Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental … of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability e-ISSN 2360-8013 ii | P a g e Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability

www.jases.org

e-ISSN 2360-8013

e-ISSN:2360-8013

Volume 2 Issue 4, 2016

Journal of Applied Sciences &

Environmental Sustainability

http://www.jases.org/scope/

http://www.jases.org/scope/

Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability www.jases.org e-ISSN 2360-8013

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Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability (JASES) Volume 2, Issue 4, is a Special Issue

Publication covering selected and revised papers after Peer-reviewed by Scientific Committee from The

International Conference on Science, Engineering, and the Social Sciences (ICSESS) convened at Universiti

Teknologi Malaysia in 2016 and also after Peer-reviewed by reviewers of JASES. The ICSESS served as an

academic platform for championing the pursuit of excellence in various research areas basically from fields

including Education and Management. Special thanks to the Chief Guest Editor and Guest Editors who have made

this possible.


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JASES Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief

Dr. Ibraheem Dooba

Co-Editor

Prof. Dr. Malay Chaudhuri

Emeritus Professor, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia

Managing Editor

Dr. Augustine Chioma Affam

University College of Technology Sarawak, Malaysia

Technical Editor

Dr. Ahmed Abba Haruna

Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia


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ICSESS Guest Editor-in-Chief:

Assoc Prof. Dr. Lee Chew Tin

ICSESS Guest Editors:

Aliyu-Isah Chikaji

Bala Salisu

Ernest Ituma Egba

Baba Adams Ndalai

Bruno Lot Tanko


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CONTENTS

Students’ Motivation on Learning EFL Writing Skills Through

Inquiry Approach 1 - 16

Sitti Hamsina S, Ahmad Johari Sihes

Promoting Corporate Governance and Sustainability through Ethical Leadership and

Organizational Culture in Nigeria’s Banking Sector 17 - 30

Orji Sixtus Onyebuchi, Maisarah Mohamed Saat, Dewi Fariha Abdullah

HR Strategic Partner Role and Organizational Performance 31 - 43

Charles Amechi Uti, Choi Sang Long

Employability Skills Integration in University TVET Programmes: A Strategy for Reducing

Unemployment Rate among Graduates in Nigeria 44 - 55

Dahiru Sale Mohammed, Sarimah Ismail

Treasury Single Account and Sustainable Public Expenditure in Nigeria 56 - 61

Lawal Ahmed Tanimu, Muhammad Sulaiman, Awaisu Rabiu,

Assessment of Appropriateness of Project Reports of Graduating Business Education Students

in Tertiary Institutions in Ebonyi State, Nigeria 62 - 67

Augustina Chinweoke Anyigor-Ogah

Lifting the Veil on the Economic Activities of Muslim Females in Northern Nigeria 68 - 75

Tawa S. Tijjani, Ebi Shahrin Suleiman, Umar Haiyat Abdul Kohar


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Risk in Islamic Banks: A Literary Review 76 - 84

Muryani Arsal, Nik Intan Norhan Abd Hamid, Faizah Mohammed Bashir

Perspectives on the Inquiry Learning Approach (IlA) on English Language Proficiency

in Indonesia 85 - 93

Sitti Hamsina S, Ahmad Johari Bin Sihes, Amamata Zakari

Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Islamic Bank: A Conceptual paper 94 - 104

Umar Usman, Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar, AU Alkali, Nur Naha Abu Mansoor

Properties and Classifications of Bamboo for Construction of Buildings 105 -114

Aisha Haladu Bornoma, Muhamed Faruq, Moveh Samuel

Perception of Project Time Overrun In Building Construction Industry in Nigeria 115 - 120

Anumah John James, Anumah Lesado, Daniel Abi Alice, Rasaki Olajide Samson

©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 2 (4) 1-16, 2016 e-ISSN 2360-8013

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Research Article

Students’ Motivation on Learning EFL Writing Skills

Through Inquiry Approach

Sitti Hamsina S1., Ahmad Johari Sihes2

1Institut Parahikma Indonesia, Jl.Mustafa Dg. Bunga No. 191 Gowa Sulawesi Selatan Indonesia, Post Code 92113.

2Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

ARTICLE INFO

Article history

Received: 11/07/2016

Accepted: 04/09/2016

A b s t r a c t

The purpose of the study is to find out the differences of students’ motivation

in learning writing skills between using inquiry learning and using traditional

methods. The study used post-test only research design in experimental-control

groups in quasi-experimental research. Its subject is twenty students of XI

grade-science program in experimental group and twenty students of XI grade-

science program in control group. The study conducted within 6 meetings in 3

weeks in High School in Makassar. Data obtained by using three scales in

MSLQ as a post-test and analyzed by using SPSS. It is found that inquiry

learning can create meaningful differences on students’ control of learning

beliefs. Besides, inquiry-learning procedure is also found to create meaningful

differences on students’ self-efficacy in learning writing skills. However,

inquiry learning is not found to create meaningful differences in the anxiety

dimension. The recommendation of the study also discussed in this article.

© Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability. All rights reserved.

students’ motivation, learning,

writing skills, inquiry learning

1. Introduction

Teaching and learning becomes central issue in curriculum and instruction. If teaching and learning process

runs well, it tends to gain learning achievement as general learning objectives seem easy. This occurs to all

subjects including learning English as a foreign language. So, all components in teaching and learning have

to function well such as teaching methods and strategies, teaching media and aids, classroom facilities,

syllabus, and lesson plan (Stern, 1992; Depdiknas KTSP, 2006).

Teacher strategies in teaching and learning are necessary to be varied to gain learners’ motivation

and achievement in learning. One of teaching strategies which involve students’ participation and

engagement in the classroom is inquiry learning instruction. This instruction involves learners to learn on


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their own ways although teachers have limited experience with using inquiry activities in their classrooms

(Newman et al., 2004). Teachers definitely need to be well prepared and confident in their knowledge and

understanding in order to properly direct, guide, focus, challenge and even negotiate with students as they

guide them through the process.

More specifically, teachers’ preparation in all subjects in curriculum is necessary including English

language teaching and learning as a foreign language. It may determine students’ achievement in all

language competence (such as listening, reading, speaking, and writing). One which teachers need to

prepare is teaching strategies and to apply those strategies in front of the classroom. A strategic competence

of English in school based curriculum is writing although teachers face big challenges in teaching and

students have difficulties to explore the competence.

This study would focus on developing students’ motivation in learning writing skills through

inquiry approach in EFL. Inquiry approach wishes increasing students’ motivation. Students’ motivation

involves in the study is control of beliefs, self-efficacy, and anxiety. The developing of them would be

found by using inquiry based learning.

1.1 Motivation

Some factors determine second or foreign language learning achievements such as aptitude, learner

preferences, learner beliefs, age of acquisition, and motivation. among those factors, motivation gains

widespread acknowledgement as the most influential. Thus, being able to conceptualize motivation as

exactly as possible will, without a shred of doubt, be beneficial to all who related, like educationalists,

psychologists, teachers and learners, to name a few. Donjey (2005) also agrees that motivation is guilty for

shaping human behavior by energizing it and opening it solution. He said that motivation has been broadly

received by teachers and researchers as a key among various factors that determine success or failure of

second/foreign language learning, because motivation in learning may influence other environmental

factors.

Students’ motivation, as expressed by Wigfield (1997), is being influenced by the environment in

which students find themselves. He discusses teacher control and few opportunities for student choice as

factors that can actually decrease task value towards reading. If the environment is a large factor in

motivating students to read, then educators should be particularly interested in finding ways to optimize

literacy learning environments to support an increase in motivation. Some approaches to teaching reading

may be more advantageous than others. Teachers, who make reading socially interactive, teach strategies to

help students comprehend, and use a coaching style instead of a corrective style has been shown to increase

reading motivation (Gambrell, 1996 & Pressley, 2006).


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Rusman’s study (2010) highlighted that teaching and learning process should support community

wishes although teachers’ participation and students’ motivation in the process are low. Community

members hoped students have learnt and practiced their ability in the classroom in order to use in social

interaction in community. Teachers’ involvement and students’ motivation are crucial in practicing

students’ ability in the classroom. One of teacher’s involvements in teaching and learning process is their

competence of using various teaching techniques to activate students in learning.

Sanjaya (2009) also concluded that students got low encouragement to increase their high order

thinking ability because they only are focused on memorizing competence. Memorizing competence

according to him was not connected to daily context. In this case, teachers are necessary to guide students in

learning with various interesting teaching approaches. Low motivation in learning significantly correlated

with motivation principles (attention, relevancy, confidence, and satisfactory). Students’ motivation in the

classroom was effected by the interesting teaching and learning process such as learning materials and

learning approaches (Sanjaya, 2006). It can be concluded that the higher motivation of students is effected

by interesting ways of teachers in delivering their students to touch learning objectives.

Student motivation, according to Kaylene & Caroline (2012) is impacted by five main ingredients.

They are student, teacher, content, method/process, and environment. From this, it may be concluded that

teacher and learning content as parts of learning context become two determinants to enrich student

motivation. Teacher in teaching process has to use appropriate learning content such as learning materials,

learning methods, and lesson plan on a consistent basis. What teacher implements in teaching is suitable

with students’ context because students have complex needs and desires. The interesting point in this view

is student. Student, according to Kaylene & Carolineis is an ingredient to motivate itself. It means

motivation may come from inner (intrinsic) or outer (extrinsic) parts of students. Students can increase their

motivation from intrinsic and extrinsic encouragement. Understanding student motivation including

intrinsic and extrinsic motivation means understanding students’ potency to learn.

From those studies (Rusman, 2010; Sanjaya, 2009; Sanjaya, 2006), it could be concluded that

students’ motivation becomes a challenge for teachers in English teaching and learning as a foreign

language. Teacher should solve this challenge by implementing teaching approach in the classroom. By

implementing appropriate teaching approach, students have great potency to increase their motivation to

learn. So, teacher has to understand the causes of which improve students’ motivation in the classroom.

According to Pintrich et al. (1991), there are six components of motivation namely intrinsic

orientation, extrinsic orientation, task value, control of learning beliefs, self-efficacy, and test anxiety. Three

of them involve in the study as motivation scales are control of learning beliefs, self-efficacy, and test

anxiety. Control of learning beliefs focuses on students’ belief degree to support their efforts to study and

hopefully bring about positive results. Self-efficacy focuses on the students’ performance expectations and


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their confidence level in mastering tasks. Test anxiety focuses on how to measure students’ test anxiety in a

course. This test anxiety also specifically measures the students’ pessimistic thoughts and emotional aspects

of anxiety that undermine performance on an exam.

1.2 Writing Skill

Writing is not a single attribute in language learning. It may be linked with orthography, written discourse,

the act of writing, or literature (Silva & Matsuda, 2002). However, whatever meaning and understanding

adopted, know about writing is integral part of other language skills. It makes writing always becomes a

complex skill to master whether it is mother language or foreign language. Its development involves much

more than accurate use of grammar and a good range of vocabulary, or joining together the written down

words (Richards, 2002). Writing consists of some elements. They are organization, grammar, diction,

cohesion, and unity. On the other hand, the writer is put in a place to anticipate the reader’s reactions

(Olshtain, 1991), while the speaker and hearer can provide immediate feedback in oral communication.

Besides, aspects such as linguistic accuracy, clarity of expression, organization of ideas, naturalness and

spontaneity emerge as some of the basic additional factors to be taken into consideration in writing, apart

from spoken interaction (Silva & Matsuda, 2002). Followings are some explanations and examples of

writing as a difficult and complex skill to be solved in teaching and learning process.

Rita and Rita (2011) stated that most high school teachers in Indonesia have been teaching English

for years without taking care of their writing ability because they believed that writing skill is difficult.

They were difficult to understand in detail and guided them step by step in teaching writing. So, teachers’

perception are necessary to be strengthened to understand steps of teaching writing to improve their

students’ writing skill. Writing, according to them, is a skill which requires organization of ideas to be

communicated in a text because writing entails many complex components such as grammar, spelling,

vocabulary, mechanics, and more importantly, its unity, coherence and cohesion. It makes the importance of

complexity of teaching ways in teaching and learning process.

To develop EFL writing skills according to Alwasilah (2006), attention should be paid to the

process rather than product, quantity rather than quality, and fluency rather than accuracy. Indonesian

students failed to learn skills in English including writing skill. He concluded that it may happen because

teacher failed to meet students’ needs including to implement those aspects to develop his syllabus and tend

to use conventional approach of teaching such as lecturing, drills, translating, and summarizing. Teacher as

a front person in the classroom should design curriculum in connection with the needs of students for

developing academic writing and use various and appropriate approaches.

Melanie’s finding in her study (2012) indicated that the majority of teachers had low self-efficacy

in teaching writing. Giving appropriate instruction in teaching writing, according to her, needs high


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teachers’ self-efficacy because they must guide students from organizing students’ ideas in their mind to

producing them in their writing. Surely, these activities need a specific focus to encourage and guide

students to do them. Teachers’ low self-efficacy may be avoided by training them with effective ways in

instructing students to write.

Mourtaga’s study (2011) showed that English instructors in Gaza misunderstood the nature of the

writing process, their learners did not practice enough writing in English. This study also revealed that

students had low competence in writing. From those cases, he suggested that to develop English writing

competence, instructors are necessary to use innovative classroom techniques within the process approach

and dealing with learners in a human fashion. One of classroom techniques which may fashion students’

activities is inquiry learning. Inquiry learning focuses on learning process which students may practice their

skills more flexibly.

From Buckingham’s study (2008) in Turkey, it could be concluded that learner strategies can be

incorporated to develop writing skill with academic writing program. It also found that Turkish learners

have difficult in developing writing skill specially in exploring their ideas in certain genre conventions, so

he suggested for solving this writing difficulty, it needs to combine an appropriate approach with writing

teaching sequences. It should refer to teachers’ competence to combine specific approach in teaching

certain skills in language such as teaching writing. It means that writing skill is necessary in teaching and

learning process because writing is a productive-process skill.

Fathi Huwari & Noor Hashima (2011) stated that Jordanian students have lack of writing ability in

English at schools or universities level because they do very little writing in English. They recommended

that future research can be done on learners’ use of strategies to reduce their high level of writing

apprehension by using qualitative method. This study also indicates that there is a positive relationship

between age and socio-economic status with writing apprehension.

1.3 Inquiry Learning

Inquiry, according to Colburn (2004), refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world

and propose explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. Inquiry also refers to the activities

of students in which they develop knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas, as well as an

understanding of how scientists study the natural world. Inquiry-based instruction is a classroom creation

where students are engaged in open-ended, student-centered, and hands-on activities.

Guided inquiry learning incorporates the idea of learning being student centred rather than

traditionally teacher directed. When students help to shape the direction of their learning, they are

empowered and learning is taken to whole new level. Students take ownership for their own learning, which

results in more effective learning (Brown, 2008). Throughout the study, as students were observed and


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made field notes, always came back to the idea that never followed a cookbook recipe for a lab in the

future. Students need to have the ability to discover their own answers, to lead their own inquiry. The

students rose to the challenge and were motivated and engaged to direct their own learning or to be

independent learners.

In order to promote students’ independent learning, inquiry learning model is mostly helpful

(Atkinson et al., 2008). Inquiry-guided learning includes a variety of teaching methods that may assist

students in guiding students to learn, to assess, and to practice their skills in order to be independent

learners. Besides, students also have low level of thinking skills. To increase these skills still become the

main problem for teachers. Inquiry-guided learning, according to them, also may increase students’ high

order thinking skills. It may concluded that students are still difficult to be independent and to have higher

level thinking skills.

Furthermore, Chan Hok On’s research (2010) shows that different teachers held diverse beliefs

about inquiry-based learning. Those different beliefs of teachers were found to force on their

implementation of inquiry-based learning. This study recommended that teachers’ reflection, arrangement

of resources, preparation for teachers and students and in-services training are necessary to be related to

curriculum development, local authority, and school administration. Those all are important to motivate

students and maximally involve their strategies in teaching and learning process. So, to develop school

curriculum, those recommendations require to be integrated in order to accommodate curriculum goals.

Yet another issue is that students need both modelling in advance of and support while engaging in

inquiry learning (Friedrichson & Meis, 2006). Students need to be taught how to conduct an inquiry

activity, how to develop higher order thinking, and how to put the inquiry skills into practice. Another

dilemma is limited resources. Finding the time to teach using this method, which generally tends to be more

time consuming than traditional methods, may be a problem. Teachers must find a way to allocate the time

to teach using this method, as well as, fitting in standard curriculum and assessments (Newman et al.,

2004). Teachers are the vehicles through which students are able to make successful interactions with

content material.

The primary issue of an education that is founded on experience is to choose the kind of

experiences or activities that are productive and lead to future fulfilling experiences (Dewey 1997). Inquiry

Learning can provide those experiences. Haranda and Yoshina (2004) describe inquiry learning as having

the ability to promote deeper levels of thinking and improve students’ motivation for the learning of

science.

Teaching English using inquiry learning involves designing or using a learning activity that allows

for the promotion of student inquiry and is collaborative, student driven and open ended. When students are

involved in an inquiry activity they are following their own line of questioning to solve a problem and


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arrive at a solution. In the process they will have utilized higher order thinking, problem solving,

collaboration, communication and literacy skills and scientific process skills.

White et al. (1999) stated that the role of the teacher in an inquiry-based classroom is quite different

from that of a teacher in a conventional classroom. Instead of providing direct instruction to students,

teachers help students generate their own content-related questions and guide the investigation that follows.

Because of the role of the teacher in an inquiry-based classroom is unconventional, it is sometimes

misunderstood. When teachers choose to use an inquiry-based approach, they commit to provide rich

experiences that provoke students’ thinking and curiosity; to plan carefully-constructed questioning

sequences; to manage multiple student investigations at the same time; to continuously assess the progress

of each student as they work toward their solution or final product; and to respond in the moment to

students’ emerging queries and discoveries.

2. Method

The post-test only design is used to find out the differences of students’ motivation which taught by inquiry

approach and which received instruction through traditional methods. The quasi-experimental research has

been conducted on 6 meetings of teaching English within 3 weeks in Madrasah Aliyah Negeri 3 Makassar.

Twenty students of XI grade-science program in experimental group and twenty of twenty two students of

XI grade-science program in control group. They are all 40 students as study subject. Their age is between

16-18 years old. Both groups were randomly selected as experimental group and control group. As far as

the procedures are concerned, inquiry was selected as teaching approach in order to motivate students to

learn English writing skills.

During the experimental study, both groups received the same writing materials although writing

skills were not measured. The difference of students’ motivation would be measured between group

received writing instruction with inquiry learning and group received writing instruction with traditional

teaching methods. Motivation of both groups were measured by using Motivation Strategy Language

Questionnaire (MSLQ) after 3 week-teaching and learning. MSLQ questionnaire used a 7 point likert scales

from never true until always true. Its scales interpretation according to Pintrich et al. (1993) is that 1.00-

1.50 means exceptionally low, 1.51-2.50 means very low, 2.51-3.50 means low, 3.51-4.50 means moderate,

4.51-5.50 means high, 5.51-6.50 means very high, 6.51-7.00 means exceptional high. Motivation would be

measured by three scales namely control of beliefs, self-efficacy, and anxiety. Those three scales have 18

items; 6 items of control of beliefs, 4 items of self-efficacy, and 8 items of anxiety.

Before using MSLQ questionnaire, it was translated into Indonesian language (language of research

subject) by using back translation technique and was validated by 3 experts in English language teaching

from State University of Makassar. Reliability of the questionnaire was also measured by using cronbach

alpha. The cronbach alpha of control of beliefs is 0.65, self-efficacy is 0.75, and anxiety is 0.79. The


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cronbach alpha of three motivation scales showed consistent reliability and it means it can be used in the

study.

With regards of validate and reliability process, MSLQ questionnaire in Indonesian version, then,

was distributed into both experimental and control group before and after treatment in order to collect data

about students’ motivation. The treatment ran during 6 meetings by using inquiry approach in experimental

group and by using traditional methods in control group. Data were analyzed by using one independent

sample t Test.

3. Results and Discussion

As regards of students’ motivation test result of control and experiment group, posttest only group design

was used to find out the difference of students’ motivation between control and experiment group. Before

presenting those differences, the following would be shown mean and standard deviation of each scale of

motivation. Table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation of motivation scale.

Table 1: Comparison of Scale Mean Between Control and Experiment Group

Scale Group N Mean SD

Belief Control 20 5.18 1.09

Experiment 20 5.76 0.60

Total 40 5.47 0.91

Self-Efficacy Control 20 5.14 0.60


Total 40 5.41 0.60

Anxiety Control 20 4.99 0.95


Total 40 5.22 0.90

Data analysis in Table 1 shows that three scales of motivation used in the study have higher mean

score in experimental group than one in control group. Control of beliefs and self-efficacy in control group

is in high level and in experimental group is in very high level. Both are different from anxiety. Anxiety in


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both control and experimental group is in high level. It can be concluded that all three scales of motivation

in experimental group with receiving inquiry learning have higher mean score of control of beliefs, self-

efficacy, and anxiety than control group with receiving traditional learning approach in learning writing

skills.

Regarding to the result in table 1, it was found that among 6 items in measuring students’ control of

beliefs, only item 6 [understanding the subject matter of this course is very important to me] is not

consistently higher in experimental group. Mean score [4.50] of item 6 in control group is higher than its

mean score [3.95] in experimental group (see Appendix A). Furthermore, from 3 of 4 items in self-efficacy

have consistently higher mean score in experiment group than in control group and only item 3 is not

consistent [if I try hard enough, then I will understand the course material]. Item 3 shows the same mean

score between experiment group and control group (see Appendix B). In anxiety scale, from 8 items, only

one item in experimental group shows lower mean score than in control group. It is item1 [I believe I will

receive an excellent grade in this class]. And other seven items in experimental group shows higher than in

control group (see appendix C).

The difference between experimental group with learning writing through inquiry and control group

with learning writing through traditional methods are shown in table 2. Independent t-test has been used to

test the difference between posttest points in the experimental group and the control group.

Table 2: Difference of motivation scales between Control Group and Experimental Group

Scale

F Sig. T Sig. (2-

tailed)

Control of

Belief

Equal variances assumed 5.737 .022 2.058 .047

Equal variances not

assumed

.048

Self-Efficacy Equal variances assumed 1.714 .198 3.082 .004

Equal variances not

assumed

.004

Anxiety Equal variances assumed 3.026 .090 1.676 .102

Equal variances not

assumed

.102


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Among motivation’s scale in the experimental group and the control group, t-values between the

two groups have been analyzed respectively as, 2.058 in control of beliefs, 3.082 in self-efficacy, and 1.676

in anxiety. From t-values of three scales, two of them are control of beliefs revealed a significant difference

at 0.05 level and the rest is anxiety did not reveal a significance difference at 0.05 level. It could be

concluded that there was significant difference of control of beliefs and self-efficacy between experimental

group with inquiry learning and control group with traditional learning methods. On the other hand, anxiety

as one of motivation scales did not showed significant difference between experimental group with inquiry

learning and control group with traditional learning methods.

Comparison of posttest points of the groups would be discussed in this stage in order to show

students’ motivation in learning writing skills through inquiry. As stated before that motivation scales used

in the study are control of beliefs, self-efficacy, and anxiety. All items in overall scales showed that they are

in high and very high level in both groups. Although it showed the similarity, both experimental and control

group have differences of three scales of motivation.

Students which receiving writing instruction with inquiry approach had higher control of beliefs

than ones which receiving writing instruction with traditional methods. It means that students receiving

inquiry learning had high hope to use of English and high interest in content area and subject matter of

English. They hoped they may use English after learning in the class. Despite of it, they feel that it is very

important to continuously understand subject matter of English lesson. Based on Covington (1992), in order

to maintain a sense of self-worth and self-control of learning, students need understanding the attributes of

their failure and weaknesses. It means that when students may have controlled their learning beliefs, their

success becomes more closed. In this study, students still faced difficulties and they know they have some

weaknesses in learning writing skills, but this kind of understanding maintains their creativity to master

writing skills. Because by using inquiry, students looked having high control of beliefs as an integral part of

motivation.

Furthermore, students’ self-efficacy in learning writing skills through inquiry consistently higher

than one in learning writing skills through traditional methods. It may be concluded that although students

feel very hard to shortly understand the materials, inquiry learning has potency to improve students’ self-

efficacy. Its potency was shown by the appropriate ways of teacher, students’ understanding of their own

fault, and students’ hard efforts in inquiry learning. The findings of this study supported Graham’s (2003)

viewpoint of self-efficacy although this study specifies in learning EFL writing skills through inquiry.

Graham, (2003) pointed that self-efficacy as an integral aspect of motivation influences individual reflects

on learning. Bandura (1993) also stated that students' realistic perceptions of high self-efficacy attributed to

an increase in their academic achievement that could surpass their academic ability. So, the high self-


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efficacy in performing learning EFL writing skills in this study shows great potency to improve students’

writing skills.

Besides, the higher students’ anxiety was also shown in inquiry learning. It is shown that inquiry

learning has great potency to stabilize students’ anxiety in learning English writing skills. Although students

believed that they did not received an excellent grade in English lesson, they still have certainty to

understand all subject matters taught. Students also have high confidence to understand basic concepts

although it is complex because they still believed that they can get an excellent job in the coming test in

English writing skills. At the end, students hopefully mastered English writing skills with high motivation,

of course, if they have an excellent teacher.

