WORK EFFICIENCY OF PORT HEALTH EMPLOYEES AN OUTCOME OF CREATIVITY AND EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE EVD RISK TAKING BEHAVIOUR
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The recent outbreak of the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria placed a high demand on the work efficiency of the Port Health Services Employees in all the ports of entry to Nigeria. Employees of the Port Health Services of the Nigeria Ministry of Health were on the spotlight as it was discovered that the Virus got into Nigeria through one of her international airports owing to the inefficiency of the port health employees at the screening points. The discovery of EVD in Nigeria created a need to investigate the work efficiency of the Port Health Services arm of the Federal
Ministry of Health because according to Solow (1957), efficiency can be said to be very important in organisational effectiveness. Efficiency simply implies that an organisation has achieved the maximum amount of output that is physically
achievable with current technology, and given a fixed amount of inputs (Diewert & Lawrence, 1999). Efficiency simply
refers to the ability to be productive. This implies that improving efficiency is fundamental to increasing the
organisations economic performance. The effort to make distribution of resources more efficient is becoming very
important due to the massive growth in population. Robbins and Coulter (2005) posits that employee efficiency has
been a major determinant of a good job performance. They went on to argue that efficiency is the ability to produce
the most amount of output from the least amount of input. According to them, organisational effectiveness is
dependent on high efficiency because efficiency is a means to meeting organisational goals. Work efficiency is a
variable that has been studied as part of employee productivity until Taormina & Gao (2009) claims that work
efficiency can be investigated independently of productivity. Similarly, Diewert and Lawrence (1999) claimed that
Efficiency is a very important factor to consider in organisational productivity. However, efficiency of the employee
depends on a number of factors such as the nature of work, the work environment, the employee personal
characteristics and some environmental characteristics (Stigler, 1976) One important task for psychologists and
human resources managers is how to make an employee to be efficient in order to improve the overall efficiency of
the organisation and increase the organisations competitive edge in the modern economic environment. Taormina &
Gao (2009) posits that organisations intending to attain high effectiveness desires high efficiency from their
employees. In this regard, work efficiency being a new variable in psychological literature has not been extensively
studied, however a limited number of studies such as Paul (1967) had actually introduced the concept of work
efficiency in their investigations. It is noteworthy that the studies which introduced work efficiency had not actually
investigated the unique contribution of psychological factors such as creativity and risk taking behaviour on efficiency.
The emergence of Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa and particularly Nigeria, requires strategies that will counter its
spread. This has made the job of the Port Health Services a very important role for the nation. Port health services
are concerned with disease surveillance which includes; Immunization and Issuance of International Health
Certificate (Yellow Card), health response to disasters such as EVD, plane crash, bomb explosions, terrorism,
boarding and inspection of ships, aircrafts and road vehicles. Similarly, port health services also carry out
environmental services which includes; environmental health activities such as sanitation, pollution control, waste
disposal etc, disinfection and decontamination of conveyances. At other times, port health services is concerned with
provision of curative and preventive health care services including referral and laboratory service, ad-hoc activities
e.g. hajj operations, screening of refugees, deportees. Due to the discovery of this virus, the job of the port health
services employees became prone to risks. These employees come in contact with the virus directly or in directly and
they are can also be agents of its spread. To this end, there becomes a need to investigate the risk taking behaviours
of port health services employees in relation to Ebola virus disease (EVD). Specifically, a case of the dreaded ebola
virus disease was reported in Nigeria in 2014. This incidence was acclaimed to have occurred to negligence and low
levels of work efficiency on the part of port health services employees who were unable to detect that the carrier of the virus; Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian American who brought the virus to Nigeria through the Murtala Mohammed
international airport Lagos, was actually suffering from the disease. Some Nigerians even claimed that the port health
services employees were not creative otherwise the situation would have been avoided.
This assumption based on observation implies that creativity may be implicated in work efficiency. creativity is a
construct that has been defined and studied by some researchers such as Albaum & Baker (1977), Amabile (1983)
Zhang & Bartol (2010). However, creative traits, abilities and peoples’ belief about their creativity are different
(Furnham, Zhang, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2006). This has made the study of creativity across domains a challenge to
researchers (Kaufmann, 2012). One alternative as put forth by (Kaufmann, 2012) has been to look at how people
view and report their own creativity. Generally, layperson perceptions of the construct of creativity tend to be close to
expert opinions (Sternberg, 1985). According to Zhang & Bartol (2010), employee creativity involves producing novel
and useful ideas for organisations including processes, products and services. This has made creativity to be a very
important consideration in assessing employee work efficiency and performance. Creativity provides an organisation
with competitive advantage by generating, deploying, transferring, and integrating new technological knowledge
(Ángel & Sánchez, 2009). Similarly, Montag, Maertz, & Baer, 2012) claims that engaging in behaviours conducive to
creative outcomes is an integral part of professional role requirement. The identification of key factors that can foster,
influence and sustain employee’s engagement in creative behaviours, therefore, is a major factor to consider
(Manolopoulos, 2006; Zheng, Khoury, & Grobmeiher, 2010). Furthermore, the increasing challenging work
environment of the 21st century has made employers to be involved in an unpredictable and technological change
resulting to efficiency which is dependent on creativity (Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Thus creativity has become a very
pivotal factor of interest to employers as they have realized the importance of encouraging their employees to be
creative (Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Employee creativity has also been indicated in organisational outcomes such as
innovation, effectiveness, efficiency and survival. (Amabile, 1996; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). Today more than
ever, organisations are trying to blend creativity and efficiency. This is timely as it helps in productivity (Wagner,
2005).
