). Perceived bullying significantly mediated the paths from personalityfactors, achievement motivation, and locus of control to quality of work-life.Personality factors and achievement motivation were important determinants of quality of work-life amongemployees of manufacturing companies in Southwest Nigeria. Manufacturing organisations shouldprovide adequate organisational support through dispositional factors to improve quality of work-life andperformance.Keywords: Quality of work-life, Perceived bullying, Locus of control,Manufacturing companies in Southwestern Nigeria