The study also revealed the differences of motivation posttest points between experimental group

and control group. It was indicated that there were significant differences of students’ control of beliefs and

self-efficacy between experimental group and control group. On the other hand, there were no significant

differences of students’ anxiety between experimental group and control group.

4. Conclusion

The study purposed at finding out students’ motivation in learning writing skills through inquiry. One of the

findings is that students’ control of learning beliefs, self-efficacy, and anxiety as integral parts of motivation

are found higher on inquiry learning. However, from viewpoint of control of learning beliefs, it is still

necessary to deepen students’ understanding the subject matter of English writing. To more develop their

self-efficacy in learning and performing, students try to learn hard enough to understand the writing

material. Furthermore, in viewpoint of students’ test anxiety, they still need to increase their belief that they

will receive an excellent grade if they learn harder. Another finding is that inquiry learning is found to

create meaningful differences on students’ control of learning beliefs. Besides, inquiry-learning procedure

is also found to create meaningful differences on students’ self-efficacy in learning and performing in

learning writing skills. However, inquiry learning is not found to create meaningful differences in the

anxiety dimension.

It might be concluded that inquiry learning has great potency to increase and, then, maintain students’

motivation as viewed from control of learning beliefs, self-efficacy in learning, and anxiety in learning EFL

writing skills. It is recommended that to motivate students in learning EFL writing skills, teacher should

include inquiry learning as an integral part of instructional teaching and learning procedures in syllabus and

lesson plan. In terms of strengths and weaknesses of inquiry approach, it is also necessary to be varied with

other interesting instructional methods, instead of being suitable with students’ needs and goals. Those

kinds of syllabus and lesson plan as instructional parts of a curriculum can help students more independent

and flexible in learning since they are used to govern overall learning process.


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Further studies on similar area should focus on exploring one dimension of motivation to have

better understanding in one specific dimension. On the other hand, further studies also may expand on other

dimensions of motivation, and then relate to other dimension of another construct. Teachers need to have

knowledge of how to design syllabus and lesson plan on the exact level of students and recovery of various

classroom circumstances. By including inquiry learning among other professional teaching strategies,

classroom activities would be more creative and innovative.

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Buckingham, L. (2008). Development of English Academic Writing Competence by Turkish Scholars.

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Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing.


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Acknowledgements:

Our unlimited thankfulness addressed to our colleagues and all staffs of Faculty of Education,

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and Governor of South Sulawesi Indonesia.

APPENDIX

Appendix A: Comparison of Mean and Standard Deviation of item in Control of Beliefs

Item Control Group Experimental Group

N Mean SD N Mean SD


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1 20 5.80 1.24 20 6.25 1.02

2 20 5.75 2.17 20 6.80 0.41

3 20 5.80 1.24 20 6.05 1.28

4 20 5.25 1.29 20 6.00 0.79

5 20 6.15 1.18 20 6.20 0.77

6 20 4.50 1.70 20 3.95 1.93

Appendix B: Comparison of Mean and Standard Deviation of item in Self-efficacy


N Mean SD N Mean SD

1 20 4.80 1.47 20 5.35 0.74

2 20 4.75 1.69 20 6.25 0.85

3 20 5.35 1.35 20 5.35 1.59

4 20 5.85 0.99 20 6.10 0.97

Appendix C: Comparison of Mean and Standard Deviation of item in Anxiety


N Mean SD N Mean SD

1 20 4.50 1.96 20 4.25 1.65

2 20 5.20 1.10 20 5.60 1.53

3 20 5.10 2.07 20 6.20 0.69

4 20 5.50 0.94 20 6.40 0.68


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5 20 5.65 1.22 20 6.65 0.49

6 20 5.10 1.37 20 5.35 0.93

7 20 4.70 1.81 20 5.40 1.05

8 20 5.40 1.19 20 5.60 0.89

Item Control of Beliefs

1 I think I will be able to use what I learn in this course in other courses.

2 It is important for me to learn the course material in this class.

3 I am very interested in the content area of this course

4 I think the course material in this class is useful for me to learn.

5 I like the subject matter of this course.

6 Understanding the subject matter of this course is very important to me.

Item Self-Efficacy

1 If I study in appropriate ways, then I will be able to learn the material

in this course.

2 It is my own fault if I don’t learn the material in this course.

3 If I try hard enough, then I will understand the course material.

4 If I don’t understand the course material, it is because I didn’t try hard

enough.

Item Anxiety

1 I believe I will receive an excellent grade in this class.

2 I am certain I can understand the most difficult material presented in


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the readings for this course.

3 I am confident I can understand the basic concepts taught in this course.

4 I am confident I can understand the most complex material presented

by the instructor in this course.

5 I am confident I can do an excellent job on the assignments and tests in this

course.

6 I expect to do well in this class.

7 I am certain I can master the skills being taught in this class.

8 Considering the difficulty of this course, the teacher, and my skills, I

think I will do well in this class.

©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 2 (4) 17 - 30, 2016 e-ISSN 2360-8013

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Research Article

Promoting Corporate Governance and Sustainability through Ethical

Leadership and Organizational Culture in Nigeria’s Banking Sector

Orji Sixtus Onyebuchi*, Maisarah Mohamed Saat, Dewi Fariha Abdullah

Department of Human Resource Development, Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310

Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

*Corresponding Author: [email protected]

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

Corporate governance has been recognized as very essential factor for any

organization and corporate sustainability which is of benefits to shareholders

and society. However, the recurrence of corporate failures in Nigerian banking

sector has become major concern to the society. This paper discusses corporate

governance, ethical leadership and organizational culture as factors that can

influence corporate sustainability in Nigerian banking sector. The aim is to

demonstrate that corporate governance sustainability is fundamental to the

continuing existence of any organization especially the banking sector. Till

date, previous literature has noted ethical dimension compliance as veritable

mechanism for corporate sustainability. This paper proposes a framework for

corporate sustainability that includes corporate governance, ethical leadership

and organizational culture in the banking industry. The article concludes that

ensuring ethical compliance culture will guarantee trust and accountability. It

also suggests that ethical leadership and organizational culture roles are

imperative in creating a culture of ethical compliance that guarantee corporate

sustainability which benefits both stakeholders and society. The implication is

to increase the understanding of the vital components of corporate

sustainability.


Corporate governance, Sustainability, Ethical Leadership, Organizational Culture

1. Introduction

Promotion of corporate sustainability through good governance in the banking sector is very essential to any

country because of crucial role banks play in stimulation of economy. This necessitates the need to enhance

good business environment through ethical leadership that will create organizational culture of ethical

compliance. The concept of corporate governance has in recent years attracted enormous attention due to


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failures of many world known companies in America and Europe such as WorldCom, Anderson, Enron and

others (Arjoon, 2005, Ruth, 2005, Aras and Crowther, 2008, Seto´-Pamies and Papaoikonomou, 2015)

which caused serious economic crises. The economic crises observed in 2007-2009 in Europe and America

had a rippled effect on economies of Africa and Nigeria in particular with many of the banks faced with

liquidity crisis (Sanusi, 2010). The mass corporate failures witnessed has led various governments around

the world to take different legislative measures to prevent society from future recurrence. The crises have

been attributed to lack of transparency and good governance by managers of these companies (Okeahalam,

2004, Opara and Wyne, 2008). Accordingly, researchers have undertaken study on wide range of problems

with corporate behaviour which have led to prominence of concepts like corporate social responsibility,

corporate governance and sustainability etc., (Boele et al., 2001, Knox and Maklan, 2004, Aras and

Crowther, 2008, Achua, 2008, Seto´-Pamies and Papaoikonomou, 2015).

In response to observed consequences of corporate failures recorded in Europe and America in 2007-

2009 and Asia in 1990s visa-vis the rippled effects, Nigeria took proactive measures. The measures includes

introduction and adoption of corporate governance national reports (Code of Corporate Governance in

Nigeria, 2003). The code aimed to define how the relationship between corporate governance and business

ethics is being perceived by stakeholders.

The banking sector in Nigeria has particularly had a fair share of corporate failures arising from unethical

behavior and lack of corporate governance (Sanusi, 2010; Bello, 2012). The Nigerian banking sector

nosedived in 2009 leading to intervention of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). According to Sanusi (2010)

the failures of Nigeria’s banks is a monumental fraud and deliberate act of prestidigitation. The major

factors attributed to the banking sector crisis in 2009 in Nigeria are failures in corporate governance in

many of the banks, inadequate disclosure and transparency about financial position of banks, critical gaps in

regulatory framework and regulations, uneven supervision and enforcement, unstructured governance and

management processes at the CBN/Weaknesses within the CBN (Sanusi, 2010; Bello, 2012). In recognition

of the observed inadequacies the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) moved aftermath of the crisis to strengthen

its supervision on the banks. The CBN in 2011 sacked management and boards of some banks such as bank

PHB, Afri bank PLC, Spring PLC, Intercontinental bank PLC and Oceanic bank PLC. The CBN also

adopted other regulatory measures aimed at promoting corporate governance.

A major factor that has necessitated a shift to corporate governance in the financial sector as well as other

sectors of economy in line with changing trend is the quest for greater accountability of companies to their

shareholders, employees, investors and customers (Bushman and Smith, 2001). The shift to corporate

governance and need for sustainability of ethical corporate culture in the banking industry has made it

crucial to distinguish between institutional and ethical compliance mechanisms. Experience has shown that

institutional measures are not enough to ensure corporate sustainability (Arjoon, 2005, Rossouw, 2005


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Achua, 2008). There is indeed flaws in paying much attention to institutional or legal approach in ensuring

corporate governance. The inability of legal institutions to regulate behaviours of industry practitioners has

necessitated the need to focus on ethical compliance mechanisms rather than on legal compliance (Arjoon

(2005). In line with this, Seto´-Pamies and Papaoikonomou (2015) opined that institutional approach

emphasis responsibility and consequences such as fines or punishment which does not change attitudes. It is

a fact that institutional mechanism do not ensure a change in people’s attitudes and mentality. The ethical

dimension of corporate compliance changes people’s attitude to corporate issues. This is because the real

thinking and culture of a people are actions display when no one is watching. An ethical oriented

compliance promotes business sustainability.

Several researchers have observed the importance of corporate governance in promoting corporate

sustainability (Crowther and Aras, 2008, Arjoon, 2005). However, the failure to consider effective

leadership style as necessary factor for fostering ethical culture compliance necessitates a framework that

includes ethical leadership and organizational culture components as factors influencing corporate

governance and sustainability. There is need to consider ethical leadership and organizational culture as a

driving force of corporate governance and sustainability. The idealized influence of ethical leadership

makes it an effective leadership style needed in promotion of culture of ethical compliance (Brown et al,

2005, Bello, 2012), which can enhance good governance and corporate sustainability. In as much as

institutional compliance mechanism is vital, good corporate governance and sustainability depends largely

on ethical characters of industry workers and all stakeholders. Therefore, laying much emphasis on

institutional mechanisms may lead to substituting accountability for responsibility which may result to an

aberration of legislating morality. The fact is that the much recorded corporate banking failures in Nigeria is

not only consequences of lack of institutional compliance but more of failures of industry practitioners to

ensure that appropriate conduct and ethical culture are entrenched in the industry.

This paper discusses the definitions as well as importance of corporate governance and sustainability. It

also discuss the meaning and relationship of ethical leadership and organizational culture as influencing

factors of corporate sustainability.

2. Corporate Governance

The concept of corporate governance implies relationship of an organization to its shareholders and society

that includes transparency, accountability, fairness and adherence to rules and regulations. It includes rules

that govern managers and other necessary actions consistent with the interests of key stakeholders of the

organization. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has succinctly define

corporate governance as an established system of control and direction of business corporations. The

established corporate governance structure that stipulates the rights and responsibilities among stakeholders


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of a company such as the board and managers. The aim of corporate governance is to ensure that

organizational power is not misused but used in a way that bring satisfaction to all stakeholders. This was

agreed by Licht (2002) observation that corporate governance implies rules and structures for exercise of

power over other people’s interests. The fundamental issues of corporate governance are transparency and

accountability, legal and regulatory environment, appropriate risk management measures, information flows

and the responsibility of senior management and the board of directors. By the definitions corporate

governance can be seen as a mechanism that prevents abuse of power by corporate leaders. It creates

organizational culture where individuals’ attitudes to compliance are positive with corporate sustainability.

This culture encourages creativity, engenders sustainable innovation and provides solutions that do not

work against societal expectations (Seyfang and Smith 2007; Boyce 2008, Seto´-Pamies and

Papaoikonomou (2015).

Corporate governance offers a business environment of trust, ethics, moral values, confidence and

provides opportunity for interactions among government; the general public, professional/service providers,

and the corporate sector. The devastating consequences of irresponsible actions of organizations such as

banks has necessitated increasing concern for corporate governance (Hermalin, 2005) and need to do the

right things in organizations. The lessons learnt by not doing the appropriate things in business environment

has brought the concept of corporate governance through ethical means to centre stage. The ethical

dimension of corporate governance basically involves questions concerning relationships and building trust

by organizational leaders (Arjoon, 2005). The banking business is about trust therefore, culture of good

governance which upholds ethical values should permeate all facets of banking sector and be displayed in

all actions and decisions of the leadership.

3. Corporate Sustainability

The issues of corporate sustainability has become prominent in management discourse because of the

recognition that corporate entities existence is a social contract. By social contract every other stakeholders

that have an interest in the activities of organization is believe to possess a significant level of influence

over the shaping of firm’s activities and conducts (Crowther and Aras, 2008, Aguilera, 2005, Craig and

Cartwright, 2006). The World Commission on Environment and Sustainable Development (1987, p. 43)

succinctly define sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising

the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This implies that sustainability involves actions

which pursues current business objectives or development while preserving the environment and society for

long-term growth. More so, it is concerned with ensuring that the business decisions of today on resource

utilization do not impede the future choices (Crowther and Aras, 2008). The term sustainability has been

used by Bai and Sarkis (2014), Fergus and Rowney (2005) to incorporate economic, environmental, and


21 | P a g e

social sustainability. A good corporate culture seeks performance of organization today which also

safeguards environment for investment in the future.

The ethical dimension of sustainability of corporate governance therefore, can be define as the

ability of organizational leaders to communicate and influence ethical decisions and conducts which ensures

that utilization of all facets of firm’s resources today serves to preserve organization’s future. This implies

that creation of values by corporate leaders must be encompassing and should not negate constituent

components of well-being such as emotional, spiritual and social welfare (Aras and Crowther, 2008). In

other words, this requires a simultaneous good financial performance and development of ethical culture

dimension that will lead to a better performance of organization visa-vis the entire industry and society. The

drive toward corporate governance and sustainability are necessitated by wide-ranging recognition by

stakeholders that ethical compliance is important to economic success of organizations as well as long term

survival (Armstrong, 2003). It is widely accepted that corporate governance can in reality improve

organizational culture and reputation of the banks which in turn can attract customer loyalty as well as

investors. Additionally, it is also seen as a prevention of corruption and unethical business conducts that has

characterized banking practices in Nigeria.

The main ethical issues of corporate governance and sustainability as enumerated by the OECD are:

A. Protection of shareholders’ rights.

B. Safeguarding the equitable treatment of all shareholders, including minority and foreign

shareholders. All shareholders should have the opportunity to obtain redress for violation of their rights.

C. Ensuring that timely and accurate disclosure is made on all material matters regarding the

corporation, including the financial situation, performance, ownership and governance of the company.

D. Identification of the rights of stakeholders as established by law and encourage active co-

operation between corporations and stakeholders in creating wealth, jobs, and the sustainability of

financially sound enterprises.

E. Protection of the strategic guidance of the company, the effective monitoring of management by the

board, and the board’s accountability to the company and the shareholders.

The issues as highlighted above recognized management obligations to shareholders as well as to the

society. From the above also, two important models of corporate governance can be recognized. They

include the model based on the maximization of shareholder value and the model of social responsibility.


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The first model emphasis maximizing shareholders interest based on stipulated time already determined by

shareholders. The second model focuses on wealth creation determined through management ethical

stance. To ensure sustainability ideal practical situation in banking sector is for management and

shareholders to adopt conservative and more common form of ethical stance known as Corporate

Citizenship (Wood and Logsdon, 2002). This approach recognize the interests of shareholders as principal

objective, with focus on the society where the firm exists with related clearly stated commercial

considerations.

The constant relationships between business and society and exchanges that exists between them bestow on

organizations the obligation to be responsible corporate citizen. Consequently, ethical dimension of

corporate governance is a demand for organizations to at all times operate in an economically and

environmentally friendly manner while at the same time, recognizing the interest of stakeholders (Carrol,

1991). The success of any organization depends on its values and its ethical orientation (Arjoon, 2005,

Rossouw, 2005). In other words, sustainability of corporate governance must be anchored on organizational

behaviour which is determined by prevailing organizational culture that agrees with societal expectations.

The observable important aspects of corporate governance sustainability are:

(i) Societal influence, in terms of measure of the impact which society brings to bear upon the

corporation in relation to social contract and stakeholder influence.

(ii) Environmental impact, define in terms of effect of the actions of the organization upon its operating

social-milieu.

(iii) Organizational culture, which is define in relationship between the organization and its internal

factors such as employees, and all aspects of such relationship.

(iv) Investment returns, which is describe as satisfactory return for the amount of risk undertaken.

3.1 Ethical Leadership

The idealized influence and moral character of ethical leadership makes it effective leadership style for

corporate governance sustainability. According to Brown et al., (2005, p 120) ethical leadership is……

“The demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal

relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication,

reinforcement and, decision-making.

The ability of ethical leadership to inspire and reward performance makes it consistent with ethical

compliance mechanism. When it comes to legal and ethical characteristics compliance mechanisms for


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corporate governance, ethical leadership traits are consistent with policies and actions that promotes

organizational culture because of its fairness, treatment of employees and openness in communication of

ethics (Trevino et al., 1999). The traits such as trustworthiness, integrity, honesty and cognitive trust and

exercise of care in a work place associated with ethical leadership makes it a suitable leadership style that

can ensure corporate governance and sustainability (Brown and Trevino, 2006). This supports the study of

character traits of effective organizational leadership by Collins (2001) which found that leaders with

integrity and conscience put the interest of their stakeholders and employees ahead of their own self-

interest. The leaders’ demonstration of traits of enthusiasm and workman diligence drives organization for

success.

The practical nature of ethical leadership to inspire subordinates’ behaviour and work for the interest of all

stakeholders reflects its moral character. According to Trevino et al., (2003, 2006) a moral manager makes

ethics clearly part of his/her leadership program by communicating moral values and ethical ideals and by

apparently and intentionally role modelling ethical behaviour. By serving as agent of change and role model

to employees as well as shareholders ethical leadership creates organizational culture which places

prominence on integrity and trust. The changes in attitudes reduces the shareholders mindedness on bottom-

line as a definition of organizational performance and promotes employees, customers and community

interests (Arjoon, 2005). This leadership redirection of business approach creates a sense of fairness,

readjustment of expectation in that shareholders and management at all times set a realistic target on returns

for the organization and attempt to achieve legitimate success in a competitive business environment.

3.2 Relating Ethical Leadership with Corporate Sustainability

The banking business is a highly regulated industry. Thus, it is a way of ensuring compliance to rules and

regulations aimed at meeting societal and ethical expectations. The regulatory agencies subject every

activity of banking industry to control such as, behavioural parameters, enforcement of ethical standards

and handling of deviants (Biu, 2004, Adeniyi, 2004a, Achua, 2008). However, regulatory inadequacies

make regulation of ethical behaviour ineffective. So, there is the need for ethical dimension of ensuring

standard and corporate governance. In view of the observed institutional ineptitudes and inherent problems

associated with regulating agencies in managing banks from legal and paper position, it is imperative to

ensure appropriate behaviour and enabling social change desirable directions through an effective ethical

leadership that promotes self-regulation (Adeniyi, 2004a, Achua, 2008). The ethical leader understands that

the ability to provide a professional service can only take place in an environment which guarantees

increasing tendency towards individual accountability that benefits globalizing society (Van Beek and

Solomon, 2004). To ensure quality service and corporate sustainability ethical leadership enhances

available resources which encourages corporate governance including provision of guidance on reporting


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and accountability (Khan et al., 2015). The ethical leadership approach reduces bank officials increasing

focus on “beneficial bottom- line” rather lay more emphasis on how and way to get “there” (Hamburg,

2004). The ethical actions of the leadership builds an organizational culture of integrity that is consistent

with moral obligation. The ethical leadership principle of accountability promotes corporate governance

ethical compliance that focus on achieving both economic and noneconomic goals.

The ethical leadership approach focuses more on ethical considerations which allows people to reason,

form personal opinion and take personal responsibility (Longstaff, 1986). The banking system in Nigeria is

characterized by low ethical standards, unprofessional conduct and irresponsive corporate governance as

well as apparent lack of honesty on part of most operators (Cookey, 2004). This could be attributed to

overemphasis on institutional compliance mechanism. On this note, Seidman (2004) noted that lack of

corporate governance have shown to be not only failures of legal compliance, but more of strongly and

essentially failures to ensure ethical conduct; resulting to the environment loss of ethical standing. The

importance of ethical leadership role in promoting self-regulation cannot be overemphasis. The Central

Bank of Nigeria has in 2004 introduced “Corporate Governance Code for Banks and Other Financial

Institutions in Nigeria” as a self-regulatory measure. Similarly, the Basel Committee on Banking

Supervision issued an international supervisory guideline aimed at fostering safe and sound banking

practices with objective of reinforcing the importance of corporate governance and control principles as

issued by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (Salimon, 2006). The responsible

business behaviour drives organizational culture which emphasis growth through legitimate means. The

actions of ethical leadership shapes attitudes and conducts of organizations towards corporate sustainability.

3.3 Relating Organizational Culture to Corporate Sustainability

Organizational culture consists of collective body of individuals who possess values, beliefs and norms

which are transmitted to the individual members of an organization. According to Wallach (1983)

organizational culture is the collective acceptance of beliefs, values, norms and philosophies of how things

work. In this respect, an organizational culture that has shared values, beliefs which are commonly held

creates a sense of affirmation, connection which differentiates one organization to another (O’ Reilly et al.,

1989; Chen, 2004). The overall objective of any corporate culture is to promote effective running of

business. The effectiveness of organizational culture in influencing compliance was highlighted by Hansen

(2004) observation that very explicit recognition of the role of culture in a business may be helpful since the

challenge is to ascertain whether a corporation’s compliance program is just a paper program or whether it

was designed and implemented in an effective manner. The role of ethical leadership in redirecting


25 | P a g e

organizational business approach establishes a cultural norm which consistently supports the importance of

ethical compliance mechanism.

An ethical culture is against unorthodox means of achieving organizational results. In Nigeria lack of

organizational culture that is consistent with ethical practices has resulted to adoption of unconventional

means in conducting banking business. For example, according to Okeke (2004), Mayowa (2005) and

Achua (2008) there have been allegations that some banks in an effort to dominate market encourage

female staff to do “anything possible” to meet set deposit targets and it has been reported that some female

bank officials have been sexually harassed while there is also allegation of female bank officials being

employed by consideration of physical appearance, romantic association with directors or senior

management. Whereas men employees are meant to pay money before employment is considered as well as

other patronage other than merit. Unfortunately, the desire of microfinance banks to achieve result and

operate big as commercial banks have also seen these acts of corporate prostitution replicated in the

subsector. These are serious ethical issues that must be re-examined by ethical leadership. The fundamental

question that must be resolved in corporate sustainability is whether the essence and nature of business is

for organizational leaders to function to serve the overall interests of all stakeholders such as employees’

customers, community and shareholders (Arjoon, 2005). The importance of ethical compliance principle in

corporate governance is its ability to influence organizational culture which guarantees good business

environment and decent results.

Furthermore, an organizational culture which supports ethical compliance also promotes principles of

institutional or legal compliance. The organizational culture that upholds ethical principles such as

responsibility, fairness, transparency and accountability also promotes legal compliance mechanisms such

as corporate ethics programs, codes of conduct, mission statements, and good accounting reporting (Arjoon,

2005, Crowther and Aras, 2008). The character of ethical leadership as a moral transactional manager

builds an organizational culture that goes beyond just legal compliance but more importantly establish

business environment which provides an excellent opportunity to all stakeholders (Arjoon, 2005, Crowther

and Aras, 2008, Achua, 2008). Ensuring self-regulation and ethical compliance culture supports the

objectives of the United Nation Global Compact that was launched at the Economic Forum in 1999, which

has been known as triple bottom-line (that is, make profit, care for the environment and uphold social

justice). This principles aims to reinforce the free and open market system with stable and just societies.

Indeed, ethical leadership behaviour can institutionalize organizational culture which encourages ethical

behaviour that can go a long way in ensuring sustainability of corporate governance.

The ability of any organization to sustainably upheld ethical corporate governance, abide by institutional

stipulated rules regarding corporate governance and remain a responsible corporate entity largely depends


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on internal organizational factors such as leadership and prevailing organizational culture. Hence, this paper

proposes corporate governance, ethical leadership and organizational culture components as stated in figure

1 below.

Figure 1: Components of sustainability

4. Conclusion

Corporate governance is the only way to ensure corporate sustainability especially in the banking industry.

An effective corporate governance founded on core values of integrity, trust and fairness will provide banks

with a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent as well as creating positive reactions in the

marketplace which guarantees the future. Any bank that has good reputation for ethical behaviour in today’s

market will certainly stimulate customer’s and employee’s loyalty. An obvious corporate governance can


27 | P a g e

only be realized by adopting a set of ethical principles and best practices which emphasis returns through

legitimate process and definition of performance in terms both economic and noneconomic parameters.