Finally, Taormina and Gao (2009), concludes that efficiency is a means to achieve organizational goals, therefore high
efficiency should be desired by management for their organizations to attain high effectiveness.
1.1: Background of the study
Work efficiency was first introduced by Taylor (1911) in his time-and-motion studies when he attempted to determine
the best way of reducing time and effort in the production of a commodity. This is an attempt at improving employee
efficiency because efficiency results to a reduction in time and effort and also, better use of work time could bring
about greater operational efficiency. Taormina and Gao (2009) went further to highlight that efficiency involves getting
the most output from the least amount of input. This implies that organisations should be concerned with work
efficiency as it may be cost effective and instrumental to an increased productivity, because efficiency is included in
work performance which is instrumental to desired organisational outcomes (Maxham, Netemeyer, & Lich- tenstein,
2008).Consequently, it is becoming increasing important to investigate work efficiency since work efficiency has not been
sufficiently examined, and the factors contributing to its existence remains unclear. In the standard efficiency
literature, organisations are assumed to choose a plan that minimizes costs, given its output mix and input prices or
that maximizes profits given the prices of its inputs and outputs. However, recent research (e.g., Hughes, Lang,
Mester, & Moon, 2000; Hughes, 1999; Hughes, Lang, Mester, & Moon, 1999; and Hughes, Mester, & Moon, 2001)
have demonstrated that managers maximize their utility, which is a function of risk. To the extent that decisions affect
risk which ultimately influences efficiency and performance.
Organisations in the 21st century have diverse environments with a range of organisational processes (Fineman,
1993; Brief & Weiss, 2002; Barsade, Brief, & Spataro, 2003). However, recent work on organisational outcomes has
indicated the influences of such factor as efficiency (George, 1991; Staw & Barsade, 1993; Staw, Sutton, & Pelled,
1994). According to Amabile, Barsade, Mueller and Staw (2005), “relatively less attention has been paid to
organizational creativity as a work outcome”. Creativity is the process of “coming up with fresh ideas for changing
products, services, and processes so as to better achieve the organization’s goals (Amabile et, al 2005).
Similarly, Fesharaki, Fesharaki & Allameh (2012) agreed that efficiency and effectiveness of management means the
manager’s ability to prepare, develop, allocate, maintain and use of resources. This requires accurate information
about human resources as a vital resource of any organization.
Creativity on the other hand, has been a variable that has generated lots of controversy regarding its definition.
Creativity has been defined as useful novelty (Amabile, 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Robinson & Stern, 1997;
George & Zhou, 2001; Zhou & Shalley, 2003). However, Wei, Robert and Taormina (2011) posit that “there has been
a growing consensus among creativity researchers regarding the appropriateness of defining creativity in terms of an
outcome”. Amabile (1988) believes creativity should involve an outcome in terms of an idea or product. Specifically,
Amabile (1988) defined creativity as the “production of novel and useful ideas”. Creativity also has not been studied
extensively in psychological literatures (wei et, al,. 2011). Creativity is not a job specific variable as it can be relevant
at any level of the organisation (Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002). However some researches on creativity has found
that work climate factors were significantly related to creativity (e.g, Rasulzada & Dackert 2009).
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that improving creativity is very important for organisational sustainability (Amabile,
1988; Burnside, 1990; Shalley, 1995). Similarly, Crant (2002) assert that creativity of employees is one of the effective
options on organization performance In today’s world. This can be attributed to the reason why the effect of social
environment on creativity remains non-negotiable. The dynamic business climate of the 21stcentury, laden with gross
competition has created a need for creativity and innovation. Creativity has thus become a vital ingredient for
sustainable development of organisations as organizations need to unleash their employees’ innate creative potential,
because employees’ creative ideas can be used as building blocks for organizational innovation, change, and
competitiveness (Amabile, 1988; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993; Zhou & George, 2003). Against popular
misconceptions that creativity is domain specific, creativity can be employed in a vast array of disciplines to achieve a
wide amount of positive outcomes. In other words, creativity can be important at any level of the organisation (Madjar,
Oldham, & Pratt, 2002). Although it is undeniable that creativity stems from individual ability, whether or not individual
creativity is activated, exercised, and channeled into a final product or service is a function of the work environment,
or the contextual characteristics that may be involved in stimulating and supporting creativity (Amabile, 1988, 1996;
Lubart, 1999; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). When employees exhibit creativity at work, they generate novel
responses that are useful in dealing with the tasks at hand (Amabile, 1983, 1996).
Moreover, the recent epidemic of Ebola virus disease (EVD) has increased the likelihood that travelers to EVD affected countries will be exposed to infected or ill persons. This is making the risk of infection for residents and
visitors in the affected countries through exposure in the community a prime area of concern in order to safeguard the
health of people living in these countries. Employees of port health services are thereby at risk of exposure to this
dreadful disease and the Residents and visitors to the affected areas run a risk of exposure to EVD in healthcare
facilities. In Nigeria, the ability to control the spread of this virus rest on the onus of the Federal Ministry of Health
through the port health services because the level of risk is related to the efficiency of the port health services
employees in combatting the spread of the virus. This has placed a high demand on the job of the port health
services employees as they are expected to be highly created and innovation in the administration of their duties in
other not to get infected with the virus in the line of duty. However, Nigeria has been pronounced free from EVD. To
this end, as the epidemic is still evolving, it is expected that a very efficient work force in the port health services will be highly instrumental to keeping Nigeria safe from the dreaded EVD.
WORK EFFICIENCY OF PORT HEALTH EMPLOYEES AN OUTCOME OF CREATIVITY AND EBOLA VIRUS DISEASE EVD RISK TAKING BEHAVIOUR