Industrial Conflict and organisational Performance: A Study of Oil Companies in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the impact of industrial conflict on organizational performance of oil companies in Rivers State. The study population is made up of 12,258 workers selected from the six majors oil companies in Rivers State, while Taro Yamane’s formula was used to determine the sample size of 387 employees. Data were elicited via structured questionnaire administration. In
order to confirm the reliability of the instrument used, Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.9 minimum bench-mark was observed. Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to test the hypotheses. Analysis of all the data elicited from the respondents indicates that Industrial conflict positively and significantly relates with organizational performance of oil firms in Rivers state. Specifically, lockout reported the highest impact on firms’ operations. The study further concludes that industrial conflict strongly influenced organizational performance of oil companies in Rivers State. From the conclusion, the study recommends among others that oil companies should develop plans suitable to investigate issues that would lead to conflict in their respective firms and management should apply more than one conflict resolvable strategy in order to prevent lockouts and strikes.