The banking system is the support base of socio-economic development of Nigeria. Therefore, its actions or

inactions affect all facets of the economy. The identified self-induced vices, regulatory slackness and

discouraging business environment of the banking sector can not only be attributed to lack of institutional

measures but to absence of ethical behaviour on the part of operators. It is necessary that any effective

institutional regulation must be combined with conscious ethical compliance. It is equally very essential that

organizational leaders should rise to serve as role models as a way of sustaining best practices, good

conducts and social responsibility for their employees to emulate.

Finally, an appropriate corporate strategy for sustainability must include noneconomic goals. The

personal values and ethical aspirations of organizational leaders are also implicit in all strategic decisions.

The organizational leaders must bear in mind that economic strategy is humanized and made achievable in

an existing organization by decisive character of the organization such as the values it promotes, and its

relationships to its customers, employees, communities, and shareholders.

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Research Article

HR Strategic Partner Role and Organizational Performance

Charles Amechi Uti*, Choi Sang Long

Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

Corresponding Author: [email protected]

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

Background: A number of studies have described why it is essential for human

resources (HR) to start performing the strategic partner role that will add value

to companies. Various variations in HR techniques and framework have been

motivated to improve its understanding and potential to performing the

strategic partner role expected of it. Researchers suggest that HR’s capability

to perform the strategic partner role is a little of its capability to efficiently

perform both transactional solutions and amazing ideal opinions. The need for

HR to stabilize its incorporated solutions and efficiency in assisting

organizations is necessary. Strategically, HR needs to deal with the complex

problems in its features by developing information within associates as well as

rotating their workers. Several important connections are available concerning

the company of HR and the amount of the strategic partner role it plays.

Therefore, the addition of associates, especially the profession of the mixed

line-HR associates for the enhancement of HR companies and techniques are

completely connected with the strategic partnership of HR. The findings of this

study certainly show the possible techniques by which HR is able to play the

strategic partner role, which is interesting by itself with enhancing HR

companies that maintains the efficiency of the strategy the company has used.

This paper is therefore an attempt to determine these developments and how

the strategic partner role can add value to organizational performance. This

paper describes the strategic revolution in HR practice as obtained from the

reviewed literature.


HR, Strategic Partner Role,

Organizational Performance

1. Introduction

Several researchers have advocated for an enhanced understanding of the process through which the

practice of HR can influence organizational performance (Becker & Huselid, 1998; Long, 2008; Ulrich et

al,. 2008). Though several models have been recommended (Becker & Huselid, 1998; Long, 2008; Ulrich et

al., 2008), yet empirical examinations of the links between these multiple potentials have been negligible.


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Ulrich (1997) opined that the role development for HR professionals are viewed conventionally in a

transition form, which include; operational to strategic; quantitative to qualitative; policing to partnering;

short term to long term; administrative to consultative; functionally oriented to business oriented, etc. To

enable them to add value and provide results, HR professionals are expected to commence by defining the

deliverables of their work and not by concentrating on the behaviours of HRM since deliverables guarantee

the effect of HRM functions.

According to Bhatnagar and Sharma, (2005), the key HR roles of strategic partner, functional expert,

employee advocate, strategic partner and leader must be fulfilled by HR professionals in terms of

deliverables, if their strategic partnership prospect with their organizations must be realized. A number of

forces have teamed up in support of this concept that human resources (HR) ought to play more strategic

partner role that add value to organizations. Currently in the business milieu, organizations are undergoing

vibrant transformations with substantial effects in relation to the approach by which HR are managed

(Younger et al., 2011). Possibly, dominant among of these transformations is the prompt application of

information technology as well as the increasing dimensions of expertise job that organizations implement.

The swiftly changing business environment and the developing complexity of modern organizations are

also of vital significance.

According to Abdullah and Sentosa (2012), these momentous transformations have engendered an

increasing unity to the fact that efficient and effective human capital management is imperious to the

growth of an organization. Though, this situation has provoked the need to probe into how human capital

should be managed as well as the essential responsibilities that HR is expected to perform in relation to

human capital management, and as a result, in what way should the HR function be organized to ensure it

adds value to the swift changing corporate milieu. Traditionally, HR has predominantly focused on the

managerial facades of human resources management, however, through the development of information

technology (IT), the corporate workforce of HR started losing prominence in this field of work, since most

of its administrative tasks could be easily performed with the use of self-service information technology

solutions that organizations could host themselves or that were outsourceable (Aitchison, 2007).

The responsibility of HR is speedily increasing and undeniably its impact is exceptional in the

development of organizations with the necessary labour force that is adept of accomplishing the

organizations designated functions that ensures the realization of its business strategy (Caldwell, 2010).

This human resource is realized through the development of competency models as well as focusing on the

recruitment, staffing, and the improvement of workers. While information technology (IT) is regarded as a

critical instrument in the management of personnel and the development of capabilities, these rudimentary

HR activities as well as its ancillary methods are adequately created and implemented by professionals well

proficient in matters relating to the organizations’ business and strategy. Besides, the various decisions,


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vibrant, and implicit facades of this study reveal the fact that HR’s critical role in adding value to their

organization will remain momentous in this area of management (De Alwis, 2012).

Lee et al., (2010), argues that the evolving rate of talent dearth and constrained flexibility of

organizations in the use of inadequate human capital to diverse prospects limit organizations strategic

options. Since human capital is important in the proficiency of an organizations strategy formulation, it

makes reasonable sense for HR to be alleged to be a critical part of an organization's strategic development.

As a result, the only way HR could add value to the organization is to contribute to corporate strategy

development and implementation. Nevertheless, this is evidence that HR has the proficiency of adding

value to organizations through the design of strategies that allow essential talents to provide diverse

strategies and strategic ingenuities that are showcased in the leadership quality they exhibit as they support

organizations in developing required capabilities that will ratify the strategies initiated, as well as

contributing immensely to the application and transformation management (Bates, 2011). Chandra (2009),

argues that the failure of several strategies is not because of insignificant thinking, but as a result of

insignificant application. They argue that failures in the application of strategies are typical because they

refuse to recognize and acquire the necessary skills and organizational competencies that will ensure their

acceptance by the workers, as well as sustain the organizational transformations and knowledge needed to

perform the new tasks anticipated of them.

Kim and Sung-Choon (2011) among several researchers have conducted studies and revealed the

possibility of HR playing a strategic partner role that is capable of adding value to their function as well as

give their organizations competitive edge. The study reveals that there is a significant relationship between

HR practices and organizational performance. It further reveals that the organizations that are more focused

on HR practices as well as emphasize on performance are the ones with the maximum selling value per

worker. The researchers also emphasized that HR practices may be crucial to defining the value for market

establishments, stressing the enhancement in HR practices as having the capacity of growing market values

significantly (Kim and Sung-Choon, 2011).

2. Literature Review

2.1 Performing the Strategic Partner Role

De Alwis (2010) in his study argues that for HR to play the anticipated strategic partner role, a collection of

elements that would be seen in the organizations, showing that HR is playing the strategic partner role as

revealed in various studies. Conversely, Hertog et al., (2010) argue, that for organizations to improve the

HR value adding strategy, the following strategic elements are necessary as specified in the subsequent

essential steps:


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1. Underscoring the capability and skills necessary for business strategy.

2. Intensifying the concept and purpose of HR potentials beyond improvement process and effectiveness,

but to involve attention on strategic analyses capable of turning data into valuable strategic resources.

3. Raising the HR effort on planning, organizational development and design.

4. HR Managers must possess the requisite experience that will enable them to play the strategic partner

role.

5. Expand HR professional knowledge of business as well as their relationship with the organization.

2.2 The Strategic Partner Role of HR

Al-Taee and Alwaely, (2012) argues that the strategic partnership role of HR in an organization may be

partly determined by the specific business model the organization uses in relation to its expectation of

achieving a competitive advantage. It is palpable that amidst the organizations that rely on their skilled

workforce in order to realize competitive advantage, the need for HR to strategically add value to the

organization will be high (Bourne and Franco-Santos, 2010).

Almamun (2009) however, argues that when organizations begin to initiate strategies that are knowledge

and information centered, HR will definitely begin to play the strategic partner role. The researcher

emphasized that knowledge and information strategies certainly stimulates human capital development,

adding that the extent to which an organization acquires the knowledge and information it requires for the

implementation of strategy, consequently enables HR to play strategic partner role in the organization.

The strategic partner role of HR reflects a significant relationship when quality and speed is strategically

focused. According to Long and Khairuzzaman (2010), the development of quality and speed within an

organization normally demands significant transformations in the way human capital is improved and

applied. The researchers argue that the quality of programmes of most organizations lay emphasis on

training, the development of employees and a transformation in various systems as well as features in the

designs of the organization. The researchers noted that HR plays more strategic partner role when this item

becomes an essential agenda in organizations (Long and Khairuzzaman, 2010).

Yuliza, (2012) argues that transformation centered on competency and knowledge management, will

provoke a greater achievement of the strategic partner role of HR. The researcher further argues that the

effects of transformation prospects relate to the outcomes for strategic efforts, stressing that competency

and knowledge management should be viewed as a critical HR function. Consequently, Krishna and Prasad

(2012) argue that for any organization to enhance competency and knowledge, they would depend on HR

for the implementation of the strategy. The researchers stressed further that for HR to influence strategy,

competency and knowledge transformation concept is critical. They also argue that it is vital for HR to


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show that competency and knowledge transformation concepts have the capacity of enhancing strategic

service delivery and organizational performance (Krishna and Prasad, 2012).

2.3 Human Resource Information Systems and HR Strategic Partner Role

The need to save time in the operation of organizations is key in the relationship between HR information

systems and the strategic partner role of HR. De Alwis (2010) argues that the introduction of electronic HR

operating systems for human resource transactions is imperative, asserting that most of the HR transactional

functions will engender self-service operations, which will ensure the efficient utilization of information

technology that will strengthen the strategic partner role of HR in adding value to organizations.

Consequently, the application of HRIS affords HR the ease of strategic data gathering and analysis that will

ensure their contribution to developing and implementing organizational strategies (De Alwis, 2010).

In their study, Uya and Deniz (2012) underscores the relationship existing between the application of

HR information systems with the level at which HR plays a strategic partner role. The researchers argue

that the strategic partner role of HR will become efficient when a totally integrated HRIS becomes

operational. The researchers, however, stressed that the existence of a totally integrated HRIS will not

guarantee an HR strategic partner role. They also indicated that in most of the organizations with totally

integrated HR information systems that HR was yet to play a strategic partner role. They further argue that

results from their study show that HR have not been able to play any strategic partner role, even among the

18 percent of the organizations that have a totally integrated HRIS, but equally added that HR believes it is

playing strategic partner role in various organizations that are partly automated (Uya and Deniz, 2012).

2.4 Proficiency of HR

Several studies (Ulrich et al., 2009; Lemmergaard, 2009 and Yuliza, 2012) have revealed that a significant

relationship exists between HR strategic partner role the proficiency of HR organizations. These studies

measured the proficiency of HR organizations using questionnaires to evaluate various areas of HR

efficiency. Results from the surveys consistently showed that HR’s strategic partner role is linked to its

efficiency in performing requisite HR functions. They also added that the proficiency of HR in the

development of organizational strategies is also associated with its strategic partner role. The researchers

further argue that perceptibly, it will be difficult for HR to be efficient in the development of organizational

strategy if not allowed to play a strategic partner role. Consequently, HR’s efficient performance in the

development of organizational skills and capabilities, as well as transformation management are dependent

on its strategic partnership role (Amstrong, 2009). If HR is not given the opportunity to play a strategic

partner role, they may not have access to the information that will ensure they influence decisions that are


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credible regarding the development of capabilities, skills as well as transformation in an organization

(Younger et al., 2011).

In organizations where HR is playing strategic partner roles, it has become easy to efficiently adapt HR

practices to suit corporate needs that help structure sustainable service relationships (Kim and Sung-Choon,

2011). Remarkably, HR’s ability to provide efficient services, as well as championing the cause of

employees, underpinning the fact that conventional HR efforts are rarely positioned as an organization as

well as playing the strategic partner roles. This fact supports previous results, which show the

organizational methods as distinct to strategic partner role, nevertheless this may free up funds to operate

other strategic activities (Krishna and Prasad, 2012).

2.5 Progression in HR Strategic Partner Role

To determine the progress of HR strategic partner role in organizations, the need to consider the amount of

time invested in the delivery of diverse activities of the HR function is vital (Long and Khairuzzaman,

2010). Obviously, to play a strategic partner role, the functions of HR need to be more than just service

delivery, records keeping, assessment, appraisal and benefits, HR must contribute in making management

decisions, engaging in strategic HR planning, contributing to organizational design, development of

strategies, as well as being involved in strategic transformation (Lemmergaard, 2009).

In spite of HR’s prodigious desire in the transformation of its function within an organization, as well as

its level of visible transformation in a corporate environment, it is amazing to discover that not much has

been done in achieving this earnest desire of management (Uya and Deniz, 2012). However, the anticipated

advancement in the strategic partnership role of HR is not replicated in the literature. It therefore appears

that rather than reacting to the demands for transformation, the situation remains the same (Bates, 2011).

Nevertheless, the obvious fact remains that HR are being requested to partake in more strategic

discussions as well as playing strategic partner roles in organizations, except that the situation occurs

without adequate transformations in the general distribution of time in the HR function that enables them

play this expected role adequately (Abdullah and Sentosa, 2012). From literature, HR organization's

strategic partner role suggests that there is amply opportunity for development with regards to the

improvement of HR organizations as strategic partners (Almamun, 2009).


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Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

2.6 The Relationship between Strategic Partner Role and Organizational Performance

According to Wright et al., (2005), the weak relationship existing between strategic partner role and

organizational performance has been attributed to the gap between intended and implemented HR strategies

by researchers. The integration of HR functions into strategic management can proceed through two phases

they emphasized; strategy formulation and implementation. They stressed that for strategy formulation, HR

functions should provide insight into the type of employee knowledge, skills and abilities that can be

mobilized to create competitive advantage, while for the implementing a strategy, HR functions should

organize and manage HR competencies and behaviours in alignment with the strategy (Kim & Sung-Choon,

2011).

Bhatnagar and Sharma, (2005) also argued that only few specific studies have tried to elucidate how the

HR roles operate in achieving organizational performance improvement. In the views of Wright et al.,

(2001) researchers in the area of strategic human resource management (SHRM) have progressively trusted

on the resource-based view (RBV) of the organization in explaining the role of HR practices in

organizational performance.

Menefee, Parnell, and Ziemnowicz (2006) in their study discovered evidence for the hypothesis that HR

strategies are significantly related to organizational performance. Consequently, Som (2002) in an

investigation conducted on fifty-four organizations in India report that HR department’s role is positively

correlated with organizational performance, and that the HR department plays a significant role in adopting

‘best practices’ in organizations. However, Robinson (2007) argued that when in the strategic partnership

role, consultant partners with the organization's leaders define, design, and implement people initiatives that

optimize organization capacity and business results.

Bharnagar and Sharma (2005) in their study attempted to examine whether a positive relationship existed

amid strategic partner role and organizational learning. Which is the predictor of organizational

performance. The researchers employed Ulrich’s HR role model in the study and discovered that strategic

human resource roles and the capability of organizational learning were related positively, and that HR

business partner role also related positively with capability of learning among the samples. However, in

Becker et al., (2001) theory of HR competencies, which corresponds to Ulrich’s (1998), Ulrich and

Strategic

Partner

Role

Organizational

Performance


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Brockbank (2005) strategic partner role, proposed that specific business-related HR competencies as

enablers of alignment had the greatest performance impact followed by professional HR competencies.

2.7 Impediments of HR Strategic Partnership Contribution to Organizational Performance

Greenberg et al., (2011) argues that the fundamental challenges underling HR’s strategic partnership

inefficiency in contributing to organizational performance are based on their inability to discover and

realize the prospects of what seems to be the glitches on their way to becoming reliable strategic partners.

Undeniably, the fundamental challenges that HR faces in the process of changing the existing mind set in

their organizations could be discussed as follows:

3.0 Lack of Creativity

Researchers (Reilly, 2012; Greenberg et al., 2011) argue that as long as HR continues to carry out their

responsibilities in the same manner they will continue to ignore the opportunities that are out of your focus.

They emphasized that HR can only see the opportunities by shifting their perspectives from the traditional

HR activities, thereby transforming the issues in a creative way. Reilly (2012)also argues that

organization’s chief executives perceive HR as a police or astonishingly implements and not as strategic

partners that manage the organization's most critical assets, which is their human capital. However, HR

leaders must change the prescription in the lenses of their own glasses, so as to grasp the opportunities.

These opportunities Greenberg et at., (2011) noted can only be observed by changing the lenses and the

assumptions through which HR experience that which organization executives view their function.

Consequently, organization CEO’s encounter exactly the same challenge in the discovery and realization

of opportunities that are far away from their focus, as such, they initially appear as glitches, which reveals

that both HR and organization executive’s have a significant fundamentally related issues. Reilly, (2012)

added that while HR may view organization chief executives as challenges, chief executives may not even

perceive HR to be in the role of a strategic partner. However, an understanding of this challenge will help in

the empowerment of HR in navigating through their functions.

3.1 Leading and Influencing Up

According to Porter and Kramer (2011), part of the challenges HR also encounters in the discharge of their

function is that of leading and influencing organization executives, in relation to:

Coaching the leadership in their organization to understand the concept that executives are human

capital, a vital asset and why,

Communicating in financial terms and metrics, the value of the organization's executive assets,

which is its human capital.


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This scenario, they argue entails the development of HR’s ability in communicating the regional and global

economics of the talent crunch, which is determined by the dramatic changes in the demographics of the

population and the transformation taking place in the information economy, which is limiting the life of

meaningful knowledge. However, they added, that since knowledge is rapidly changing, information has

become progressively delicate. Thus, Srikant Datar et al., (2010) opines that continuous education has

become imperative, otherwise executives' knowledge will become obsolete and irrelevant. Stressing that at

the same time, business challenges are increasing in their intricacy and hence there is a need for executives

to develop their competencies in handling intricacies, if the organizations must be competitive. When

organization executives understand these fundamentals, they will more readily perceive the role of HR as a

strategic partner (Srikant Datar et al., 2010).

3.2 Lack of Confidence

HR must perceive itself as a partner, thinking about the business challenges the organization encounters

from the perspective of total and complete responsibility as a partner will do (Hansen, 2002). If HR can not

take on the part or even perceive of itself in the desired role, no one else will, nor will HR be able to thrive

in it.

3.3 Poor Credibility

Researchers (Yusliza, 2012; Reilly, 2012; Younger et al., 2011, Ulrich et al., 2009) argue that in the face of

the economic milieu, HR must prepare itself for business partnerships, preparing themselves to be credible

in that role of strategic partnerships by developing the quality of HR’s own thoughts as well as their

business thinking ability. There are three aspects of this area of challenge as postulated by SrikantDatar et al

(2010) and Reilly, (2012):

HR requires deep understanding of not merely the organization's business, but also the broad

regional and global business environment. The need for the study of psychology, human dynamics,

organizational development and liberal arts in MBA programs, as well as the need for HR

executives obtaining MBAs is vital, though costly and often out of reach for many, yet the degree is

not the necessity but rather it is the learning that is requisite. Cross disciplines are truly needed in

executives, if a business must compete globally.

The development of the habit of /discipline of continuous education is requisite for growth. To do

this, one must develop a reading discipline and one that includes:

Respected business publications such as the Economist

Leading business school periodicals and journals such as those from,

Wharton, Harvard and other respected institutions.


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Loading books on business, not only those focused on HR or OD issues.

The websites of think tanks such as national centers for strategy and international studies and those

of great academic institutions worldwide. Learning about the topics that are under discussion and

being current with every publication on the latest issues.

The internet delivers to us the library of the world and access to courses from all over the globe. Since 2003

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been putting all of their courses on the internet for free!

The challenge is no longer about access; it is whether we will use the resources that has been made

available (SrikantDatar et al., 2010).

HR needs to practice wearing the thinking hats of CEO's, board members', shareholders' and other

stakeholders'. They need to put it on and review the issues from those perspectives, literally,

playing the role in your mind. Ruminating on how the developments and issues will affect their

organization's future, in each of its various business channels, and in the short, medium and longer

terms (Reilly, 2012).

3.4 Communication

Hertog et al., (2010) emphasized the need for HR to learn to prepare itself for the partnership role as well as

begin to communicate their newly gained depth of understanding and insight to the organization executives,

stating that HR undoubtedly would have gained confidence along the way. They argue that the challenge

will be that of staying alert for opportunities, especially those moments in which they could make a

contribution with a quality thought or insight, whether in meetings or at at the corridors. They stressed that

once HR finds those opportunities, their colleagues and the top executives will begin to notice the quality of

their thoughts and the depth of your understanding, as such,their credibility will begin to take hold and their

CEO’s will possibly be able to hear them better because they would have learned his language. Then HR

will be in a position from which coaching up can really be effective (Hertog et al., 2010).

3.5 Performance

Another challenge facing HR, may be that of getting enough time with their CEO’s to communicate their

proficiency (Hansen, 2002), he however argues that this being the case, the need for HR to build credibility

with and the coaching of those around them is imperative, adding that the moment HR and the organization

executives have established both ways that HR is proficient, and they begin to view them as strategic

partners, their organization may begin to experience an unbeatable competitive advantage.

Conversely, Porter and Kramer, (2011) argues that there is no guarantee that organization executives will

change their mindset to the expectation of HR, nevertheless, HR would have developed their personal

impact and credibility and built a reputation with others in the organization as being prepared for the


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strategic business partner role. The researchers opine that after coaching, influencing and leading up, if the

organization executives are not up to leading a collaborative intelligent learning organization, then HR may

decide to look further into joining other organizations where they can indeed make a difference. Especially

where their capabilities will be much sought after (This reference is not listed >> Porter and Kramer, 2011).

4. Methodology

Dube and Pare (2003) principles of the inductive categorization technique were adopted in this study to

ensure a systematic analysis of the relevant literature that were reviewed from prior studies as retrieved

from online databases. We therefore observed the following processes:

Careful assortment of the articles that are relevant to the area of research from online databases,

which includes: Science Direct, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Proquest, Scopus, and Emerald.

An identification of relevant keywords in the relevant publications for review.

Classification of the selected articles for review.

Evaluation of the relevant articles based on the classification.

The current trend in the area of study.

The development of the findings.

5. Conclusion

In this literature, the social data is utilized to collect women and children data with less complexity but

with high accuracy. In order to perform Advocacy monitoring, a search based approach is used for

efficient gathering of women and children health data from the social media (Facebook and Twitter using

API). These data are classified using Decision tree C4.5 and SVM for better performance. The data are

then utilized to compile statistical report on women and children health in the selected region.

Experimental results show that the SVM based technique has efficient performance than the Decision tree

algorithm C4.5 in terms of accuracy, precision and recall.

The concord in the literature of human resources shows HR departments that are of most efficiency as the

ones that have added value to their organizations by playing a strategic partner role. Results reveal that the

highest profits of HR functions transpire when HR plays a strategic partner role in its total participation in

developing and implementing organizational strategies.

Adding Knowledge economy, to the proliferated corporations which depend on competitive policies that

are knowledge based, provides HR departments the prospect of basically modifying their role in the

organization that will enable them to play a strategic partner role that adds value to their organization. The

improvement in technology has the capacity to ease transactional responsibilities, and releasing HR


42 | P a g e

professionals to perform more roles that add value. Significantly, technological advancement has provided

HR the prospects of a systematic process of gathering and analyzing data that produces knowledge

concerning the efficiency of diverse methods of HR as well as the practicality of the numerous routes

strategic given to organizations human capital.

Enhancing the HR strategic partner role entails that more concentration on strategic planning, organization

designs, and improvement in the HR function. More organizational methodology is needed where results

have revealed that the imposition of line managers over HR administration has the capability of hindering

HR’s strategic partnership role. Consequently, it is obvious that strategic HR function requires the input of

great minds; and we believe that HR is capable of delivering that function, as the relevance of HR is

determined by the amount of strategic partner role it plays in the addition of value to its organization to

achieving competitive advantage.

References

Abdullah, A.H., & I. Sentosa (2012). Human Resource Competency Models: Changing Evolutionary

Trends. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research in Business, 1(11), 11-25.

Aitchison, D (2007). HR Transformation: Myth or Reality. HROA Europe and Sharedpertise Forums in

Association with TPI. Survey reports January 2007.

Bates, S. (2011). HR Executive Corner: HR May Not Get a Seat at the Table, But Someone Will. Bates

Communications. Retrieved from http://www.bates communications.com/articles and- newsletters.

Bhatnagar, J., & A. Sharma (2005). The Indian Perspective of Strategic HR Roles and Organisational

Learning Capacity. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16(9), 1711-1739.

Becker, B.E., Huselid, M.A., & Ulrich, D. (2001). The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and

Performance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Caldwell, R. (2010). Are HR business partner competency models effective? Applied H.R.M. Research,

12(1), 40-58.

Chandra, N. (2009). Performance Measures: An Application of Economic Value Added. International

Journal of Business and Management, 4(7), 739-752.

De Alwis, A.C. (2010). The Impact of Electronic Human Resource Management on the Role of Human

Resource Managers. Ekonomika A Management. 4, 47-60.

Dube, L and Pare, G 2003, Rigor in Information Systems Positivist Case Research: Current Practices,

Trends, and Recommendations. Mis Quarterly, pp. 597-636

Kim, H., & K. Sung-Choon (2011). Strategic HR Functions and Firm Performance: The Moderating Effects

of High-Involvement Work Practice. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 30(1), 91-113.

http://www.bates/


43 | P a g e

Lee, F., T. Lee, & W. Wu (2010). The Relationship Between Human Resource Management Practices,

Business Strategy and Firm Performance: Evidence from Steel Industry in Taiwan; The International

Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(9), 1351-1372.

Long, C. S. (2008). Examining Human Resource Competencies and Their Relationship to the Success

Factors of HR Profession, J. Serv. Sci. & Management, 1, 259-265.

Long, C. S., & Wan Khairuzzaman, W.I. (2010). Readiness of Malaysian Human Resource Professionals to

be a Strategic Partner. Intangible Capital, 6(1), 26-50.

Menefee, M., Parnell. J., Power, E., & Ziemnowicz, C. (2006). The Role of Human Resources in the

Success of New Becker, B.E., & M.A. ((This must be another reference >> Huselid (1998). High-

Performance Work System and Firm Performance: A Synthesis of Research and Managerial Implications.

In Ferris, G.R. (ed.) Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, 16. Greenwich, CT: JAI

Press. Businesses. Southern Business Reviews, 32(1), 23.

Ulrich, D. (1997). Human Resource Champions: The next Agenda for Adding Value and Delivering

Results. Harvard Business School Press. Retrieved May 17, 2013, from World Wide Web:

www.gowerpub.com/pdf/HR_Business_Partner_Ch1.pdf

Ulrich, D., W. Brockbank, D. Johnson, K. Sandholtz, & J. Younger (2008). HR Competencies: Master at

the Intersection of People and Business, The RBL Institute, The Society for HRM.

Wright, P.M., Dunford, B., & Snell, S. (2001). Human Resources and the Resource Based View of the

Firm. Journal of Management, 27, 701-721.

Wright, P.M., Snell, S.A., & Dyer, L. (2005). New Models of Strategic HRM in a Global Context,

International Journal of Human Resource Management, 16 (6), 875-881.

Younger, J., A. Younger, & N. Thompson (2011). Developing the skills of HR partnership: consulting and

change management. Strategic HR Review. 10 (1), 6-14.

http://www.gowerpub.com/pdf/HR_Business_Partner_Ch1.pdf

©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability 2 (4) 44 -55, 2016 e-ISSN 2360-8013

44 | P a g e

Research Article

Employability Skills Integration in University TVET Programmes: A Strategy

for Reducing Unemployment Rate among Graduates in Nigeria

Dahiru Sale Mohammed1, Sarimah Ismail 2*

1 Faculty of Education, Northwest University Kano, PMB 3220, Kano, State, Nigeria

2*Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Johor Bahru, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

*Corresponding author email: [email protected] and [email protected]

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

Current Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) curriculum

of Universities in Nigeria has been criticized for not Reducing Unemployment.

The curriculum gives less emphasis to employability skills due to lack of

conceptual understanding of the integration of employability skills in TVET

curriculum that can guide its empirical studies and implementation.

Consequently, TVET graduates in Nigeria were not armed with the

employability skills needed by industries and therefore are not equipped to

contest for labour at worldwide market. Hence, this study aimed to develop

conceptual understanding as the strategies for the integration of employability

skills in TVET curriculum. The research was designed to determine the types

of employability skills and their respective elements. The data were collected

from secondary sources of books and journal publications and analyzed

through understanding and synthesizing the literature. This study found three

major elements of employability skills which include core TVET skills,

generic skills and personal attribute skills. The implications of these findings

include the needs for conducting practical research on employability skills

integration in TVET curriculum, feasibility studies and implementation of

finding in the school settings. It is recommended that employability skills

courses should be included in TVET curriculum of Technical Colleges,

Colleges of Education (Technical), Universities in Nigeria, so that the

graduates may likely possessed employability skills to enhance their chances

for obtaining employment, sustaining the job and prospering in the

employment at the international market.


Employability skills, Reducing Unemployment in Nigeria, Technical Vocational Education and Training

mailto:[email protected]



45 | P a g e

1. Introduction

Education-to-work transition of new graduates and the extent to which they are readily employable has

been the concerned to government and researchers in USA (SCANS, 2001; Shivpuri and Kim, 2004 and

ABET, 2009), UK (Association of Graduates Recruiters, 1995; Council for Industry and Higher Education,

1996 and Hillarge and Polard, 1998, Higher Education Funding Council for England, 2001), Australia

(Mayer Committee, 1992; NCVER, 2003, NCVER, 2004 and Down, 2012), Malaysia (Zaharim, 2010a;

Kamsah and Talib, 2014; Wye and Lim, 2014 and Shahri, Rahman and Husain, 2014), Indonisia (Setian and

Kurnia, 2014), Canada (Conference Board of Canada, 1996) and graduates survey of nine OECD counties

(Lindberg, 2007).

The concept of employability skills is new in Nigeria and has not been integrated into tertiary education

system of the country (Oresanya, et al., 2014). There are needs for employability skills to be included at

graduate levels in Nigeria (Akinyemi, Ofem and Ikuenomere, 2012). There is need for TVET institutions in

Nigeria to focus and equip the students with the employability skills (Idris and Rajuddin, 2012). For

instance, Mohammed and Ismail (2014) and Ismail and Mohammed (2015) conducted analytical review of

Electrical Technology Education curriculum of Nigeria Federal Universities of Technology. The findings

revealed that the ETE curriculum was theoretical based rather than practical based consisting of 57 courses

(80.28%) theoretical while 14 courses (19.72%) practical courses.

2. Methodology

The research was designed to determine the types of employability skills and their respective elements. The

data were collected from secondary sources of books and journal publications and analyzed through

understanding and synthesizing the literature.

3. Literature Review

Skill acquisitions in TVET formal systems are acquired through training which are replicated from the

policies to practices. In Nigeria, formal TVET skills acquisitions are acquired in universities of technology,

polytechnics, colleges of education (technical), technical colleges and presently at senior secondary schools

as well as in skills acquisition centers of various states governments in Nigeria (FGN, 2004, National

Education Research and Development Council, NERDC, 2008).

The National Policy on Education, Nigeria has changed the education system from British Grammar School

System to Comprehensive School System which introduced compulsory vocational subjects at Basic

Education level and Senior Secondary Schools and industrial training programmes for undergraduate which


46 | P a g e

led to the establishment of Industrial Training Fund in 1977 (NERDC, 2008). The Nigeria Technical and

Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system is shown in figure 1:

Basic Education (Primary and

Junior Secondary School)

Senior Secondary Schools University

Polytechnics /College

of Education

(Technical)

Technical Colleges

or Special

Vocational Schools

.

Figure 1: Nigeria TVET System (Source: Ekereo, et al, 2009)

It also introduced number of Technical Colleges and Polytechnics for the productions of artisans and

supervisory technical personnel respectively, some Federal Colleges of Educations (Technical) for the

production of TVET teachers for basic education level, and five Federal Universities of Technology for the

production of high TVET personnel for employment generation and other economic development in

Nigeria. The policy was implemented since late 1970’s and early 1980’s (FGN, 2004; Fafunwa, 2004).

The Nigeria National Policy on Education has linked the skills developments in TVET with employment

when it stated that, it is expected that trainees completing technical college programmes in Nigeria shall

improve the economy through the following three national policy options:

a) Secured employment in privates or governments organization;

b) Set up their own business, become self-reliant and employ others.

c) Pursue further education in advance craft or technical programs in polytechnics, colleges of

education (technical) and Universities of technology (FGN, 2004).

Paradoxically, TVET skills developments are being taught at various educational levels in Nigeria

since late 1970’s and early 1980’s to date but unemployment is increasing annually among the citizens as

shown in Table


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Table 1: Relationship between Employed Labour Force and Unemployed Labour Force in Nigeria (2000-

2013)

(Source: Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin, 2013; Adawo, Essien and Ekpo 2012)

GDP Increment of

GDP

Labour

Force

Increment of

Labour Force

Employed

Labour Force

Unemployed

Labour Force

2000 120600.0 6.7 50.3 0.3 14.1 36.2

2001 125720.0 4.2 51.7 0.3 14.5 37.2

2002 129820.0 3.3 53.0 0.3 0.15 52.9

2003 136460.0 5.1 54.5 0.3 15.3 39.2

2004 145380.0 6.5 56.1 0.3 6.60 49.5

2005 561931.4 4.5 56.3 0.3 6.70 49.6

2006 595821.6 6.0 56.5 0.3 1.60 54.9

2007 634251.1 6.4 56.7 0.3 3.30 53.4

2008 672202.6 6.0 56.9 0.3 2.80 54.1

2009 716949.7 7.0 57.0 0.3 2.80 54.2

2010 761931.4 4.5 57.3 0.3 2.4 54.9

2011 795821.6 6.0 57.5 0.3 2.0 55.5

2012 834251.1 6.4 57.7 0.3 1.9 55.8

2013 872202.6 6.0 57.9 0.3 2.1 55.8


48 | P a g e

Figure 1: Relationship between Employed and Unemployed Labour Force in Nigeria (2000-2013)

Table 1 indicates the steady increments of unemployment rate of Nigeria from 36.2 in 2000 to 55.8 in 2013

while the employed labour force decreases annually from 14.1 in 2000 to 2.0 in 2013. In 2000, out of

50.3% labour force in the country which increases annually up to 10 years by 0.3, only 14.1% were

employed and left 36.2% unemployed. And in 2009, out of 57.0% labour forces in the country only 2.80%

were employed while 54.2% were unemployed. This description revealed that Nigeria experiences

unemployment growth.

Employment generations in the developing countries can improve the economies of their citizens. The idea

is based on the linkage between income and employment (Boateng, 2004). Unemployment generates no

income or low income which results in poor living. Unemployed labours are lost human capitals (Mankiw,

1994). Unemployed labours have the potential to contribute to national income but are not doing so because

they are unemployed. Reduction of unemployment is a main concern of each responsible government across

the world. However, given free market economies, zero unemployment cannot be guaranteed. Friction in

the labour market will always be there (Adawo, Essien and Ekpo, 2012).

Skills development is an essential element in improving the employability and potential productivity of the

working poor and can be an important tool for the creation of employment opportunities. Education and


49 | P a g e

skills can enable the persons in rural communities, persons with disabilities, or disadvantaged youth to jobs

with high wages (ILO, 2014).

Ideally, an undergraduate education ought to provide current university students and recent graduates with

the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and values critical to navigate the dynamic complexities of the

changing workplace. Universities are continually asked: what are students learning and what will they be

able to do upon graduation from university? One response from universities focus on a developmental

approach (Donald, 1990), which turns its attention to how the curriculum is organized enabling students to

develop several general employability skill areas such as communication, analysis and problem solving.

In 2006, UNESCO Institute of Statistics assessed global TVET data about provision of knowledge and

skills using 30 countries including seven African countries. Findings indicate that TVET can solve youth

unemployment (Oketch, 2007 and UNESCO-UNIVOC, 2006). In this century, there are necessary skills

especially in new services and processes that are available in TVET institutions which are not available in

general education institutions mostly in developing countries. This is the reason why TVET is seen as a

solution to unemployment problems (UNESCO Institutes of Statistics, 2007).

Table 2: Unemployment Rate by Educational Level, Sector and Gender in Nigeria

Educational

Level

Male Female Both

Sexes

Below

Primary

21.5

23.7

22.7

Primary 15.6

21.9

18.7

JSS 19.5

24.2

21.7

Vocational/ 15.2 22.4 18.7


50 | P a g e

Commercial

SSS 21.2

23.4

22.1

NCE/OND/

NURSING

21.9

22.7

22.2

BA/BSc/Bed/HND 22.6

28.8

24.6

MSC/MA/MAdm 12.6

17.5

13.7

(Source: NBS, 2012)

Table 2 indicates that unemployment rate of university bachelor degree and equivalent polytechnics HND

graduates was (24.6%) higher than those who do not attend primary education (22.7%) in Nigeria in 2010.

Research findings have indicated numerous causes of universities graduates’ unemployment in Nigeria.

Among the causes of unemployment in Nigeria are the lack of possessing the necessary employability skills

(Oladele et al, 2011and Uddin and Uddin, 2013); mismatch between the graduates turnout and the labour

market, the mismatch between the graduates employee skills and those skills required for the performance

in modern workplace (Samuel, et. Al., 2012) and lack of integration of employability skills in the Nigeria

university system (Oresanya, 2014).

The existing gaps in the findings indicate that Employability Skills has not been integrated in

Nigeria TVET system which led to the production of half backed graduates that are not employable and

self-reliant for the country.

Employability skills are set of skills, knowledge and attributes that make individual likely to gain, maintain,

obtain new employment if required and move between roles within the same organization (Hillage and

Pollard, 1998 and National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education, 2009). There are three branches of

Employability Skills namely Core skills, Generic Skills and personal attributes.


51 | P a g e

i. Core skills are technical competencies that comprise specific knowledge and capabilities to

perform related specialized tasks with the use of equipment and tools efficiently (Medina, 2010 and

MDNasir, 2011). For instance, electrical technology, Automobile technology and other specialized

subject skills.

ii. Generic Skills are key competencies found within and across different occupations that help

individual to obtain positive social relationships and contributes to the work environment (Kearns,

2001; Caleb and Udofia, 2013). For instance, communication skills, problem solving skills and

computer skills.

iii. Personal attributes are good attitudes and traits of an individual that are used to get, maintain and

succeed in employment (Zaharim, et al., 2010). For instance, integrity skills and ethics skills.

Employability skills have played significant roles in graduate employments (Shivpuri and Kim,

2004).

Employers in UK, USA, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada and European Union

have considered the importance acquisition of employability skills at undergraduate level (Zaharim, et al,

2010; Common Wealth of Australia, 2002). The common belief of industrial employers is that higher

education institutions especially universities should equip graduates with the necessary employability skills

to achieve success in the place of work (Robinson and Garton, 2007).

4. Implication and Recommendations

The implications of these findings include the needs for conducting empirical research on employability

skills integration in TVET curriculum as well as feasibility studies and implementation of finding in the

school settings. It is recommended that employability skills courses should be included in TVET curriculum

of Technical Colleges, Colleges of Education (Technical), Universities in Nigeria, so that the graduates may

likely possessed employability skills to enhance their chances for obtaining employment, sustaining the job

and prospering in the employment at the international market.

5. Conclusion

Despite the good expectations of Nigeria National Policy on Education that linked the skills developments

in university TVET programmes with employments (FGN, 2004), Nigerian graduates are presently have the

highest unemployment rate of 24.6% in comparison to all educational level; even higher than those who do

not attend primary education (22.7%) (NBS, 2012). This might be due to lack of integration of

employability skills in the higher education system (Oresanya, et al., 2014). Employability skills refer to


52 | P a g e

necessary skills, knowledge and attributes for securing, maintaining and excelling in employment (Hillarge

and Pollard, 1998). This study found three major elements of employability skills which include core TVET

skills, generic skills and personal attribute skills. Core skills are technical competencies that comprise

specific knowledge and capabilities to perform related specialized tasks with the use of equipment and tools

efficiently (Medina, 2010 and MD Nasir et al., 2011). Generic Skills refers to non-technical courses skills

that help graduates to obtain positive social relationships and contributes to the work environment (Kearns,

2001; Caleb and Udofia, 2013). Personal attribute skills refer to good attitudes and traits courses for getting,

maintaining and excelling in employment in the field (Shivpuri and Kim, 2004; Down, 2012; Buntat, et al.,

2013).

References

ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology). (2009). 530 Criteria for accrediting

engineering programs: Effective for evaluations during the 2009–2010 accreditation cycle.

http://www.abet.org.

Adawo M.A., Essien, E.B. and Ekpo, N.U. (2012). Is Nigeria’s Unemployment Problem Unsolvable?

Current Research Journal of Social Sciences, 4(6), p. 389-395, ISSN: 2041-3246.

Boateng, K. (2004). Youth and ICT Skills in African labour market with particular reference to

Ghana. 3rd International Conference Proceedings Organized by African Youth Foundation at Frankfurt

Germany.

Buntat, Y., Jabor, M. K., Saud, M. S., Mansor, S. M. S. S. and Mustaffa, N. H. (2013). Employability Skills

Element's: Difference Perspective between Teaching Staff and Employers Industrial in Malaysia.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 1531-1535. doi:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.077

Caleb, E.C. and Udofia, A.E. (2013). Generic Skills and Employability of Electrical Installation Students

in Technical Colleges of Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria. IOSR Journal of Research and Method

in Education 1(2), p. 59-67.

Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. (2014). Central Bank of Nigeria, Statistical Bulletin, vol. 2, February,

2014. Pp.106 - 108.

http://www.abet.org/


53 | P a g e

Common Wealth of Australia, (2002). Employability Skills for Small and Medium Size Enterprises:

Common Wealth of Australia

Conference Board of Canada. (1996). Employability Skills 2000+: The Skills You Need to Enter, Stay in,

and Progress in the World of Work—Whether You Work on Your Own or as a Part of a Team. Ottawa:

The Conference Board

Down, C. (2012). Employability Skills: Revisiting the Key Competencies or a New Way Forward?

Retrieved on 16/06/2012 from http://www.docstoc.com/docs/52545372/Employability- Skills-Revisiting-

the-Key-Competencies-or-a-new

Ekereou, C; Ekwe, E; Ikediashi, L; Omo, E. (2009). Introductory Technology for Schools and Colleges.

Lagos: Macmilan Publisher.

Fafunwa, A.B (2004). History of Education in Nigeria. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN. (2004) shell. National Policy on Education (4thed). Lagos: Nigeria

Educational Research and Development Council Publishers. ISBN-978- 054-7.

Hillage, J. and Pollard, E. (1998). Employability: developing a framework for policy analysis. Research

Brief 85, London: Department for Education and Employment.

Idris, A. and Rajuddin, M. R. (2012). An Assessment of Employability Skills among Technical and

Vocational Education Students in Nigeria. Archives Des Science 65(7), p. 392-400.

Kearns, P. (2001). Generic Skills for the New Economy. Australia: National Centre for Vocational

Education Research.

Lindberg, M. (2007). At the frontier of graduate surveys’: Assessing participation and employability of

graduates with masters’ degrees in nine European countries. Higher Education 53, 623–44.

Mankiw, N.G. (1994). Macroeconomics (2nd ed.). New Yocke: Worth Publications.


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MdNasir, A. N., Ali, D. F., Noordin, M. K., Noordin, M. S. (2011). Technical skills and non-technical

skills: predefinition concept. Proceedings of the IETEC’11 Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,

National Bureau of Statistics, NBS. (2012). Poverty Profile of Nigeria. Abuja: NBS Publication, Available

at www. Nigeriastat.gov.ng.

National Education Research and Development Council, NERDC. (2008). The New Schools Curriculum

Structure, Abuja, Nigeria.

National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). (2009). Job Outlook, National Association of

Colleges and Employers, Bethlehem, PA.

Oketch, M. O. (2007). To Vocationalise or Not to Vocationalise? Perspective on Current Trends and

Issues in Technical and Vocational and Training (TVET) in Africa, International Journal of Development

27 (2007), P.220-234.

Oresanya, T.O., Omudewa, O. S. Kolade, T.T. and Fashedemi, A. O. (2014). Vocational Education and

Employability: The Nigerian Situation. Journal of Poverty, Investment and Development- An Open Access

International Journal, Volume 3, p. 158- 160.

Robinson, J.S. and Garton, B.L. (2007). An Assessment of the Employability Skills needed by Graduates in

the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Missouri. Journal of

Agricultural Education, 49(4), p. 96-105.

Setian, A and Kurnia, D. (2014). Transferrable Skills as Integrated Part of Professional Profile of

TVET Outcome, Conference proceedings of the 4th World Congress on TVET 2014, held at Equatorial

Hotel, Melacca, Malaysia on 5th and 6th December.

Shivpuri, S and Kim, B. (2004). Do employers and colleges see eye-to-eye? National Association of

Colleges and employers, 37-44.

UNESCO Institute of Statistics (2007). Participation in Formal Technical and Vocational Education

and Training Programmes Worldwide: An Initial Statistical Study. Montreal, Canada.


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UNESCO-UNEVOC. (2006). Participation in Formal Technical and Vocational Education and Training

Programmes Worldwide: An Initial Statistical Study. Bonn, Germany. UNESCO-UNEVOC International

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Zaharim, A., Yusoff, Y.M., Muhammed, A., Omar, M. Z., Muhammad, N. and Mustapha R. (2010).

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April 14-16, 2010 P.921 – 927, 978-1-42 44-6571-2/10/828.00@2010IEEE

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Research Article

Treasury Single Account and Sustainable Public Expenditure in Nigeria

Lawal Ahmed Tanimu1*, Muhammad Sulaiman2, Awaisu Rabiu3,

1*Department of Business Administration and Management Federal Polytechnic Kaura Namoda, Zamfara

State, Nigeria.

2Department of Economics Federal College of Education Zaria, Kaduna State Nigeria.

3Registery unit Federal College of Education Zaria, Kaduna State Nigeria.


ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

This paper assesses the role of Treasury Single Account (TSA) in blocking

financial leakages in Nigeria’s public sector and as a strategy for effective

utilisation of the funds for governance to improve citizens’ welfare and attain

some levels of development in the country. It further shows that, TSA initiative

lacks infrastructure and skilled personnel necessary to achieve the desired

goals. This is due to the lack of capacity development of personnel in

government to handle technical requirements for efficient and successful

operation of treasury single account (TSA). The paper recommends the need

for government to address the challenges and policy implementation problems

in other to achieve the desired result.


Treasury Single Account, government, public sector, financial leakages.

1. Introduction

Nigeria is a country where the method of managing government income and expenditure by means of

banking organisations is fragment. Living cash lying thoughtless for long period in many bank accounts

owned by ministries department and agencies (MDA), at the same time the government continue to obtain

loan to execute it is budgetary plan. This brings about inefficient apportioning of resources and unstable

business cycles. An essential resource for efficient public financial management is a single entity of

government banking. Certain unified banking arrangement ought to be created to minimise the burden of

government borrowing and maximise the alternative forgone of cash resources (Ocheni, 2016). It is based

on these that Treasury Single Account (TSA) was introduced in other to guarantee accountability for



57 | P a g e

government income, greater transparency and abstain misplacement of people’s money. To Othman, (2016)

the functioning of Treasury Single Account (TSA) helps to guarantee appropriate cash management by

abrogating lying cash mainly left with different commercial banks and in a way to improve the process of

matching revenue received and payments made by government. Implementation of Treasury Single

Account (TSA) by government will help improve cash management and control. It will as well make easier

fiscal and monetary policy coordination also a friendly fiscal and a banking data which on the other hand

enhance the quality of fiscal knowledge. Moreover, establishment of an operative TSA will reduce the debt

maintenance cost and above all eradicate financial misappropriations in public sector.

2. Methodology

The paper seeks to assess the role of Treasury Single Account (TSA) in blocking financial leakages in

Nigeria’s public sector, and argues that Treasury Single Account (TSA) should be given a strong preference

in any public financial management reform agenda. The study heavily relied on secondary data where data

were collected from journals, government records, newspapers, seminar papers and articles.


3.1. The concept of Treasury Single Account (TSA)

Treasury Single Account (TSA) is defined by Yusuf and Chiejina, (2015) as” a unified structure of

government bank account enabling consolidation and optimal utilisation of government cash resources”.

Based on the principle of unity of cash and the unity of treasury, TSA is a unified structure of government

bank accounts that gives a consolidated view of government cash resources. A TSA is a bank account or a

set of linked accounts through which the government transacts all its receipts and payments (Sailender and

Isreal, 2010). Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), (2016) sees the Treasury Single Account (TSA) as a set of

linked accounts for ALL Government payments and receipts. Moreover, it is the operation of a unified

structure of Government Bank Accounts.

3.2 Objectives of Treasury Single Account

The TSA is primarily designed to bring ALL Government funds in bank accounts within the effective

control and operational purview of the treasury, in order to: Enthrone centralized, transparent and

accountable revenue management; facilitate effective cash management; ensure cash availability; promote

efficient management of domestic borrowing at minimal cost; allow optimal investment of idle cash; block

loopholes in revenue management; establish an efficient disbursement and collection mechanism for

Government funds; improve liquidity reserve; and eliminate operational inefficiency and costs associated

with maintaining multiple accounts across multiple financial institutions.


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The specific objectives are as follows:

• To ensure transparency in the Public Financial Management (PFM);

• To provide transparency in the management of the public debt; and national financing need.

• To multiply treasury savings (less transaction charges, more revenues);

• To enhance the financial markets operations;

• To give the desired and more accurate accounting and improved reporting

3.3 Treasury Single Account (TSA) and Public Expenditure

The role of TSA is to enhance the overall effect of financial management system. TSA will also improve

transparency and will help in ensuring compliance with the 1999 constitution of federal republic of Nigeria

section162 and section 80(1). White, (2006) opined that” TSA will introduce economy and efficiency into

overall management of public finances and this will in the long run lead to effectiveness of government

spending since it places the government in a better position to realize overall policy goals”. According to

Garbade, John and Paul, (2004) The existence of uncertainty regarding whether the treasury will have

sufficient funds to finance programmed expenditures may lead to sub-optimal behavior by budget entities,

but when the treasury has full information about cash resources, it can plan and implement budget execution

in an efficient, transparent, and reliable manner, Thereby, removing the possibility of exaggerating their

estimates for cash needs. In a guide line issued in September, 2015. by the Office of the Accountant General

of the Federation (OAGF). It noted that Treasury Single Account (TSA) is part and parcel of the Public

Financial Management (PFM) reform initiatives under the Economic Reform and Governance (EFG)

project. PFM reform are part of the 3 pillar of National Strategy for Public Service Reform (NSPSR) toward

attainment of vision 20:2020 and it was created to mitigate the hindrance to operative cash management.

Ocheli, (2016) said” the approval of the cash management policy document by the Federal Executive

Council for implementation will strengthen Federal Government cash management for better budget

implementation and service delivery”. Therefore, the effectiveness and efficiency of TSA can be achieved if

the following cash management policy documents are strictly implemented and monitored: Government

Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS). The overall objective is to implement an

efficient, effective and user-friendly computerised financial management information system to increase the

ability of the Federal Government to undertake central control and monitoring of expenditure and receipts

in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). The purpose is to enhance greater accountability and

transparency across ministries and agencies. GIFMIS is an IT mode of budget, management and

accountability that is been executed by federal government to developed public expenditure management.


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3.4 Treasury Single Account (TSA) Implementation and Public Expenditure

It was in Aprils, 2012 the federal Government operated a pilot scheme for a single account using 217

MDAs. The implementation of TSA begins with the e-Payment system. The Federal was reported to saved

Nigeria about N500 billion. Despite this success, the immediate past government could not continue with

the policy due to weak regulations and high level of corruption of several Ministries, Departments and

Agencies (MDAs) of that era. When present government of Muhammadu Buhari came on board, the

mandate of the government is to principally fight corruption and move the country towards economic

development and poverty eradication. Among the first steps of President Buhari’s government was the

directive of the government in the circular OAGF/CAD/026/V.1/253 of 19th march, 2015 that all revenues

should be remitted to TSA is in compliance with the provision of 1999 Nigerian Constitution, Section 80

(1) and Section 162. In addition to that, Office of the Accountant -General of the Federation (OAGF) in the

circular HCSF/428/S.1/120 of August 7, 2015 directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)

of the Federal Government yet to comply with the Treasury Single Account (TSA) regime domiciled at the

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to embrace the policy not later than 15th September 2015. By implication,

the MDAs were directed to close all the revenue accounts they maintain in different Banks in the country

and transfer the proceeds to the TSA. The implementation of TSA brings about fiscal discipline, efficiency

and accountability on the part of government. In fact, TSA policy has certainly blocked government’s

revenue diversion and looting. President Buhari, 2016 during his meeting with Nigerian community in the

United Kingdom stated that, as at February 2016 TSA Policy mopped more than 2.2 Trillion which was

used through the bureaucracy system to raise voucher and sign cheques so that they do not go into the next

budget. The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, has claimed that the implementation of the TSA rule

would, improve the processing of collection of revenue as well as engender prompt settlement of matured

government commitments and thereby facilitate project completion and service delivery on schedule; afford

a clear view of overall government finances at any time and so reduce borrowing with the attendant costs,

eliminate avenues for corrupt self-enrichment by public officials; and increase accountability and

transparency (The Guardian, Editorial Board, 2016).

3.5 Challenges to Treasury Single Account (TSA)

In spite of the benefits of TSA policy in Nigeria, it brought about some negative implications especially on

the banking sector. Being the fact that public sector constitutes the larger commercial banks funds’ deposit,

(especially fixed deposits), which in turn helps the commercial banks to invests and earn huge amount of

dividends, the mopping of the public sector funds at the beginning of the first quarter of 2016 which

amounts to N2.2 trillion has negatively impacted the banking industry by leading to lay off of workers,

closure of some branches.


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The engagement of SystemSpecs – Remita as consultants and facilitators of the TSA imposes also a set

back to its proper implementation, in that N25 billion which represents 1% of the N2.5 trillion mopped up

from commercial banks and passed through Remita, violated Section 162 (1) of the 1999 Constitution and

the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act 2007.

Weak infrastructure, poor ICT services, lack of skilled personnel and corrupt policy implementers who

manipulate policies for their personal benefits led to delay in smooth operation of the TSA policy and its

sustainability in Nigeria.

4. Conclusion

The study assesses the role of TSA in blocking financial leakages in Nigeria public sector. It was found that

TSA is paramount in the nation’s financial management system, since it promotes transparency and

facilitates compliance with the constitution of 1999 Section 80 (1) and Section 162. But the study found that

a TSA lacks necessary infrastructure and skills personnel to achieve the desired goals. This is due to the fact

that the personnel in government to handle technical requirement for efficient and successful operation of

TSA lack capacity development. The mopping of the public sector funds at the beginning of the first quarter

of 2016 which amounts to N2.2 trillion has negatively impacted the banking industry by leading to lay off

of workers, closure of some branches. The engagement of Remita as consultants and facilitators of the TSA

imposes a setback to by violation of Section 162 (1) of the 1999 Constitution and the Banks and Other

Financial Institutions Act 2007. The study concludes that there is a need for government at all levels to

come up with appropriate measures to address these challenges of TSA. Also, the legislators must bring and

enact appropriate laws that will create an enabling atmosphere for smooth operation of the TSA policy in

the country.

Reference

Central Bank of Nigeria (2016). Guidelines for the Operation of Treasury Single Account (TSA) By State

Governments in Nigeria.

Garbade K, John CP, and Paul JS. (2004). Recent Innovations in Treasury Cash Management:Current

Issues in Economics and Finance, Vol. 10, No. 11 (November).

Ocheni S. (2016). Treasury Single Account: A Catalyst for Public Financial Management in Nigeria. 2016

January 25 [cited 2016 March 25] Available from: http://www.accountantng.com/2016/01/treasury-single-

account-a-catalyst-for-public-financial-management-in-nigeria#.VwZijqOBDIU


61 | P a g e

Othman MK. (2016). Treasury Single Account: Buhari’s Bold Step and the Journey So Far. 2016 March 4

[cited 2016 April 2] Available from: http://leadership.ng/features/506332/treasury-single-account-buharis-

bold-step-journey-far

Sailendra P, and Israel F. (2010). Treasury Single Account: Concept, Design, and Implementation Issues.

IMF Working Paper. 2010. WP/10/143.

Treasury Single Account: Matters Arising (2016). The Guardian, Editorial [Internet]. 2016 February 18

[cited 2016 March 4]. Available from: http://guardian.ng/opinion/treasury-single-account-matters-arising/

White LH. (2006). Payments System Innovations in the United States since 1945 and their Implications for

Monetary Policy. Chapter 1 in Institutional Change in the Payment System and Monetary Policy, ed. by

Stefan W. Schmitz and Geoffrey E. Wood (Routledge).

Yusuf IA, and Chiejina N. (2016). Anti-graft War: One Economy, One Account. Sunday Nation, 2016

August 16. Pp 9 – 10 and 71.

©Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability, 2 (4) 62 - 67, 2016 e-ISSN 2360-8013

62 | P a g e

Research Article

Assessment of Appropriateness of Project Reports of Graduating Business

Education Students in Tertiary Institutions in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

Augustina Chinweoke Anyigor-Ogah

Department of Business Education, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. PMB 53, Ebonyi State, Nigeria.

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

The main purpose of this paper is to establish the appropriateness of project

report of graduating business education students in Ebonyi State tertiary

institutions. Three research questions and three hypotheses were raised to

guide the study. The study adopted survey research design. 200 empirical

project reports of graduating business education students were randomly

selected from three higher institutions in Ebonyi State. A 15-item rating scale

was developed by the researcher. The assessment rating scale for project report

in business education was used to collect the required data. The data collected

was analysed using mean and standard deviation. From the analysed data, it

was found that project reports of graduating business education students in

tertiary institutions in Ebony State are suitable in problem articulation, but lack

suitability in review of literature, and data analysis. Based on the findings, it

was recommended that project supervisors should adhere tenaciously to

research ethics.


project report, business

Education, graduating

Students

1. Introduction

A project report is an essential component of most tertiary institution programmes including business

education. It is designed to deepen students’ research capabilities for research understanding in business

education (Bepsu, 2013; Ilo & Ifijeh, 2010). The programme which is typically carried out at the final year

of the study, presents the opportunity for students to undertake some considerable pieces of independent

research. The project consolidates the students understanding of research methodologies and helps them

to develop deeper approach to research, and also to allow them to interact with examples of the practical

problem that always occur during research work. Through project research, students acquire transferable

skills which would be of benefits to them in the course of their study and in their later life in terms of

https://www.google.com/search?q=ASSESSEMENT+OF+THE+APPROPRIATENESS+OF+PROJECT+REPORTS+OF+GRADUATING+BUSINESS+EDUCATION+STUDENTS+IN+TERTIARY+INSTITUTION+IN+EBONYI+STATE&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJueDDwZvUAhVLtY8KHRXvC7QQvwUIJCgA

https://www.google.com/search?q=ASSESSEMENT+OF+THE+APPROPRIATENESS+OF+PROJECT+REPORTS+OF+GRADUATING+BUSINESS+EDUCATION+STUDENTS+IN+TERTIARY+INSTITUTION+IN+EBONYI+STATE&spell=1&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJueDDwZvUAhVLtY8KHRXvC7QQvwUIJCgA


63 | P a g e

problem solving, project skills, analytical and evaluative skills (Kay, 2006; Abonyi et al, 2006; Asika, 2009;

Kothari & Garge, 2014).

Despite the obvious benefits offered by project research to business education students, certain problem

limits some of them from producing worthwhile quality pieces of work. According to Iyiogwe & Awoke

(2000), Goyal (2013), and Barlow (1983), major problems associated with poor research reports include

unclear introduction, ambiguous research questions, inadequate review of related literature, inappropriate

citations, inadequately defined sample, unclear statistical techniques, poor conceptualization among others.

In addition, Singh (2006), and Pierson (2004) identified poor style of writing, lack of innovativeness,

inability to keep pace with advances in relevant research areas as problems associated with presentation of

research papers. Also, common deficiencies in the methods, results and discussion section of any research

work can affect its quality (Pierson, 2004). It was also observed that more serious are the fundamental

defects in the study design which can doom the study.

Many student-related and supervisor-related factors have been identified as reasons for the variations in

quality of undergraduate research reports including project report in business education. Opie (2006) said

that some students conduct their research on their own, others resort to copying other persons work

verbatim while some others use self-generated data for analysis. Lack of commitment to course of study

can adversely affect the students’ performance in the application of research procedure and the result

thereafter (Lacey, 2007). Also, most students depend entirely on their colleagues for writing, collection of

data, analysis and interpretation of results; whereas students are supposed to be acquainted with the

requisite research and produce valid and dependable findings that can impact meaningfully on the society.

Aside from the student-related problem, research supervisors also share in the blame for poor quality report.

By observation, most supervisors show little interest and commitment towards research supervision, some

others sometimes appoint postgraduate students to supervise undergraduate research. This may be as a

result of supervisors having too many students to supervise. This has implications for the quality of research

to be produced. While evidence abound on the poor quality of research output from tertiary institutions in

Nigeria. The researcher is worried that there is little or no evidence of improved research report particularly

among graduating business education student in tertiary institutions in Ebonyi State. This study is therefore


64 | P a g e

concerned with the review of the content of project report in business education with particular focus on the

suitability in problem articulation, review of literature and data analysis.

2. Methodology

The area of the study was three tertiary institution in Ebonyi State of Nigeria; namely, Ebonyi State

University Abakaliki, Federal Polytechnic Uwana, and Ikwo college of education. The population of the

study was all undergraduate research projects in business education conducted in the three tertiary

institutions in Ebonyi State from 2014/2015 to 2015/2016 academic session.

Stratified random sampling techniques was used in selecting the sample of study. 100 samples were drawn

from Ebonyi State University Abakaliki, EBSU, 50 samples from UWANA, and 50 samples from Ikwo

College of Education. This gave a total of 200 samples. A 15 items assessment rating scale for project

reports in business education was developed by the researcher with the assistance of three experts; two from

measurement and evaluation and one from business education in tertiary institution in Ebonyi State. A five-

point rating scale of Very Appropriate (VA), Appropriate (A), Somewhat Appropriate (SA), Inappropriate

(I) and Very Inappropriate (VI) was used. The data collected was analysed using mean and standard

deviation. The decision rule for the mean statistics was 3.0. A statement item with a mean of 3.0 and above

was considered appropriate, while a statement item of a mean below 3.0 was considered inappropriate.


The mean rating and standard deviation results of the suitability of project report of graduating business

education students in problem articulation, review of literature and data analysis are shown in

Figures 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The results show that for suitability in problem articulation, the

study title, the scope of the study, and the consistency of the specific objective to the study title are

appropriate, while the clarity of the problem statement and contribution of the study to body of

knowledge are not appropriate. Also, for suitability in review of literature, the sequence of citation

is appropriate, while adequacy of the review in line to the specific objectives, use of empirical

studies, use of theoretical source, and summary of the literature are inappropriate. Furthermore, for

suitability in data analysis, tabulation of results, and use of decision rule are appropriate, while the

choice of statistical technique, application of statistical method, and interpretation of results are


65 | P a g e

inappropriate. Generally, the findings show that project reports of graduating business education

students in tertiary institutions in Ebony State are suitable in problem articulation, but lack

suitability in review of literature, and data analysis.

Table 1. Mean rating and standard deviations of suitability of project reports in problem articulation

S/N Item Statements

SD Remarks

1 Appropriateness of study title 3.54 1.28 Appropriate

2 Clarity of problem statement 2.84 1.07 Inappropriate

3 Adequacy of the scope 3.39 1.14 Appropriate

4 Consistency of the objectives with the title 3.14 1.20 Appropriate

5

Contribution of the study to body of knowledge

Grand mean

2.91

3.16

0.97

Inappropriate

Appropriate

Table 2. Mean rating and standard deviations of suitability of project reports in review of literature

S/N Item Statements

SD Remarks

1 Review in line with specific objectives 2.44 1.41 Inappropriate

2 Appropriate sequence of citation 3.05 0.83 Appropriate

3 Use of empirical studies 2.81 1.09 Inappropriate

4 Use of theoretical source 2.26 0.95 Inappropriate

5

Appropriate presentation of summary

Grand mean

2.63

2.64

0.86

Inappropriate

Inappropriate

Table 3. Mean rating and standard deviations of suitability of project reports in data analysis

S/N Item Statements

SD Remarks

1 Choice of statistical techniques 2.66 1.05 Inappropriate

2 Application of statistical method 2.87 1.12 Inappropriate

3 Tabulation of results 3.12 1.36 Appropriate

4 Interpretation of results 2.10 0.92 Inappropriate

5

Use of decision rules

Grand mean

3.26

2.80

1.02

Appropriate

Inappropriate

In addition, the findings indicate that although, there is suitability of the project reports in problem

articulation, the project reports lack appropriateness in clarity of problem statement, and contribution to the

body of knowledge. The implication of the finding is that the project reports may not be competent enough


66 | P a g e

to add the required values to the academic and scientific body of knowledge. The finding supports

Kupfersmind and Wonderly (1994), who noted that crating a strong empirical paper that contribute to

academic and scientific knowledge requires organized and thorough planning at each stage of the research

and writing process.

4. Conclusion

This paper assessed the suitability of project reports of graduating business education students based on

research problem articulation, review of literature, and research data analysis criteria. A 15 items

assessment rating scale for project reports in business education that was developed by the researcher with

the assistance of three experts was used for the study. The results indicate that the quality of project reports

from tertiary institution in Ebonyi State is averagely appropriate in terms of problem articulation. On the

Other hand, the findings reveal below average appropriateness of the project reports in business education

in terms of literature review and data analysis. Accordingly, the study recommends that project supervisors

in Ebonyi State tertiary institutions should ensure that students adhere tenaciously to research ethics.

References

Abonyi, O. S., Okerke, S. C., Omebe, C. A., and Anugwo, M. (2006). Foundations of educational

research and statistics. Emene: Fred-ogah Publishers.

Asika, N. (2009). Research methodology in the behavioural science. Ikeja: Longman Nigeria Plc.

Barlow, K. M. (1983). Manuscripts faults and review board recommendations: lethal and non-

lethal errors. In American Psychological association, committee on women in psychology and

women programs office, understanding the manuscript review process. Washington DC: American

Psychological association.

Bepsu, U. S. B. (2013). Understanding seminar presentation. Kantung: Ted Publishers.

Goyal, R. C. (2013). Research methodology for health professionals: Including proposal, thesis

and article writing. New Delhi: Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers.


67 | P a g e

Ilo, D. I., and Ifijeh, G. I. (2010). Impact of the Internet on Final Year Students' Research: A Case

Study of Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria. Library Philosophy and Practice.

Iyiogwe, S. O., and Awoke, U. (2010). Research methodology: A practical approach to project

report writing for Nigeria n University. Abakaliki: Folsun Technologies.

Kay, M. K. (2006). Supervising undergraduate using online and peer supervisor. In M Huba (ed)

7th International Virtual University Conference, Bratislava on 14-15 December 2006. Technical

University Bratislava: Bratislava.

Kothari, C. R., and Garge, G. (2014). Research methodology methods and techniques. New Delhi:

New age international publishers.

Kupfersmind, J., and Wonderly, D. M. (1994). An author’s guide to publishing better journals in

behavioural science, TV: clinical psychology publishing.

Lacey, N. D. (2007) Survival skills in graduate research. Retrieved 20th January 2013 from

www.gradschool.nmsu.edu/4596/htm.

Opie, O. N. (2006). Path analysis of institutional variables and undergraduate students’ attitude

towards research projects in tertiary institution in Calabar Cross River State, Nigeria. Unpublished

M.Ed Thesis University of Calabar.

Pierson, D. J. (2004). The top 10 reasons why manuscripts are not accepted for publication.

Respiratory Care, 49(10): 14-20.

Singh, D. (2006). Publication bias – a reason for the decreased research output in developing

countries. South Africa Psychiatry Review, 9(3), 6-12.

http://www.gradschool.nmsu.edu/4596/htm


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Research Article

Lifting the Veil on the Economic Activities of Muslim Females

in Northern Nigeria

Tawa S. Tijjani, Ebi Shahrin Suleiman, Umar Haiyat Abdul Kohar

Faculty of Management, University Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Skudai Johor Bahru, Malaysia

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

The veil is widely used by secluded Muslim women in Northern Nigeria as a

symbol of virtuous respectability and as a hijab to conceal physical feminity

from public scrutiny. The practice of seclusion, termed kulle in Hausa dialect

in Northern Nigeria, is symbolized by the intangible moral and socio-cultural

barrier the veil projects to isolate the Muslim woman from male or public

scrutiny. An outcome of seclusion is the near absence of visible female

participation in economic activities, which has given credence to the

perception of Muslim women as submissive, lazy, unproductive consumers

who are economically dependent on men. The paper examines the validity of

this perception, and the form and nature of the economic activities of secluded

Muslim women, in the light of literature evidence and their normal daily life in

Northern Nigeria. A non-empirical overview of the various economic activities

of secluded Muslim women in Northern Nigeria is presented with emphasis on

literature sources. Food vending, handcrafts, farm produce processing,

employed farm labor and services like trading, tailoring and hair weaving were

found to comprise the broad range of economic activities of the secluded

women. Most of the economic activities are usually operated from the home,

using children to bypass their restricted access to the open market. The

earnings from such activities are owned by the women and are expended as

they wish. Clearly, the negative, uncharitable portrayal of secluded Muslim

women, across the barrier of kulle lacks basis and does not take into

consideration their active participation in various economic activities behind

the veil. Taking the evidence together, they convincing show secluded Muslim

women in Northern Nigeria to be economically productive with considerable

liberty to manage their economic activities and earn income for themselves.


women, veil, seclusion,

economic activity, productive

1. Introduction

Advocacy monitoring is an important process in the social and economical development of a country. The

monitoring of the social equalities of women and children is very essential to improve the social

infrastructure. The social equality also includes the education and health benefits to the women and infant

children1. Advocacy can be defined as the efficient use of information to influence the policies2 and actions

of the responsible authorities which can produce affirmative changes in the lives of people.


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Northern Nigeria currently comprises the contiguous states of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa,

Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara and is not synonymous with the

colonial monolithic region north of the river Niger; a popular misconception. The states are federating units

in the Nigerian nation and they collectively occupy about 61.7% of the total national land area and contain

about 39% of the projected total national population of 164,728,579 in 2012 (N.B.S., 2012). Official data

from the Nigerian 2006 census showed around 48% composition of the total population in its Northern

region are females, which translates to over 26 million or more than a third of the total female population in

Nigeria (N.P.C., 2010). The region has a rich diversity of languages and culture that is mostly Muslim and

share common Islamic norms and values (Bergstrom, 2002; Vereecke, 1993). The seclusion of women is

common and widely synonymous with married or mature women (Schildkrout, 1982). Seclusion, called

kulle in Northern Nigeria, denotes the Islamic system of moral conduct, and local customs and practices

that imposes the separation of the sexes (Bergstrom, 2002; Coles and Mack, 1991; Georgia et al., 2014;

Pereira, 2002; Schildkrout, 1982; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001). It requires mature Muslim females to

remain out of public view, wear the hijab to cover their bodies and conceal their beauty if they venture

outdoors, and limit their interactions with males to their immediate family circles (Mahdi, 2009).

The practice of seclusion in Northern Nigeria dates from the eighteenth-century jihad of Sheikh Usman Dan

Fodio (Bergstrom, 2002; Pierce, 2007; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001). The low adoption of seclusion by

women before the jihad had been noted by scholars (Bergstrom, 2002; Pierce, 2007; Zakaria, 2001).

Establishing the caliphate had substantial social, cultural and economic effects, which contributed to the

implementation and association of seclusion and veiling to women’s modesty and status (Bergstrom, 2002;

Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001). The advent of British rule and the complex interactions of capitalism with

local ideologies are credited with a restructuring of production, social and labor relations along lines of

gender. This further reinforced the practice of seclusion and its association with wealth (arziki), honor

(martaba) and prestige (yabo) (Pereira, 2002). Today, Northern Nigeria remains the largest geographical

area in Africa where mature Muslim females observe strict seclusion both as a form of prestige and

religious piety (Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001).

Kulle varies in degree of strict compliance and observance between rural and urban areas of Northern

Nigeria. The rural communities are usually small, close knit social groups where everyone is somewhat a

close or distant relative. Therefore, rural seclusion rules tend to be lax compared to cities where the diverse

society, relative wealth, social standing and prestige encourages its strict observation (Zakaria, 2001). Also,

the labor intensive nature of agriculture, the mainstay of most rural economies, which often requires female

labor input also weakens the strict observance of seclusion (Bergstrom, 2002; Zakaria, 2001). Strict


70 | P a g e

observance of seclusion is also low in families where male members are formally employed and the females

in the family have access to western education and also formal employment opportunities (Zakaria, 2001).

Several studies have documented secluded females in Northern Nigeria to be involved in several economic

activities (sana’a) (Coles and Mack, 1991; Georgia et al., 2014; Schildkrout, 1982; Vereecke, 1993;

Zakaria, 2001). For instance, the reported participation for secluded Hausa women in Kano state has been

put at 80% (Coles and Mack, 1991), 63% (Pittin, 1982) or two-thirds (Hill, 1969; Vereecke, 1993) of the

total women population studied. The women are usually self-employed in agricultural produce processing,

food selling, petty trading and providing gendered services. However, it has been noted that most of these

economic activities are usually informal and limited to the local economy, where they are dominant

(Georgia et al., 2014; Lincoln, 2012; Verick, 2006).

Table 1: Economic activities of secluded women grouped by labor requirements

Economic Activity Labor intensive Non-labor intensive

Farm labor Farmland preparation, planting,

weeding and harvesting

Farm produce

processing

De-husking, shelling, cleaning,

boiling, extraction and drying

Food vending Sieving, boiling, frying, steaming,

roasting, and packaging

Hand crafts Cap and mat weaving, pottery, soap

making, knitting,

Services Milling or grinding, laundry,

embroidery Petty trading, hair plaiting, babysitting,

2. Economic Activities of Women in Seclusion

The practice of kulle does not diminish nor remove the right of the Muslim woman to own wealth and even

seek for it within the limits prescribed by Islamic law. Islam places great value on entrepreneurial activities

and encourages Muslims to seek wealth in every halal way possible (Ullah et al., 2013). Work (aiki) is

perceived as a necessary endeavor to discharge duties and sustain biological needs. The Islamic work ethic

teaches that engagement in economic activity is an obligation (Ullah et al., 2013). Secluded Muslim women

in Northern Nigeria thus face no religious restriction to their aspirations to engage in economic activities as

long as it is in compliance with Islamic laws (Georgia et al., 2014; Zakaria, 2001).

The choice of engaging in paid work is usually a personal one since the spouse is obligated to take care of

the wife and family (Ullah et al., 2013; Vereecke, 1993). However, several other factors including

economic, social and religious may significantly affect a secluded woman’s decision to work (Georgia et


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al., 2014; Zakaria, 2001). A secluded Muslim woman may engage in sana’a to supplement the spouse’s

inadequate income, to earn income and spend it on herself to increase her status, to pay the Islamic

pilgrimage, to provide a bridal gift to her daughter or to increase her economic net worth (Georgia et al.,

2014; Schildkrout, 1982; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001). They however require the permission of their

spouses to undertake in economic work, which is usually positive except in very few situations (Georgia et

al., 2014; Zakaria, 2001).

The level and type of the economic activities of women in kulle varies among women and across the rural

to urban areas in Northern Nigeria. The variation is largely dependent on the degree to which seclusion is

observed and various factors like the level of skill needed, the labor requirements, market demand and the

initial capital available. In addition, the vital contribution of child labor to the economic activities of

secluded women had been noted in studies (Kazeem, 2013; Robson, 2004; Zakaria, 2001). Children act as

intermediaries across the barriers of seclusion between the domestic, mainly, female sphere of influence and

the public, mostly, male domain. Children buy needed raw materials for the women from the public

markets, help them with strenuous tasks and sell the products, for the women, to the public. The children

may include secluded woman’s children, offsprings of relatives or errand Qur’anic pupils (almajiri)

(Robson, 2004; Robson, 2006; Zakaria, 2001).

Commercial food vending is a popular economic activity among secluded women. It involves the cooking

and sale of popular fried treats of bean cake (kosai), rice cake (masa), groundnut cake (kulikuli), and cheese

(awara). Drinks include juices, gruel and tamarind porridge (zobo, kunun zaki and kunun tsamiya), while

meals of cowpea dumpling (moi-moi), rice dumplings (tuwon-shinkafa) or rice (shinkafa) with soup (miya),

noodles (taliya) and cooked corn flour with soup (tuwo da miya) are preferred local dishes (Pittin, 1982;

Schildkrout, 1982; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001). Rice and cowpea (wake) with pepper (yaji), and salad,

is a popular lunch meal. Other popular treats, which are hawked, includes tiger nut cake (dakua), honeyed

wheat cake and rings (fankasau and alkaki), sesame seed cake (ridi), roasted and cooked groundnuts.

The mobility restrictions of seclusion require women under kulle to employ the services of children to hawk

the food outside the home (Georgia et al., 2014; Robson, 2006; Schildkrout, 1982; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria,

2001). The children typically have unrestricted access to the secluded women, where they collect and hawk

the food to the public. The errand children offer daily hawking services (alaro), which is typically about five

to eight hours, for paid remuneration with food or money. The children of secluded Muslim women are

rarely paid for their service, which is considered as their contribution to the family. Children of relatives

may or may not receive remuneration depending on the family ties with the secluded woman. However, one

negative of this dependence of secluded Muslim women on child labor is its denial of children’s access to


72 | P a g e

education by engaging them all day long (Kazeem, 2013; Robson, 2004). The enrollment of children in

schools is mutually exclusive to the demand for their labor by secluded women (Georgia et al., 2014;

Zakaria, 2001). This is regarded as a social, educational and economic problem, since it is a cultural norm

across the whole Northern Nigeria but is, more frequent among poor families who often need the economic

contribution of the children (Georgia et al., 2014; Kazeem, 2013).

Farm produce processing is a seasonal source of income for secluded women especially in the rural areas.

The activity is labor intensive, compared to cooking food for vending, and usually takes a whole day (aikin

yini) or more depending on the quantity to be processed (Georgia et al., 2014). Table 1 shows a comparative

grouping of the economic activities of secluded women using the labor input required. The produce

processing involves single or multiple steps of de-husking, shelling, cleaning, boiling, extraction and

drying. All the tasks are usually performed manually by the women with assistance from children. The

basic work tools are common household items like the pestle and mortar, earthenware cookware, trays,

plastic containers, threshing sticks, metal and clothe sieves, and broom. The consumables required are

typically firewood and water. Most of the women are usually unable to afford labor saving machines but in

some instances have organized to collectively buy and use threshing and extraction machines to improve

their productivity. The produce processed includes oil seeds, cereals, legumes, fruits and vegetables, which

are usually packaged and sold in markets

Farm labor activities represent the very end of the scale of economic activities undertaken by secluded

women. It requires the most physical exertion by secluded women in comparison with all other economic

activities. The work is seasonal and mostly occurs during the planting season. However, the use of irrigation

has further extended farming activities, in areas with large water bodies, all year round. Secluded women

earn income by commercializing their labor (aikin kwadago) during the planting, weeding and harvesting of

farm produce. The involvement of secluded females in such backbreaking paid labor is perceived as

undignified, a reduction of social status and that only the very poor women take up such work (Georgia et

al., 2014). Such social perception, especially in cities, is a consequence of associating wealth and status

with less physical exertion. It is instructive to note that women participation in farm labor mainly occurs in

rural areas and is so valued, maybe for its cheapness, that sometimes advance bookings are placed for their

labor. The women are paid depending on the size of the farm and their arbitrary estimate of the labor input

(e.g. number of yini) required for the task. Each woman subsequently receives payment based on the field

area or number of plant ridges (kunya) worked or the quantity of harvested crops. Secluded women

involved as employed farm labor are normally grouped together, sometimes with children, and given

separate farmlands from men to work. The children are either employed almajiris or sons and daughters

assisting their parents. This involvement of children in farm labor activities with women had been noted


73 | P a g e

(Georgia et al., 2014). Segregation of farm labor in this way is considered the norm but its implementation

is not always strict. An exception to this arrangement is during crop planting and harvesting where such

separation is usually ignored. The crops involved are mostly staples or commercial crops like maize,

sorghum, groundnut, rice, etc.

Several gendered services provided by secluded women involve creative or skilled expertise to a higher or

lesser degree. The skills are rarely self-acquired and involve learning through informal teaching sessions

from a mentor. Patronage of the service may require the female customer to seek out the secluded service

provider. In some situations, the provider of the service offers it directly to the women by going round the

homes to seek customers and peddling other wares in the process. The limitation on women mobility in

public is an advantage for such service providers. They are always assured a substantial number of their

clients will always be available when they call. Some of such services include clothe embroidery, tailoring,

hair weaving and body henna design (kunshi) for females (Pittin, 1982; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001).

Unskilled services offered by the women in kulle involve grinding of food ingredients (markade), cereal de-

skinning (sirfe), babysitting, laundry and housemaid services (Pittin, 1982; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001).

Cottage crafts remain the only other economic activity of secluded women, which requires skills and

creativity. The participation by secluded women in such economic activity is either because it is a family

trade or the result of training, which is funded by the female apprentice or aid organizations. The capital

requirement for setup is often substantial due to the need for equipment and raw materials. However, the

earnings from cottage crafts are perceived among secluded women to be high and desirable. Produced items

include sweaters, incense making, bead making, baby knitwear, soaps, detergents, clay cookware (pottery),

broom making, mat weaving and local woven caps.

Petty trade activities by women in kulle are often limited to a table of wares in the house or trays of wares,

which are hawked by the women or errand children to other secluded women or the public. The hawked

ware range from soup ingredients and seasoning, soaps, detergents, kola nuts, sugar, salt and may include

luxury items like jewelry, perfume and clothing (Chumley, 1998; Mordi et al., 2010; Schildkrout, 1982;

Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001). The scale of the petty trading activities of secluded women is small due to

their limited capital, the frequent need to go to the market to replenish stocks and more importantly, the

competition of male owned provision stores on street corners. Thus, the variety of wares offered secluded

petty traders is targeted at the gendered needs of women.

The income earned by secluded Northern Nigerian Muslim women from their economic activities has been

noted to be sizable and values and size of some of their economic activities has been compared to that of

counterpart males (Mordi et al., 2010; Schildkrout, 1982; Zakaria, 2001). It has been noted in studies that


74 | P a g e

secluded Muslim women retain the earnings from their economic activities as personal income (Georgia et

al., 2014; Schildkrout, 1982; Ullah et al., 2013; Vereecke, 1993; Zakaria, 2001). The spouse rarely asks for

remittances but the secluded woman is expected to reduce the financial burden of the home on the spouse

by spending on herself, the children and buying condiments, detergents, etc (Schildkrout, 1982; Zakaria,

2001). The other ways secluded women expend their income involve buying bridal gifts for wedded

daughters and the haj pilgrimage. The acquisition of land and properties by women in kulle is infrequent

because it often requires the added responsibility of supervision, which may involve interactions outside the

home and with males.

3. Conclusion

The economic activities of secluded Muslim women in Northern Nigeria were examined in detail. They

were shown to engage in economic activities, which involve buying, selling, cooking, processing of farm

produce and provision of paid services and even the commercialization of their physical labor. Most of the

economic activities are usually operated from the home, using children to bypass their restricted access to

the open market. The women were also shown to exercise complete independence over their earnings in

deciding how it should be expended. Taking the evidence together, they convincing show secluded Muslim

women in Northern Nigeria to be economically productive with considerable liberty to manage their

economic activities and earn income for themselves.

References

Bergstrom, K. (2002). Legacies of Colonialism and Islam for Hausa Woman: An Historical Analysis, 1804

to 1960. Women and International Development, Michigan State University.

Chumley, J. (1998). Work, Agriculture, and the Rise of Female House Seclusion in Post-Colonial

Hausaland. Senior Thesis Projects.

Coles, C. M. and Mack, B. (1991). Hausa Women in the Twentieth Century. University of Wisconsin Press.

Georgia, T., et al. 2014. Economic Opportunities and Obstacles for Women and Girls in Northern Nigeria.

UK: Department for International Development (DFID) Nigeria.

Hill, P. (1969). Hidden Trade in Hausaland. Man. 392-409.

Kazeem, A. (2013). Unpaid Work among Children Currently Attending School in Nigeria: With Focus on

Gender, Ethnicity, Urban-Rural Residence and Poverty. International Journal of Sociology and Social

Policy. 33,(5/6), 328-346.

Lincoln, A. (2012). Nature of Leadership Practices of Nigerian Female Entrepreneurs. International

Journal of Business and Social Science. Vol 3 (10) 50- 59.


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Mordi, C., Simpson, R. and Singh, S. (2010). The Role of Cultural Values in Understanding the Challenges

Faced by Female Entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 25

Issue: 1, pp.5-21,

N.B.S. 2012. Annual Abstract of Statistics 2012. In: Nigeria, N. B. O. S. (ed.). Nigeria: Federal Government

of Nigeria (F.G.N.).

N.P.C. 2010. Population Distribution by Sex, State, Lgas and Senatorial District: 2006 Census Priority

Tables (Vol 3). In: Commission, N. P. (ed.). Nigeria: Federal Government of Nigeria.

Pereira, C. (2002). Locating Gender and Women's Studies in Nigeria: What Trajectories for the Future.

10th General Assembly of CODESRIA,‘Africa in the New Millennium’, Kampala, Uganda.

Pierce, S. (2007). Identity, Performance, and Secrecy: Gendered Life and the" Modern" in Northern

Nigeria. Feminist Studies. 33,(3), 539-565.

Pittin, R. 1982. Documentation of Women's Work in Nigeria: Problems and Solutions. International Labour

Organization.

Robson, E. (2004). Children at Work in Rural Northern Nigeria: Patterns of Age, Space and Gender.

Journal of Rural Studies. 20,(2), 193-210.

Robson, E. (2006). The ‘Kitchen’ as Women's Space in Rural Hausa land, Northern Nigeria. Gender, Place

& Culture. 13,(6), 669-676.

Schildkrout, E. (1982). Dependence and Autonomy: The Economic Activities of Secluded Hausa Women in

Kano, Nigeria. Women and work in Africa. 55-81.

Ullah, M. M., Mahmud, T. B. and Yousuf, F. (2013). Women Entrepreneurship: Islamic Perspective.

European Journal of Business and Management. 5,(11), 44-52.

Vereecke, C. (1993). Muslim Women Traders of Northern Nigeria: Perspectives from the City of Yola.

Ethnology. 32(3), 217-236.

Verick, S. (2006). The Impact of Globalization on the Informal Sector in Africa. Economic and Social

Policy Division, United Nations Economic Cat Commission for Africa.

Zakaria, Y. (2001). Entrepreneurs at Home: Secluded Muslim Women and Hidden Economic Activities in

Northern Nigeria. Nordic Journal of African Studies. 10,(1), 107-123.


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Research Article

Risk in Islamic Banks: A Literary Review

Muryani Arsal1*, Nik Intan Norhan Abd Hamid2, Faizah Mohammed Bashir3

*1,2Department of Finance, Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor, Malaysia.

3Department of Architecture, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor, Malaysia.

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

This paper focuses on the risk of the Islamic banking. This paper concluded

that the concept of risk in an Islamic bank can best be understood when viewed

from two dimensions is prohibition of gharar (uncertainty) and freedom of

contract cause an Islamic bank is a financial institution that status, rules and

procedures clearly state its commitment to the principles of Islamic law and the

prohibition of receipt and payment of interest on each operation. Furthermore,

Islamic banks are barrier in using some of the risk mitigation instruments that

their conventional counterparts use as these are not allowed under Islamic

commercial law.


Risk, Islamic bank, Risk

management, Conventional

bank

1. Introduction

The meaning of the risk has changed over the years. Understanding the real meaning of risk and its basic

components spend a lot of time and efforts. In simple terms, risk is a probability that the events will

happen, which are contrary of expected, in the respect that such divergence can be positive and negative.

The positive risk is desirable but rarely possible in everyday life. Conversely, the risk component from

which both individuals and organization want to protect and, if possible, manage it actively is the negative

risk (Kozarević et al., 2013)

Risk involved both susceptibility of asset values and opportunities of income growth. The successful

companies presume of these opportunities (Damodaran, 2009). An essential element of risk management is

to understand the risk–return trade-off of different assets and investors. Investors can expect a higher rate of

return only through increased its exposure to risks. The objective of financial institutions is to create value

for the shareholders by acquiring assets in multiples of shareholder-owned funds, , managing the resulting


77 | P a g e

risks faced by the equity becomes an important function of the financial institutions (Ahmad and Khan,

2007).

Islamic banking is newish compared with conventional banking; the risks inherent in the instruments used

are not well understood. Islamic banks can be expected to face two types of risks namely risks that are

similar to those faced by conventional financial intermediaries and risks that are unique owing to their

compliance with Islamic law (Ariffin et al, 2009). Furthermore, Islamic banks are barrier in using some of

the risk mitigation instruments that their conventional Counterparts use as these are not allowed under

Islamic commercial law (Kozarević et al., 2013).

The structure of the paper is as follows. First, the nature of Islamic banking. Second, paper commences by

reviewing the existing literature within the context of the risks in Islamic banking with some reference to

the risks in conventional banking. Then, the defining and identifying different risk. The last section draws

some conclusions.

2. The Nature of Islamic Banking

An Islamic bank is a financial institution that status, rules and procedures clearly state its commitment to

the principles of Islamic law and the prohibition of receipt and payment of interest on each operation (El-

Gawady, 2005). The concept of Islamic economic perspective and prospective role to be played by the

Islamic banks in which open. It is natural and essential for an Islamic bank to include the function and

practice of commercial investment and social activities, as an institution designed to promote the mission

civilized Islamic economics (El-Gawady, 2005).

In view of activities, an Islamic bank is normally a hybrid between a conventional commercial bank and

an investment bank, and thus resembles a universal bank. All commercial transaction of banks were

transformed and eliminated based on interest to comply with sharia rules and principles. (Karim, 2001;

DeLorenzo, 2002; Iqbal and Mirakhor, 2002).

It appears from the above definition that Islamic banking is a system of financial intermediation that

avoids receipt and payment of interest in their dealings (Wilson, 2002; Iqbal and Mirakhor, 2007) and

conducted in a manner that helps achieve the economic goals of Islam (Karim and Archer, 2002) then, the

banking system that operates based on the principles of Islam transaction a profit loss sharing is a major

feature, ensure justice and fairness in the economy (Nienhaus, 1983; Iqbal and Mirakhor, 2002; Wilson,


78 | P a g e

2002; El Gawady, 2005; Chong and Liu, 2009). Furthermore, an Islamic bank is based on the Islamic faith

and must stay within the limits Islamic law in all of its actions and deeds (El Gawady, 2005).

2.1 Risk of Islamic Banking

The concept of risk in an Islamic financial system can best be understood when viewed from two

dimensions is prohibition of gharar (uncertainty) and freedom of contract (Ahmad and Khan, 2007). Gharar,

according to Islamic law, is any element of chance involving asymmetric information, uncertainty

(Badawi,1998), risk or even speculation or gambling (Al-Saati, 2003), and any resultant profits are illicit

and to be excluded according to the religious, and consequently the moral, precepts of Islam (El-Gawady,

2005). Gharar needs to be explained in a contracting context and concerns the uncertainty of the subject

matter.

Undertaking a business transaction or an investment decision involves some degree of risk taking,

regarding the future performance or outcome of the activity. However in such cases, risk taking is based on

educated analysis and an understanding of the risks that are necessarily present, whereas gambling creates a

risk that would otherwise be non-existent. The Quran clearly prohibit us from gambling, as illustrated in

these verses (Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 219 and Surah Al-Ma’idah, verse 90) relating to games of chance or

gambling, referred to in Arabic as maysir (Ariffin et al., 2009; Ahmad and Khan, 2007)

The main difference between gharar and risk taking is related to the nature of risk and its potential

contribution to the social good. Gambling involves the creation of risk for the sake of risk in the hope of

very high gains, whereas risk taking that is part of some real economic activity that creates economic value

in the market should be permissible and desirable. Gambling is essentially a zero-sum game, which creates

no wealth (El-Gamal, 2001).

Islam offers full freedom of contracts to economic agents as long as the resulting contract is within the

boundaries defined by Islamic law, which mainly excludes riba and gharar. Given the freedom of contracts

and the understanding of gharar, Islam fully recognises risk that is generated by financial (El-Gamal, 2001).

The asset and liability sides of Islamic banks have unique risk characteristics. The Islamic banking model

has evolved to one-tier mudaraba with multiple investment tools. On the liability side of Islamic banks,

saving and investment deposits take the form of profit sharing investment accounts. Investment accounts

can be further classified as restricted and unrestricted, the former having restrictions on withdrawals before

maturity date. Demand deposits or current accounts in Islamic banks take the nature of qard hasan (interest-


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free loans) that are returned fully on demand. On the asset side, banks use murabaha (cost-plus or mark-up

sale), installment sale (medium/long-term murabaha), bai-muajjal (price-deferred sale), istisnaa/salam

(object deferred sale or pre-paid sale) and ijara (leasing) and profit-sharing modes of financing (musharaka

and mudaraba). These instruments on the asset side, using the profit-sharing principle to reward depositors,

are a unique feature of free interest banks. The different nature of its asset and liability composition

and the profit and loss sharing basis change the nature of risks that free interest banks face (Ahmad and

Khan, 2001; ; Ahmad and Khan, 2007; Ariffin et al., 2009; Abdullah et al., 2011; Kozarević et al., 2013).

2.2 Types of Risk of Islamic and Conventional Banking

Furthermore, due to their constant change and mutual interactions, it would be impossible to cover all types

of risk that banks, whether Islamic or conventional, face. The risks in conventional banks can be divided

into some of types of risk i.e. market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, and other types of

banking risks.

Market risk is the risk that the decrease in the value of an investment due to movements in market factors.

Market risk can be systematic and unsystematic. Systematic risk arises from macro sources like currency

and equity prices risks, and unsystematic is instrument-specific likewise fluctuations in prices of

commodity or asset that the bank is dealing with, will be categorized under specific market risk (Ramzan

and Zafar, 2014; Ahmad and Khan, 2007).

Credit risk is as the probability that a counterpart of a contract will fail to fulfil its engagements, either as a

one-off or completely (Boumediene, 2011).

Liquidity risk arises from either difficulties in obtaining cash at reasonable cost from borrowings (funding

liquidity risk) or sale of assets (asset liquidity risk). The liquidity risk arising from both sources is critical

for Islamic banks (Ahmad and Khan, 2007). For a number of causes, Islamic banks are assumed to come

across with considerable liquidity risk. First, there are limitations from fiqh on the securitization of the

present assets of Islamic banks, which are principally debt in nature. Secondly, due to gradual growth of

financial instruments, it is difficult for Islamic banks to quickly draw funding from the financial markets

because there is no independent inter-Islamic bank money market (Ramzan and Zafar, 2014). Operational

risk is of direct or indirect loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people, and

technology or from external events (BCBS, 2001). Operation risk may be arises due to lacking of trained

and qualified professionals to perform Islamic financial operations. Risks may also arise due to the


80 | P a g e

dissimilar business practices; computer software available in the market for conventional banks may not be

appropriate for Islamic banks (Ramzan and Zafar, 2014). Other types of risk in conventional banks include:

bank exposure risk (to clients or other banks), investment risk, legal risk, strategic risk, reputational risk and

country risk banks (Ahmad and Khan, 2007; Kozarević et al., 2013).

Besides most of the risks faced by conventional banks (such as one part of credit, market, operational, and

liquidity risk), Islamic banks have special types of risk that are specific to their business operations in

compliance with Islamic law. In Islamic banking, all types of risk can be divided as follows: financial risk,

business risk, treasury risk, management risk, fiduciary risk and other types of risk in Islamic banks (Ahmad

and Khan, 2007; Kozarević et al., 2013).

One of the basic types of risk faced by Islamic banks is the financial risk. Its result is a direct financial

loss on the bank assets and liabilities. Business risks appear due to various macroeconomic and political

conditions, but also due to insolvency which is a result of the lack of resources for the continuation of

business activities. The treasury risk includes the risks that appear in the management of Islamic bank

financial resources: cash management, ownership management, short-term liquidity management, as well as

bank assets and liabilities management. Management risk is related to the risk that appears due to

unsuccessful bank management, negligence in running business and fulfilling contract obligations, as well

as due to weak internal and external institutional environment, including the legal risk as well, when banks

cannot implement their contracts (Iqbal and Mirakhor, 2007). The consequences of fiduciary risk can be

enormous, particularly if Islamic banks start to lose their reputation from their customers (Izhar, 2010).

Apart from these types of risk, Islamic banks have other types of risk specific to certain products offered by

these banks. Such risks appear only when certain business activities are not performed in a way which is

expected in Islamic banks (Kozarević et al., 2013).

2.3 Risk Management in Islamic Banks

The nature of risks faced by Islamic banks is complex and difficult to mitigate, for different reasons. First,

unlike the conventional banks, given the trading-based instruments and equity financing, there are

significant market risks along with credit risks. Second, risks intermingle and change from one kind to

another at different stages of a transaction. Third, because of rigidities and deficiencies in the infrastructure,

institutions and instruments, the risks faced are magnified and/or difficult to mitigate (Ahmad and Khan,


81 | P a g e

2007). The four basic stages of this process can be isolated i.e. risk identification, risk evaluation,

selection of method for risk management, and implementation and result assessment (Ahmad and Khan,

2001; Kozarević et al., 2013).

Risk identification is the first step in the entire process of active risk management. It includes the

comprehension of potential losses based on the total exposure to various types of risk. Risk evaluation

assesses potential losses in such a way that it determines the probability of their appearance in a certain

period of time, assesses their possible size, and finally ranks potential losses by means of importance. The

selection of method for risk management is made on the basis of the probability and size of the identified

potential losses. One can select one of the risk management methods, but also several of them in

combination. After determining the method by which one wants to manage risks, what follows is the

creation and implementation of measures. The control of the implemented risk management methods, as

well as the assessment of the results obtained, must be performed periodically due to changeable conditions

and circumstances in which banks operate, which were considered during the result assessment (Kozarević

et al., 2013).

In terms of Islamic banks, the system for risk management in these banks includes several successive

stages as follows: risk identification, risk and capital quantification, gathering or grouping similar risks,

previous controls, and risk monitoring.

As conventional banks, Islamic banks have risk identification as the initial stage of the process of risk

management. This stage should provide the size of a possible loss of the bank on the basis of exposure to all

types of risk. However, Islamic bank have a task that is much more difficult than for conventional banks,

since they are exposed to specific types of risk as well, that are generated by their special ways of financing.

After the identification of all types of risk, they need to be quantified. This means that for each type of risk

one should determine the highest possible loss caused by it, and use it as the basis for making the necessary

reserves from the basic capital of the bank. This is an extremely significant stage in Islamic banks due to the

fact that they are exposed to a wide spectrum of risks. This is why the risks frequently need to be divided

into certain groups with the same or similar characteristics. Previous controls are necessary so as to check

whether the conditions have been made for the execution of each stage of risk management, failure of

which requires certain measures to be taken so that all involved in a certain stage of this process have the

appropriate work conditions. Since the process of risk management is continuous and it is per se constantly


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repeated, permanent monitoring needs to be made so as to ensure that all the stages of the process run

without halts or difficulties (Kozarević et al., 2013).

3. Conclusion

The unique nature of Islamic banking operations provides a depth intuition that the risk determinants of

Islamic banking fit to be different from those factors affecting conventional banking. The risk in an Islamic

banks can best be understood when viewed from two dimensions is prohibition of gharar (uncertainty) and

freedom of contract.

Furthermore, due to their constant change and mutual interactions, it would be impossible to cover all

types of risk that banks, whether Islamic or conventional face. The risks in conventional banks i.e. market

risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, and other types of banking risks. Besides most of the risks

faced by conventional banks, Islamic banks have special types of risk that are specific to their business

operations in compliance with Islamic law which is financial risk, business risk, treasury risk, management

risk, fiduciary risk and other types of risk in Islamic banks.

However, there is a need to introduce a risk management culture in Islamic banks, that is, risk

identification, risk measurement, selection of methods for risk control, because Islamic bank have a task

that is much more difficult than for conventional banks, since they are exposed to specific types of risk as

well, that are generated by their special ways of financing.

References

Abdullah, M., Shahimi, S., and Islam, A.G. (2009). Operational Risk in Islamic Banks; Examination of

Issues. Qualitative Research in Financial Market, 3 (2), 131-151.

Ahmad. H. and Khan,T. (2001).Risk management: an analysis of issues in Islamic financial industry.

Occasional Paper 5, IRTI/IDB.

Ahmed, H. and Khan, T. (2007). Handbook of Islamic Banking: Risk Management in Islamic Banking.

Published by Edward Elgar. UK.


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Al-Saati, A.R. (2003). The Permissible Gharar Risk in Classical Islamic Jurisprudence. Islamic Economic,

16 (2), 3-19.

Ariffin, N.M., Archer, S., and Abdel Karim, R.A. (2009). Risks in Islamic Banks: Evidence from Empirical

Research. Journal of Banking Regulation, 10 (2), 153-163.

Badawi, Z. (1998). The question of risk. Islamic Banker, 32, 16-17.

Boumediene, A. (2011). Is credit risk really higher in Islamic banks? The Journal of Credit Risk, 7(3), 97-

129,

Chong, B.S. and Liu, M.H. (2009). Islamic Banking: Interest Free or Interest-Based? Pacific-Basin Finance

Journal, 17,125-144.

Damodaran, A. (2009). Strategic Risk Taking: A Framework for Risk Management. Wharton School

Publishing.

DeLorenzo, Y.T. (2002). The religious foundation of Islamic finance. Islamic Finance, Innovation and

Growth. Rifaat Abdel Karim and Simon Archer (Eds). Published by Euro Money Books and AAOIFI,

London.

El-Gamal, M.A. (2001). An Economic Explication of the Prohibition of Gharar in Classical Islamic

Jurisprudence http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~elgamal/files/gharar.pdf

El-Gawady, Z.M. (2005). Possible of Cooperation between Islamic Banks and Conventional. Journal of

Research in Islamic Economics 1 (1), 37-47. http://www.must.edu.eg/Publication/Business_Res4.pdf.

Iqbal, Z. and Mirakhor, A. (2007). An Introduction to Islamic Finance, Theory and Practice. John Wiley &

Sons (Asia).

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http://www.must.edu.eg/Publication/Business_Res4.pdf


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Izhar, H. (2010). Identifying Operational Risk Exposures in Islamic Banking. Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic

Area Studies. 3, 17–53.

Karim, R.A. and Archer, S. Eds. (2002). Islamic Finance, Innovation and Growth. London, Published by

Euro Money Books and AAOIFI.

Kozarević, E., Nuhanović, S. and Nurikic, M.B. (2013). Comparative Analysis of Risk Management in

Conventional and Islamic banks. The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. International Business Research,

6(5), 180-195.

Iqbal, Z. and Mirakhor, A. (2007). An Introduction to Islamic Finance, Theory and Practice. John Wiley

and Sons (Asia).

Nienhaus, V. (1983). Profitability of Islamic PLS banks competing with interest banks: problem and

prospect. Journal of Research in Islamic Economics,1 (1), 37- 47.

Ramzan, M. and Zafar, M.I. (2014). Liquidity Risk Management in Islamic Banks: A Study of Islamic

Banks of Pakistan. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business. 5 (12), 199-215.

Wilson, R. (2001). The Evolution of the Islamic financial system. Islamic Finance, Innovation and Growth,

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Research Article

Perspectives on the Inquiry Learning Approach (IlA) on English Language

Proficiency in Indonesia

Sitti Hamsina S1*, Ahmad Johari Bin Sihes2, Amamata Zakari3

1Institut Parahikma Indonesia, Jl.Mustafa Dg. Bunga No. 191 Gowa Sulawesi Selatan Indonesia, Post Code 92113.

2Department of Educational Foundation and Social Science. Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

3Department of Estate Management, Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, PMB 0231 Bauchi - Nigeria

*Corresponding Author:[email protected]

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

The main objective of this study is to present perspectives on the Inquiry

Learning Approach (ILA) also called Student Centered Learning (SCL) on

teaching and learning English Language among students in Indonesia. The

study also seeks to identify, examine and highlight the challenges and

prospects of teaching English and improving language proficiency in Indonesia

using ILA. Consequently, the study identified that the challenges largely due to

poor implementation of teaching methods, plans and curriculum in schools. In

addition, poor education policies, student engagement as well as environmental

and sociocultural factors were also identified as challenges hindering English

language teaching, learning and proficiency in Indonesia. More importantly,

the role of teachers was identified as the most significant factor impeding

progress in teaching, learning and gaining English language skills in Indonesia.

The role of teachers in designing, developing and implementing teaching plans

as well as actively engaging and motivating students is strategic to the success

of the ILA. Moreover, the study observed that numerous other challenges still

exist such as choosing and implementing appropriate student-centered learning

methods. Despite the challenges, the study concludes that the use of ILA can

significantly improve their prospects of acquiring the requisite languages skills

for learning English. Furthermore, the ILA can improve teaching, learning, and

writing English in Indonesia. In addition, the approach will improve the quality

of teaching and learning of English directly impacting on the overall education

system in the country. In spite of the challenges, numerous prospects exist for

adopting student-centered learning approaches which can improve proficiency,

teaching and learning English in in Indonesian schools.


Inquiry Learning Approach;

English Language; Language

Proficiency; Indonesia

1. Introduction

English language was first officially declared a medium of instruction by the Indonesian Ministry of

Education in 1955. As a result, English is now widely spoken in Indonesia although not as a second official

language (Komaria, 1998). Furthermore, English language has become a compulsory foreign language for

all primary and secondary school students in Indonesia since 2006 (Dardjowidjojo, 2000; Thalal 2010).



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Therefore, Indonesian students are taught to master the four language skills; listening, reading, speaking,

and writing. To this end, different approaches have been implemented to improve English proficiency albeit

with limited success. This has been attributed to poor, outdated and inefficient teaching methods that fail to

fully engage and motivate students to learn English. In addition, mastery of writing skills in English is still

difficult and at low levels due to difficulty of teaching the subject (Thalal, 2010). Hence students are unable

to achieve the desired maximum skill based learning objectives (Windiyati, 2010).

According to the study by Yaumi (2010) this is also because teachers still use conventional learning

approaches comprising lectures, drills and memorization to teach English language. The study revealed that

86.62% of teachers in Indonesia still employ conventional learning approaches (CLA) compared to 13.67%

for student-centered learning. According to Doolittle and Camp (1999) conventional approaches are

ineffective and should not be used in teaching language skills. The study also suggests that the CLA limits

students’ ability to directly or actively participate in the learning process. Furthermore, CLA does not

encourage students to practice the necessary skills required for effectively learning English. The study

concludes by advocating that teachers adopt different approaches to encourage active student participation

in accordance with the teaching curriculum. This is will enable students acquire the requisite skills to

understand, analyze and solve problems in the learning process (Parr and Edwards, 2004; Herman and

Knobloch, 2004; Baker et al., 2008).

Similarly other studies have hypothesized that by using various instructional approaches, students can be

encouraged to acquire and improve their English language skills. One such approach is the Inquiry Learning

Approach (ILA). This approach relies on the process of learning that involves students to think critically

and creatively to solve problems using the everyday knowledge and life skills to learn English language. In

addition, the approach encourages students to learn through active participation in class (Brown, 2008;

Tanto and Luciana, 2009; Rahayu, 2011; Ekowati et al., 2013). However, English language skills need to be

continuously practiced both in the classroom and outside (Utami and Cahyono, 2006). According to

Atkinson et al., (2008) this can promote students' self-learning which is a core aspect of ILA.

Consequently, the ILA is also known as Student-Centered Learning (SCL) approach. Furthermore, the

approach uses a variety of techniques to guide students to learn, evaluate, and practice their skills. The role

of teachers in ILA is to directly engage students to master language skills through guidance and answering

inquiries related to the subject content. Therefore, an approach that should be known and carried out by

teachers in the teaching of English language skills of students is a correlative approach between teaching

and learning activities to the situation and the student classroom experience. This is considered instrumental

in addressing the potentially challenges associated with language proficiency as well as learning skills.


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Therefore, the ILA approach encompasses active communication of oral and written ideas aimed at

fostering the learning experience (Tanto and Luciana, 2009; Hayes, 2002; Abu-Febiri, 2002). The ILA is

significantly influenced by support model which fosters student-teacher communication during the learning

process. The support model is vital to building confidence in the students for active participation in the

learning process (Friedrichson and Meis, 2006). Similarly, this can help teachers gain knowledge and

experience in more effective approach to the subject matter to be taught using an inquiry

approach. According to Newman and Hubbard (2004), many teachers still lack the skills, experience and

understanding necessary for delivering teaching and learning objectives using ILA.

Furthermore, there is limited knowledge on effectively and efficiently teaching and learning English

language based on the ILA approach. The process is currently hampered by numerous challenges

culminating in poor teaching, learning and English proficiency in Indonesia. Furthermore, there is a

shortage of empirical research on the prospects of ILA as opposed to the Conventional Learning Approach

(CLA) on language learning in Indonesia. Therefore, this study seeks to present some perspectives on the

merits of Inquiry Learning Approach (ILA) on English Language proficiency along with highlighting the

prospects and challenges of teaching English and improving language proficiency in Indonesia.

2. Challenges of Inquiry Learning Approach (IlA)

This section aims to outline selected factors that currently impede the adoption, development and diffusion

of ILA as an effective approach for teaching and learning English language skills in Indonesia.

2.1 Active Engagement

Studies by Harwanto, (2005); Alimashudin, (2008); Kiki, (2008); John (2009); and Windiyanti (2010) on

various learning approaches highlight the importance of actively engaging students. The studies advocate

that active involvement of students is crucial to the learning process. Similarly, Thalal (2010) suggests that

the teaching curriculum used by English teachers must actively and creatively engage students to

communicate in the classroom. Furthermore, the English curriculum proposed by the Indonesian Ministry

of Education (2006) aims to develop students' oral or written English skills. Therefore, teachers are

encouraged to use methods based on student-centered learning (SCL) or Inquiry Learning Approach

(ILA). This is based on the premised that English language skills and effective communication can be

achieved through active student engagement. In general, listening, speaking, reading and writing are vital

language skills for communication. However, according to Rita and Rita (2011) teaching and learning

languages in the classroom is mostly focused on the skills of listening, speaking, and reading. The study

asserts that writing skills seldom get the maximum teaching which hampers progress in this

aspect. Furthermore, the study posits this is to some extent due to difficulties teachers experience in


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selecting appropriate approaches for teaching English writing skills (Rita and Rita, 2011). The study by

Alimashudin (2008) on a secondary school in Makassar Indonesia observed that writing is the most

challenging language skill for students to learn. Likewise, Rita and Rita (2011) corroborates this by stating

writing is the most difficult of the four language skills in teaching English in Indonesia as teachers do not

pay much attention to it. English writing skills comprises knowledge of the five elements; content,

organization, vocabulary, language usage, and mechanics (Alimashudin, 2008). These elements are vital to

the process of learning and teaching English as a compulsory foreign language. In addition, lack of these

rudimental elements hinders the ability to link their knowledge from the classroom learning process with

life as family and community members.

2.2 Role of Students and Environmental Factors

The challenges of learning English language and acquiring writing skills are not limited to learning

approaches. The challenges of teaching and learning English include the inability of students to comprehend

the curriculum. According to Sugiharti (2012) difficulties in learning can be due to lack of motivation and

or laziness on the part of the students. For high school students in Indonesia, this could be due to the

student’s inability to express their thoughts, develop ideas, feelings, and opinions (Chaniago et al., 2011).

Learning writing skills may also be due to the individual uncertainties, difficulties or circumstances,

particularly for students learning English as a foreign or second language (Buckingham, 2008; Beydoĝa,

2011). The teaching and learning of English learning seeks to train students' writing skills, however, this

process still has many shortcomings. Sugiharti (2012) states that students have difficulty in writing due to

lack of basic understanding of diction, lexis and grammar. This results in low use of foreign languages,

especially in the writing process also since most of activities devoted to learning foreign language writing

skills are inscribed in the local language. Hence, the teaching of writing skills often fails to succeed because

students are unable to grasp and use language skills. Learning writing skills requires the skill to assemble

and develop vocabulary, lexis and grammar into coherent sentences and paragraphs (Weigle, 2009; Arif

Yusuf, 2011). Similarly, Harwanto (2005) observed that writing skills are not effectively understood by

students as first, in terms of organizational elements, which translates ideas into irregular writing.

Therefore, English language teachers need to train their students to overcome the difficulties in the use of

writing skills.

2.3 Role of Teachers

The role of teachers in effectively delivering the content of the curriculum based on ILA is also vital in

teaching and learning English language. Hence, the teacher competence and training is vital to developing

students' writing and other language skills in learning of English as a foreign language (Beydoĝa, 201;

Buckingham, 2008; Mourtaga, 2011; Melanie, 2012). According to the studies, the design and development


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of teaching syllabuses, lesson plans and competence is vital to teaching and learning. However, according

to Herlinawati (2011), the basic knowledge of English is poor even among English teachers in Indonesia.

Consequently, this affects the overall effectiveness of the teacher-student teaching and learning experience

in schools. In addition, Alwasilah (2006) asserts that student failure is partially due to the incapability of

teachers to integrate student needs in the syllabus and the persistent use of conventional approaches such as

lectures, exercises, translations and summaries. This view is corroborated by Rita and Rita (2011) who

opine that the incompetence of English teachers is responsible for the poor attention given to learning

writing skills. The study also suggests that learning and writing are skills that require the organizational

elements content, organization, use of language, vocabulary, and mechanics communicated in text form.

Therefore Alwasilah (2006) advocates the development of English language writing skills and teaching

methods that emphasize processes over product, and quantity is not quality. This according to Lewis (1993)

will help students of English as a foreign language gain writing experience, and overcome the problems

associated with mastering the elements of content, organization, vocabulary, language usage, and

mechanics. In addition, Ridhlo (2012) adds that English teachers need to be more creative in order to master

the techniques of teaching so that the teaching material and the curriculum can be easily understood by

students. Lastly, the problems faced by English teachers in Indonesia can also be ascribed to the poor

organization and management of schools. According to Windiyati (2010) the problems faced by English

teachers in teaching is related to the issues of lack of provision of teaching aids, techniques, and materials

such as textbooks. Consequently, teachers have difficulty in understanding the learning and by extension

disseminating the objectives, selecting themes and topics. The lack of appropriate teaching materials and

textbooks also impedes progress in the quest for high English language skills, proficiency and literacy in the

country.

2.4 Sociocultural factors

The role of sociocultural and religious factors in the language learning process has been examined by

Alimashudin (2008). The social position of madrasah and role of Islam on the process of teaching and

learning in Indonesia is considered a major factor. According Rachmawaty (2004), schools are normally the

last alternative for formally educating children in Indonesian society. This is because conservative outlook

of madrassas towards formal schooling, science and technology development. Based on this finding,

Rachmawaty (2004), advocates the use of inquiry learning approach in English writing skills at this

Makassar, Indonesia. In addition, sociocultural factors, as already mentioned, can also hinder motivation in

learning and writing skills among students.


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3. Prospects of Inquiry Learning Approach (ILA)

Despite the many challenges faced by students and teachers, the use of ILA can significantly improve their

prospects of acquiring the requisite languages skills for learning English. As stated by Bruner (1966), the

ILA avails students and teachers with the opportunity to gain the skills, knowledge and competency in

learning English through participatory classroom teaching. In addition the approach promotes active

engagement, discussions and real time feedback between students and teachers (Harada and Yoshina, 2004;

Tanto and Luciana, 2009). Furthermore, the ILA can improve teaching, learning, and writing English in

Indonesia. In addition, the approach will improve the quality of teaching and learning of English directly

impacting on the overall education system in the country. Furthermore, it will aid the design, development

and implementation of an inquiry based English language curriculum and learning experience in the

nation’s schools. Most importantly, it will also avail students with the requisite proficiency skills required

for future professional development and career advancement. A good command of oral and written English

language skills can also improve and stimulate business, trade and communication at international level as

well as improve the nation’s prospects of socioeconomic growth and development. In accordance with the

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs), the provision of quality education is vital for

the progress of any nation. Hence, Goal 4 of the SDG emphasizes the need for developing nations to invest

in programmes, schemes and strategies for improving the delivery of quality education to its citizens.

Hence, the adoption of the ILA can potentially improve the quality of teaching and learning of English in

Indonesia. In addition, such strategies will also benefit the nation’s English teachers and improve by the

government role in educating the nation’s youth and its future leaders.

4. Conclusion

The study presented perspectives on the merits of Inquiry Learning Approach (ILA) on teaching and

learning English Language in schools in Indonesia. Furthermore, the prospects and challenges of teaching

English and improving language proficiency in Indonesia were also highlighted. The study concludes that

teacher’s competence, teaching methods, education policy and student enrolment can greatly influence

English language teaching and learning skills. Furthermore, the study observed that numerous challenges

still exist in choosing and implementing student-centered learning methods in Indonesia. In spite of the

challenges, numerous prospects exist for adopting the ILA.

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Research Article

Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Islamic Bank:

A Conceptual paper

Umar Usman*, Sany Sanuri Mohd Mokhtar, AU Alkali, Nur Naha Abu Mansoor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,

Amrita University, Coimbatore - 641112, Tamil Nadu, India

Corresponding Author: [email protected], [email protected]

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

Service quality in the banking industry entails meeting the needs, requirements

and wants of the bank customers, and the level of how well the service

delivered matches the expectation of their customers. Jaiz Bank is facing the

challenges of capital base, which is not strong enough for it to be among the

large banks in Nigeria. The paper discussed the various dimensions of service

quality and customer satisfaction in the banking industry. The study

recommends that Jaiz Bank should not only provides quality services to satisfy

its customers, but also aim at delighting their customers so as to attract more

customers, establish and sustain a strong relationship that enables the bank

creates competitive advantage.


Service quality, bank

customers, expectation,

customer satisfaction

1. Introduction

Service quality in the banking industry is all about meeting the needs, requirement and wants of the bank

customers, and the level of how well the service delivered matches the expectation of their customers. It is

generally, agreed that service quality is an important issue facing the banking industry. According to

Raddon (1987) found out that 40% of customers switching from one financial institution to another in the

United states of America (USA) is as a result of service problem. According to Allred & Addams (2000)

also reported that 50% percent of total respondents they surveyed are of the opinion that they have stopped

using a particular service provider because of poor performance of service delivery.


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Jaiz Bank Nigeria limited is the only Islamic bank in Nigeria with a medium –sized, with the total assets

value at fourteen (#14.1) Billion Naira which is equivalent to (US88.8 Million) with shareholders’ equity

of about ten billion (#10 billion) which is equivalent to (US63.6 Million).

The Jaiz Bank Headquartered is in Abuja the capital city of Nigeria and the bank have strategy of

expanding to other urban centers in all the thirty six (36) states of the federation. In pursuit of this goal of

the Jaiz Bank, it has received approval to increase its shareholders capital from the current value to #14.3

billion which is equivalent of US$ 92.3 million Capital base, and the bank is expected to apply for a

national license, once its meets the shareholder capital base. Which is not strong enough to make the bank

to be among the large banks in the country and also the bank is a regional bank for now. The large banks

has a minimum of twenty five billion naira as their capital base but notwithstanding the Jaiz Bank is fast

growing financial services provider in Nigeria.

2 Literature Review

The concept of service quality and measurement of service quality is defined by Grönroos, (1984) as the

fulfillment of customers’ expectations. According to Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman, (1993) describe

service quality as the gap between the customer s expectations of the quality of the service and their

perception of the service experience. In the same vein service quality literature, consider expectation as the

desires and wants of the customers (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985).

However, SERVQUAL consists of two parts, A 22 items section measuring service quality expectations

within a specific banking sector and while the corresponding 22 items measuring the perception of service

quality of a particular company in the service sector. The SERVQUAL can be defined as the differences

between the expected customer perception of service quality and expected service quality.

Therefore, the innovators promulgated, developed and promoted SERVQUAL through a series of quite a

number of publications (Parasuraman & Berry, 2004).for instance, as the discussion in the development,

testing and potential applications of SERVQUAL, an instrument for measuring customer perceptions.

Furthermore, in 1991 Parasuraman and Berry revealed findings from a follow-up study, in which they

refined SERVQUAL.


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Zeithaml, Berry, & Parasuraman,( 1996) also reviewed literature extensively and compressively on the

relationship between service quality and profitability and also examined empirically the relationship

between consumer behavioral intention and service quality. They find out that improving service quality has

serious impact on behavioral intentions (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1986)

However, since its introduction in 1988 SERVQUAL has attracted quite considerable attention and have

been given attention to study the service sector as education, banking, Telecommunication, health and other

professions. Regardless of the service sector, the most common and used SERVQUAL examines the five

main dimensions that have been consistently used and ranked by most customers to be the most significant

in the service industry, which include the following:

Tangibles simple means the entire appearance of physical facilities, equipment’s, personnel and

communication media and material.

Reliability can be defined as the ability to perform the promised service accurately and dependably.

Assurance in the service sector can be defined as the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their

ability to covey confidence and trust

Responsiveness can be defined as the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service

delivery in the service sector.

Empathy can be defined as the dimension which refers to the level of caring and individualized

attention the business provides for its customers.

However, based on this instrument quite, a large number of published studies have been employed and

evaluated by SERVQUAL (P A Dabholkar, Thorpe, & Rentz, 1996; Pratibha A. Dabholkar, 1996). Some of

the previous empirical studies have adopted the original SERVQUAL instrument and while others have

used a modified version of SERVQUAL. In the present, a modified SERVQUAL will be used. It was,

moreover, an issue in a number of subsequent studies (Carman, 1990).

According to Beckett & Howcroft, (2000) measuring service quality in the banking industry implies that the

strategy of consistently anticipating and satisfying the needs and expectations of the bank customers. Unlike

other sector such as the manufacturing firms that are able to appraise the quality of their products


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objectively by the degree to which output can meets a technical specification, for the service firms, for

example banks excellent service quality is present only if the customer perceives and values it.

Nguyen & LeBlanc, (1998) suggested in this connection: The problem of evaluating service quality is more

difficult and highly complex than product quality due to the nature of intangibility. Weiermair, (2000).

Similarly the challenges of lack of a common understanding of the definition of service quality in the

banking sector they also consider this as one of the most constraint to the successful implementation of

quality initiatives in the service sector (Aamodt et al., 2010).

2. Measuring Service Quality in the Banking Industry

In the banking sector, gap analysis has been accepted as a critical tool of measurement the current levels of

service quality, (Lewis, 1991). A key existing challenge facing the banking industry is the determination of

precise and clear definition of quality. However, service quality in the banking industry plays a vital role

since it is directly linked to the profitability. Previous empirical studies have examined the relationship

between service quality and profitability(Easton & Jarrell, 1998). And the result have shown a positive

relationship between service quality and profitability(Daniel, 2002). Also examined empirically the

relationship between service quality and financial performance amongst banks and credit union in

Australian and they found out that all financial performance measures are positively correlated with service

quality.

Generally, there are quite a number of empirical studies that deals with service quality in the banking

industry and the application of the SERQUAL instrument in the commercial banks. Some of the studies

review include the following:(Kettinger & Choong C. Lee, 1994; Kwan & Hee, 1994).

Accordingly a study conducted of a comparative between the Greek private and public banks. The result

found out that the expectations of service received were marginally higher in the private banks than in the

public banks in most of the dimension measured (Kangis & Voukelatos, 1997).

In another study in two major Indian banks investigated the applicability of an alternative measure of

service quality in the banking sector. They found that the overall results give support to a multidimensional


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construct of service that SERVQUAL scale provides greater diagnostic information than the SERVPERF

scale (Angur, Nataraajan, & Jr, 1999).

However, studied on service quality delivery of loan products, have also found out that substantial

differences existed between the bankers and the customers of the bank in analyzing service quality in the

UAE Islamic banks perceived the significant of service quality dimensions (Jun, Peterson, & Zsidisin, 1998;

Pratt & Maahs, 1999).

Finally, also develop and tested an instrument of measuring service quality of commercial banks in the

UAE based on the five dimensions of SERVQUAL. The factor analysis resulted in three dimensions:

Human skills, tangibles and empathy. They found out that the three dimensions were valid and reliable. The

human skills dimension consist mainly of items such as were originally included in the assurance and

reliability dimensions. The tangibles consisted of items that belonged to the originally to the same

dimension of tangibles. Finally, the empathy as a dimension consists of items that were part of the two

original dimensions of responsiveness and empathy. The study also compared the significance of the three

dimensions and found out that found skills are the most significant(Al-Tamimi & Al-Amiri, 2003; Jabnoun

& Khalifa, 2005).

1. Service Quality in Islamic Banking Industry

Basically, there are few previous empirical studies that consider the application of SERVQUAL instrument

in the banking industry (Juliana Arifin, Ahmad Shukri, & Zunaidah Sulong, 2013). Identify the banking

behavior of Islamic bank customers in the state of Bahrain. The study captured a sample of three hundred

banks customers. One of the most significant results in this study was that bank customer tend to be more

satisfied with the products or service they use most, with the investment accounts receiving the highest

satisfaction. The Islamic banks workers received the highest satisfaction among the elements of the service

delivery system. Metawa, & Almossawi (1998) posit that in this study Islamic banks needs to design and

implement a viable service quality programmers (Almossawi, 2001; Naser, Jamal, & Al-Khatib, 1999).

Also studied the customer preference and satisfaction in Jordanian Islamic banks and the study mainly focus

on the degree of customer awareness and satisfaction in an Islamic bank in Jordan. A sample size of 206

respondents was selected for the study and the analysis of the respondents revealed that a degree of


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satisfaction with many of the Islamic bank products and services facilities, but basically dissatisfaction with

some of the Islamic banks service (Naser et al., 1999).

2. Customer Satisfaction

According to Anderson and Fornell (1994) stated that "two quite different conceptualizations of the

satisfaction construct can be distinguished: transaction specific and brand specific". Transaction-brand

specific limits satisfaction to a specific purchase occasion (Oliver, 1980; Anderson and Fornell, 1994);

similarly, cumulative satisfaction, customer-satisfaction simple refers to an overall evaluation based on

many purchase and consumption experiences of a product over period. It can be view as a function of all

previous transaction and specific satisfactions. (Anderson and Fornell, 1994; Aydin et al., 2005) Overall

satisfaction is said to be a more fundamental indicator of the industry past, current and future performance

this is because customers always make repurchase evaluations and based their decisions on their purchase

and consumption experience to date and not only restricting to a particular transaction (Quinn, Lemay,

Larsen, & Johnson, 2009).

Therefore, this will reduces the price sensitivity and the customer losses from regular fluctuations in service

quality in the short term. The ultimate result is high customers’ loyalty to the banking industry.

Satisfaction refers to as the extent to which a customer will experienced a pleasurable level of consumption

of a related fulfillment (Oliver 1997; Verhoef, Franses, and Hoekstra 2002). Technically, customer

satisfaction develops in the short term because of previous interactions with the service provider.

(Geyskens, Steenkamp, and Kumar 1999) customer satisfaction can also be develops through repeated and

positive reinforcement (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, and Gremler 2002). The impact of customer satisfaction

in the development of strong customer brand relationships is a clearly argued by authors such as

Storbacka, Strandvik, and Gronroos (1994), who observed that customer satisfaction is the customers

affective and cognitive evaluation of the services provider based on all consumption episodes that the

customer had with the service provider. Whenever there is a high level of customer satisfaction, it is an

indication that a service provider consistently fulfills its service promise. (Delgado-Ballester and Munuera-

Aleman 2001) and its means that the customers has built a strong level of confidence in the integrity and

reliability of the industry (Vivek et al., 2012).Similarly, if in any way a customer is not satisfied with the


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service, a deeply committed, emotionally and bonded relationship cannot occur in any way. (Crosby, Evans,

and Cowles 1990; De Wulf,Odekerken-Schröder, and Iacobucci 2001; Roberts, Varki,and Brodie 2003).The

ideal situation is that customer satisfaction is essential to the buyer and seller relationship (Crosby, Evans,

and Cowles 1990). If a strong and enduring customer brand relationship is to be built a customer must

barely satisfied with the service provider (Moore & Bowden-Everson, 2012b). It is very significant that

satisfaction is to be measure at a global evaluative level in order to ensure a proper understanding of the

overall nature of the relationship.

Customer satisfaction is the central point in the study of customer loyalty in a business firm ( e.g., Chan et

al., 2003; Kenney & Khanfar, 2009). Also several studies have shown positive effects of customer

satisfaction on purchase intention ( e.g., Anderson and Mittal 2000; Garbarino and Johnson 1999; Heskett et

al. 1994), referrals ( e.g.,Heskett et al., 2008), other studies on repurchase behavior intention ( e.g.,

Anderson and Mittal 2000), on customers retention ( e.g., Gustafsson, Johnson, and Roos 2005), on strong

and sustainable relationship duration ( e.g., C. L. Kwek, Lau, & Tan, 2010) on profit and return on

investment( e.g., L. C. Kwek et al., 2010).

In the banking industry, customers satisfaction has been defined in a number ways for instance (Alpert,

1996) define it as a short term attitude of a customer that arises from the customers evaluation of the

product or service experience. Elliott and Shin (2002) define it as the subjective outcome of the various

outcomes and experiences at the banking institution. Quite a number of previous studies have shown that

customer satisfaction is a significant predictor of customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction has been strongly

linked to favorable outcomes such as positive word of mouth or recommendation by customers (Mavondo,

Tsarenko, and Gabbott 2004), customers satisfaction increased revenue and reduced costs for the banking

industry (Shah 2009),customer satisfaction and relationship continuity through customer undertaking

continued purchase (Al‑Alak 2006;Helgesen and Nesset 2007). Several studies have shown that a customer

satisfaction has explains a large proportion of the variance in customers willingness to make

recommendation of the banking product and services (Al‑Alak 2006; Athiyaman 1997; Marzo Navarro,

Pedraja-Iglesias, and Rivera-Torres 2005). The secondary customer loyalty shall have many benefits, which

may follow from high levels of satisfaction such as the attraction of new customer, retention of existing

customers to continue patronized, donation behavior from alumni and membership of alumni (Helgesen and


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Nesset 2007). All the previous literature suggests that customers weigh prior satisfactions evaluations

heavily in their decision to patronize banking institution providers’(C. L. Kwek et al., 2010).

Customer’s satisfaction with the service delivery of quality products or services have been suggested and

documented as the way and manner in which it will affecting the buyer decision with a relationship

(Ndubisi, 2003; Anderson 1994; Fomell, 1992; Hirchman, 1970). Similarly according to Hirchman (1970),

Richins (1983), and Singh (1988), whenever the customers are satisfied the likelihood of exit from negative

word of mouth and the relationship is greatly reduced. This is in line with the confirmation and

disconfirmation theory (Churchill and Surprenant, 1982; Oliver, 1980) this made a clear explanation that

satisfaction is achieved when the real expectations are fulfilled (confirmed),that negative disconfirmation of

any form of expectations will result in dissatisfaction, and that positive disconfirmation will result in to

enhanced satisfaction. Lovelock, Patterson, and Walker (1998) identified the virtues of customer’s

satisfaction: Firstly, customer satisfaction is inextricably linked to customer loyalty and relationship

commitment. Secondly, highly satisfied customers spread positive word of mouth and in effect become a

talking, walking advertisement for an institutions whose service has pleased them. Thirdly, highly satisfied

customers may be more forgiving .i.e. a customers who has enjoyed good service delivery many times in

the past is more likely to have the belief that any service failure is just a deviation from the norm.

Therefore, it is may take more than one unsatisfactory incident for a strongly loyal customers to really

change his or her perceptions and consider switching to an alternative service providers or supplier. Other

studies have proof that delighted customers are less susceptible to competitive offerings. For instance,

Seines (1998) found that customers’ satisfaction had a direct effect on purchase continuity.

3. Conclusion

The challenges of banking industry imply that service quality attributes are needed to satisfy the bank

customers. The main reason is to raise the bank customer satisfaction with regard to significant attributes in

order to establish a quality service to the bank customer, more especially considering the fact that Jaiz Bank

is entire banking system to the customers, so there is the for rapid skimming strategy in order to attract and

retain customers relationship


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4. Suggestion for Further Study

This study is purely conceptual which mainly focus on service quality in Islamic bank and future study

should consider empirical study in order to test the bank customer’s perception on service quality

dimensions in Islamic bank.

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Research Article

Properties and Classifications of Bamboo for Construction

of Buildings

1Aisha Haladu Bornoma, 2Muhamed Faruq, 3Moveh Samuel

1Department of Architecture, School of Environmental Science, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, P.M.B.

2076 Yola, Nigeria 2Faculty of Built Environment Universiti Teknologi Skudia 81310 Johor Baharu Malaysia

3Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Universiti Teknologi Skudia 81310 Johor

Bahru Malaysia

ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

This article look into the various properties and characteristics of bamboo and

how they could be used for possible construction of some domestic and some

of their possible advantages over conventional wood used in building

constructions. From one perspective bamboo is more impervious to water harm

than the normal hardwood. Be that as it may it is as yet a characteristic

material made of natural components, and thusly extreme dampness will make

it twist or will enable shape to develop. One of the principle focal points of

working with bamboo is that it is a magnificent, common and sustainable asset,

equipped for fast development that can maintain a strategic distance from

future deforestation of our valuable tropical rainforests

© Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability. All rights

reserved.

Bamboo, properties, characteristics, construction,

1. Introduction

Bamboo is a ‘grass’ that is woody, hard, hollow-stemmed, perennial, and evergreen in nature. It

belongs to the family of the true grass called ‘Poaceae.’ In fact it has the largest family members of

the grass family, with about 91 genera and more than 1000 species – Figure 1 shows some types of

bamboo. Some of its members are giant while some are moderate as shown in Figure 2. Bamboos

are found in many climates around the world – cold mountains to tropical regions. They have

diverse uses; in construction (Sakaray et al., 2012; Salzer et al., 2016), medicine ( (Van


106 | P a g e

Hoyweghen et al., 2014; ‘20 Healing Benefits of Bamboo’, 2016; Coffey, 2017), as food (Singhal

et al., 2013; Liese & Köhl, 2015), and even in textiles (Barik et al., 2014) – these are depicted in

Figure 3.

Figure 1: Some types of

bamboo Source: (Schroder,

2016)

Figure 2: Giant and moderate bamboo plantsSource:

(‘Bamboo Types’, 2011; Brown, 2015; ‘New Species’, 2016)

Figure 3a: Bamboo in construction Source: (Jagyasi, 2012; Arjun, 2016)

Not all species of bamboo can be ues for construction. Only a few species of bamboo like Guadua

angustifolia (Guadua Bamboo) and Phyllostachys edulis (Moso Bamboo) have same strength

ratio of steel and almost twice the compression ratio of concrete. It is no surprise that when a

powerful earthquake struck Colombia in 1999 almost all the concrete buildings collapsed while

houses built from bamboo stood still and untouched by the earthquake. This article look into the

various properties and characteristics of bamboo and how they could be used in architectural

design and illustrations of possible construction of some domestic building.

2. Taxonomy and Classification

Classifying bamboo has always been somewhat a difficult task (Schroder, 2014), especially for

non-scientists, who happen to be majority of the people who need to access this information. This


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is because of the complex botanical names. In a bid to simplify the lives of those who would come

to use bamboo more frequently, (Schroder, 2012) produced a list of ‘popular’ bamboos, with both

their botanical and common names. Table 1 shows ten of the most common. Even though these are

popular in America, nonetheless, they cover so much of the types also found elsewhere.

Table 1: Some 10 of the most common bamboo types

Species Name Common Names

1 Bambusa balcooa Female Bamboo

2 Bambusa bambos Giant Thorny Bamboo

3 Phyllostachys bambusoides Timber Bamboo

4 Bambusa spinosa Thorny Bamboo

5 Bambusa textilis Slender Weavers Bamboo

6 Bambusa tulda Nepalese Bamboo

7 Bambusa vulgaris Common Bamboo

8 Fargesia spathacea Umbrella Bamboo

9 Pseudosasa amabilis Tonkin Cane

10 Gigantochloa atroviolacea Tropical Black Bamboo

Even among botanists, there have been considerable debates over bamboo classification and

identification over time (Schroder, 2014). The debates sometimes results in change of names or

even reclassification. It is therefore difficult to have a world-wide classification. However, the

botanical names of their genera, the species, and their geographical location are used as simplified

data. Other data such as descriptions, botanical drawings Photos, vernacular names, etc., can also

be helpful.

2.1 Descriptions of Bamboo Anatomy and Structure

The anatomy of bamboo describes its structure which determines its ultimate mechanical

properties. The bamboo culm consists of 3 basic parts as shown in Figure 4:

1. The stem – part growing above ground which may be straight of curved.

2. The stem base – lower part of the stem that extends into the soil.

3. The stem petiole – the lowest part of the stem, made up of many shot sections.

https://www.guaduabamboo.com/species/bambusa-balcooa

https://www.guaduabamboo.com/species/bambusa-bambos

https://www.guaduabamboo.com/species/bambusa-bambos

https://www.guaduabamboo.com/species/bambusa-vulgaris


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Figure 4: bamboo culm showing its 3 basic parts

Source: (Schroder, 2011)

Figure 5: Hollow and solid culm

bamboo Source: (Schroder, 2015)

The culm is structurally made of the nodes or diaphragms, and the internodes (McLendon, 2014).

The nodes consist of cells traverse-oriented or parallel to the nodes, while the internodes have

axially oriented cells. Culms are usually hollow, like tubes, which gives the wall thickness as the

size between the inner surface and the outer surface of the stem. There are however, some species

with solid culms (‘Bamboo Anatomy and Growth Habits’, 2016).

3. MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF BAMBOO

Bamboo can be used as an alternative to steel as masonry reinforcement because of the proven

mechanical properties which gives it high performance (Semple et al., 2015; Karthik et al., 2017),

as well as the availability (‘World Bamboo and its distribution area’, 2015) which makes it low

cost material. Being a natural material, its characteristic high performance varies from one type to

another; hence whenever one is referring to values of mechanical properties of bamboo, the name

of associated bamboo type is necessary. Also, any design provisions for construction with bamboo

as reinforcement must have adequate safety factors. As a result of these properties, more than

1billion people in many countries use bamboo as a primary building material (Standard, 2010)

3.1 Modulus of Elasticity (Moe)

Modulus of elasticity is one of the mechanical properties of bamboo which has been investigated

in the design of Bamboo Reinforced Concrete elements. In terms of modulus of elasticity and

density, bamboo is a remarkable ‘grass’ which has some structural superiority over other

engineering materials. Modulus of elasticity of bamboo is generally around 2500ksi although other

researchers like Schneider (2014) got 1,145ksi (7894MPa) mean. It is worthy of note that this

general value is still less than those of steel and concrete, and even along the bamboo culm itself,


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MoE of the nodes is generally less than that of the internodes (Tonges, 2005). In fact, Oka et al.

(2014) conducted an experiment and got the modulus of elasticity at the nodes to be about 40%

less than the internode.

3.2 Tensile Strenght (Ts)

Seasoned bamboo possesses higher tensile strength than ‘green’ bamboo (Wakchaure & Kute,

2012; Moroz et al., 2014). (Ghavami, 2005) tests gave tensile strength value of 54ksi for his

bamboo sample. Sabbir et al., (2012) in another test got 18ksi. However, when discussing tensile

strength, it is more appropriate to differentiate between that of the culm and that of the fibers based

on the one being used in a test (Schneider, 2014). In line with that, Cao and Wu (2005) tested and

found the tensile strength of bamboo fibers to be within the range of 18 to 131ksi (124 to

805MPa). Generally, tensile strength is lower at the nodes (Verma et al., 2012), and (Oka et al.,

2014)’s tests results showed that the tensile strength of the node region was about 30% that of the

internode, as a result of what Amada et al. (1997) described as the fibers’ distribution being

chaotic. On comparing tensile strengths of green and seasoned bamboo, Wahab et al. (2012) found

13ksi and 14,9ksi respectively. Comparatively speaking, tensile strength of Moso bamboo is one

third of a typical grade 60 steel rebar.

As a result of these wide ranges of tensile strength, it is desirable to ensure that the bamboo

reinforcement is having appropriate safety factors before being used. One of the ways to do this is

to treat the bamboo culms by presoaking or preferably treatment, which will ensure an overall

safety factor of between 2 to 2. 5% (Geymayer & Cox, 1970). In a recent experiment however,

(Mark & Russell, 2011) showed that average global factor of safety for bamboo and a similar

material is about 5.0.

3.3 Flexural Strength

Flexural fortification, otherwise called longitudinal support is necessary to increase the flexural

capacity of a concrete beam. In order to develop adequate flexural capacity of a beam, number of

the bamboo stirrups need to be much (Yamaguchi et al., 2013). Hence they should be spaced very

closely, 6inches according to (Schneider, 2014), because closer stirrups ensure that stresses are

transferred to the remaining stirrups even after some of the stirrups have failed. And this would

consequently result in the beam retaining large amount of its capacity. This will also prevent pre-

mature shear failure of the beam.

3.4 Shear Strength

Extensive flexural cracking could cause premature shear failure in beams (Sherwood, 2008;

Eskenati & Pour, 2016).this underscores the crucial need for stirrups, to provide shear capacity to

concrete members like beams. Shear failure is the diagonal failure experienced in the material


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being reinforced, hence the shear reinforcement is introduced to cross the diagonal tension cracks

and keep them from opening. A test conducted by Moroz et al. (2014) on concrete masonry walls

using very flexible Tonkin cane bamboo reinforcement, vertically to resist flexural and sliding

failures, and horizontally to resist inclined shear failure, showed enhanced shear capacity and

ductility, compared to unreinforced walls. Bamboo stirrups increased capacity of an unreinforced

shear beam by between 135 and 259%, while in comparison to steel, BRC shear controlled beams

had capacities of between 33 and 70% of steel type (Schneider, 2014).

4. BAMBOO USAGE FOR CONSTRUCTION OF DOMESTIC HOUSING AND

SMALL BUILDINGS

There have been a long-standing convention of bamboo development, going back to a huge

number of years. Diverse societies have found in this material a sparing arrangement of building,

offering sound yet light and effectively replaceable types of haven. The strategies, exercises and

apparatuses are frequently basic, direct, available even to the youthful and untalented.

Notwithstanding human misuse and horrible treatment, trees keep up it's contributively part

towards the residence of humankind. Man has for a considerable length of time delighted in the

advantages of the unconditional present of nature. Lodging is one of the need things and detecting

the present lack of the home units, the present managerial pioneers the world over discover

extreme to hit upon an answer for. Bamboo building development is described by a basic casing

approach like that connected in customary timber outline plan and development. Bamboo based

materials are generally utilized as well. In its characteristic condition as strong culms, divided

culms or as longitudinally split strips, bamboo has been utilized as a part of all parts of house

development with the exception of the chimney and the stacks. These are depicted in detail

underneath:


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Figure 5: BAMBOO RESIDENCE Modern

Architecture Location: Rue du Grand-Pré et rue

Chandieu. Geneva, Switzerland

Figure 5: Bamboo in Construction The Owner-

Builder Network

CONCLUSION

From one perspective bamboo is more impervious to water harm than the normal hardwood. Be

that as it may it is as yet a characteristic material made of natural components, and thusly extreme

dampness will make it twist or will enable shape to develop.

• Bamboo is anything but difficult to cut, handle, repair, reposition and keep up, without the

requirement for modern devices or gear.

• Because of its remarkable physical qualities, Guadua bamboo is appropriate for a wide

range of structures and developments.

• Its roundabout shape and empty areas make bamboo a light building material, which is

anything but difficult to deal with, transport and store. In this way, working with bamboo spares

time.

• Bamboo can be used for changeless and for transitory developments.

• In each of its hubs, bamboo has a separating or transverse divider that keeps up quality and

permits twisting subsequently averting bursting when bowed. Due to this awesome trademark a

bamboo development offers prevalent seismic tremor resistance.

• The arrangement of the strands in the dividers of the bamboo enables it to be cut length-

wise or cross cut in bits of any length, utilizing straightforward manual devices like the blade.


112 | P a g e

• Another favorable position of working with bamboo is, that it can be utilized as a part of

mix with different sorts of development materials, such as fortifying materials for establishments..

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Research Article

Perception of Project Time Overrun In Building Construction Industry in

Nigeria

Anumah John James1, Anumah Lesado2, Daniel Abi Alice1, Rasaki Olajide Samson1

1Department of Architecture, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Jos-Nigeria

2Archshel Development Ltd, Jos-Nigeria


ARTICLE INFO

Article history



A b s t r a c t

Many construction projects are not completed as at when due. In Nigeria, the

sight of abandoned uncompleted buildings is a common recurrence. This study

sets out to explore how time management in building projects is perceived in

the construction industry in Nigeria via case studies of constructed buildings,

interviews and questionnaires with the major players in the construction

industry; client, consultant and contractor. Progress control chart was

compared against the program of works charts and overruns observed. The

common factors that inhibit both time and cost control during construction

projects were first identified. Subsequently, necessary measures were

developed for the top five leading inhibiting factors which were classified as:

preventive, predictive and corrective measures. They can be used as a checklist

of good practice, and help project managers improve the effectiveness of

control of their projects. The results reveal a correlation of causes between the

client, consultant and contractor; Inaccurate estimate of time and cost, Irregular

flow of finance (funds), Delay in payment of work done (client not honouring

Architects payment certificate as at when due).

© Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Sustainability. All rights

reserved.

Construction Project, Project Time, Time Overrun, Client, Consultant, Contractor

1. Introduction

Planning and time schedule are the most important tools for construction project management. They are the

basis for project time control (Bikram 2014). In the construction industry, the aim of project control is to

ensure timely completion of projects and within budgeted cost among other project objectives. It is

imperative that project managers Check and review project progress where necessary, and confirm the

validity and relevance of what is left of the plan (Chapman 2014). In Nigeria, major players in the

Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry are criticized for their inability to complete

building projects within the stipulated time. To facilitate timely completion of project, the parameters of

time, cost and quality must be considered together. (Mitchell et al 2007)


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Jrade and Lessard (2015), Vaardini (2015) carried out case studies and suggested that time overrun was

due to inclement weather; changes initiated by designers, client requirement, site conditions, late deliveries,

economic conditions, and problems in planning and design as main causes of construction delays.

Kodwo and Seth (2014) identified variations in building projects as a source of cost overrun. Based on

analysis of 46 completed building projects in the UK, Akinsola, et al (1997), classified these factors thus:

client characteristics; especially lack of prior experience and knowledge of construction project

organization. Project characteristics, such as type, size, complexity and duration of the project; and project

organization factors, such as; design duration, percentage of design completed before tender, procurement

and contract type, adequacy of information provided, and number of sub-contractors are also factors. An

accurate estimation of time contingency is seen as a major factor for achieving a successful construction

project.

The aim of this study is to explore how time management in building projects is perceived by those

involved in the project team in Nigeria, to identify the main inhibiting factors of project time control and

also to develop some mitigating measures to assist project managers’ better control their projects.

Conclusions are drawn and recommendations made with respect to the perception of time management

associated with building projects. These observations underlie the rationale for this study.

2. Methodology

A dual approach was employed:

• Case studies of constructed buildings; two buildings that had program of works and were assessable

were selected and the program of works monitored against the progress of works done by studying the

management and administration of work onsite.

• Interviews were conducted with the major players in the construction industry; Client, Consultant

and Contractor to seek their informed opinions on the issue by asking questions of workers and building

personnel.

3. Results and Findings

Two case studies were undertaken; the Inhabitant Resettlement Housing Scheme in Bukuru, Jos South-

Plateau State and a Church Auditorium Project in Angwan Rukuba, Jos North-Plateau State. Figure 1 shows

the program/ progress of works of the inhabitant resettlement housing scheme in Bukuru, Jos South-Plateau

state. Time overruns were experience in most stages of the construction as seen from the progress of works


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done. The project was taking longer than scheduled and significantly long delays were experienced due to

poor funding.

Figure 2 shows the program/progress of works for the church auditorium project. This project like the first

also exceeded the scheduled time objective for its completion as it was completed four months behind

schedule. This was also due to poor funding.

It was observed by studying the management and administration of work onsite and by interviews with

workers and building personnel that the most common factors responsible for the time overruns are as

follows:

Inaccurate estimate of time and cost, Irregular flow of finance (funds), Delay in payment of work done

(client not honouring Architects payment certificate as at when due), Deficiencies in management and

Delays in decision by building professionals. These are tabulated in table 1 below.

Figure 1: Program/ Progress of Works for Inhabitant Resettlement Housing Scheme


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Figure 2: Program/ Progress of Works for Church Auditorium Project at Angwan Rukuba

Table 1: Factors perceived as causes of project overrun Rank Client’s perception Consultant’s perception Contractor’s perception

1 Improper planning and

scheduling of contractor

Delay in honouring Architect’s payment

certificates by client

Delay in progressive payments by

client

2 Poor site management and

supervision by contractor

Poor site management and supervision by

contractor

inclement weather

3 Poor liquidity of contractor Short supply of experienced technical staff of

contractor

Delay in approving extra work and

variations by

consultant

4 Shortage of experienced

technical staff and labourers

of contractor

Poor liquidity of contractor Delay in approving major changes

in the scope of work

5 Poor control and monitoring

of contractor by consultant

Inaccurate planning and

scheduling of contractor

Shortage and/or unavailability of

specified material in the

market

Form the results presented above, the findings of the research shows that the major factors responsible for

the time overrun in building construction projects are Delay in progressive payment by clients (honouring

consultant’s payment certificate), Inaccurate planning and scheduling of projects by contractors, inclement

weather, short supply of experienced technical staff, and poor liquidity of the contractor. Going by the

views of both clients and consultants, contractor related factors are the most significant for time overrun.

The contractors indicate that external factors are the significant factors for time overrun.

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

Finishing projects on time will not only save money, but will help to establish a good track record. When a

history of finishing projects well and within stipulated time has been established, potential clients will be


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apt to trust and recommend a business. From the study conducted, it is evident that the major players in the

construction industry share the blame for untimely completion of projects. The measures to remedy time

overrun where classified viz:

• Predictive: Planning should incorporate weather forecast. Where possible, external works should be

avoided during inclement weather. The client should always request for an updated bank bond before he

pays the contractor to ensure liquidity of contractor.

• Preventive: Reputable contractors with proven track records should be employed for building

projects. Their experience in drawing and executing realistic program of works will ensure that realistic

time frames are allotted for each stage of construction and time overrun avoided.

• Corrective: Architects payment certificate raised should be honoured within the stipulated time

(usually 21 working days). The funds needed for projects should be earmarked before the project

commences.

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