Being thesis submitted in the department of business administration and marketing, school of management

Table: 5.1. Correlation Test

Hypothesis	Coefficient	P-Value	Decision
H01(Recruitmt/CE)	r = 0.506	0.000	Reject
H04(PerfA/CE)	r = 0.542	0.000	Reject
H05(Comp/CE)	r = 0.618	0.000	Reject
H06 (IR/CE)	r = 0.584	0.000	Reject

Table: 5.2.Regression Test

Hypothesis	Coefficient	P-Value	Decision
H02Traing/CE	R^2= 0.569	0.000	Reject
H03(Job Design/CE)	R^2= 0.677	0.000	Reject
H07(EnHRMP*HRMP/CE)	R^2= 0.007	0.000	Reject

5.2. Conclusion

This study investigated the direction and extent of the relationship between human resource management practice and corporate entrepreneurship in selected public and private institutions (the civil service and banking) in Ogun and Lagos States of Nigeria. It has established that there is a significant and positive relationship between human resource management practices and corporate entrepreneurship. By this, we can now conclude that corporate entrepreneurship, human resources management or paid employment are not opposite concepts, as previously assumed. Infact, human resource management practices can be tool for promoting the practice of corporate entrepreneurship for organizational renewal, competitive performance and consequently, employment generation and poverty reduction. In this way, it can also be a way of solving one of the problems responsible for the current high failure rate of small scale businesses through it potential to create entrepreneurial workforce and source of future self employment entrepreneurs who are more likely to succeed. We can also conclude from this study that the environment in which human resource management is being practiced affects the relationship between HRM and CE and hence require adequate and appropriate attention. It should be noted that, though there is a significant positive relationship between HRMP and corporate entrepreneurship, the levels of both are only average, except for job design and compensation management. The mean scores are mostly a little above 4, which are just above the bench mark for acceptance of 3.5 (and maximum being 6). This suggest that there is room for improvement in the level of both human resource management best practice and the corresponding corporate entrepreneurship in both the banking and civil service sub- sectors of Lagos and Ogun States of Nigeria.

5.3 Recommendations

This study found that there is a significant positive relationship between best practice in recruitment and selection and corporate entrepreneurship in both banking and civil service sub sectors in Lagos and Ogun States of Nigeria. This suggests that organizations wishing to be competitive through corporate entrepreneurship should embrace best practices in recruitment and selection. As at now, qualification, compliance with rules and regulation and seniority play major role in recruitment and placement of officers in the public sector. Many unconventional considerations still influence recruitment in the banking sector. To achieve entrepreneurial workforce therefore requires a change of emphasis to best practices in recruitment and selection processes such as recruitment based on clear and well known consistent policy, advancement and placement of people based on the right fit than just qualification and seniority. Specifically, attribute of innovative and proactive work behaviors should be included in personnel specification for recruitment and selection purposes.

Secondly, this study showed that best practice in training and development has significant impact on corporate entrepreneurship. Based on this, it is recommended that private and public sector employers should encourage the use of best practice in training and development to develop and enhance the entrepreneurial spirit and behavior of their respective workforces. In line with this, organizations should implement best practice in training and development such as emphasis on learning and development for corporate cultural norms, desirable values, entrepreneurial work behavior, and identification of future leaders and ensuring the development of their potentials, the practice of one-on-one monitoring program, among others. In addition, the training should be designed and excecuted by certified HR professionals to ensure that the standard of best practices is adhered to.
This study has also shown that best practice in job design has a significant positive effect on corporate entrepreneurship. Organizations should therefore embrace best practice in job design by designing jobs in a way that will make it challenging, interesting and tied to performance as well as promote the development and expression of entrepreneurial work behavior.
The study has established that there is a positive relationship between best practice in performance appraisal and corporate entrepreneurship. There is therefore the need for more emphasis on best practice in performance appraisal exercises in both private and public sectors of the Nigerian economy. Specifically, officers and managers should understand and communicate their establishment strategy and objectives in terms of specific entrepreneurial behavior outcomes. Managers should guide people by internalized objectives rather than just the rules and the performance appraisal exercise should be designed to influence other human resource management practices like reward, placement, job design, training and not just promotion, as it is common now. Expectations should be made clear and constructed in terms of key practical performance indicators that directly affect the desired behavior, specific results and the bottom line of the organization.
It has also been established in this study that best practice in compensation management practices has a strong positive relationship with corporate entrepreneurship. Based on this it is recommended that public and private sector institutions should adopt best practices in compensation management such as measurement, acknowledgment and compensation of extra work, recognition of results with enthusiasm and a form of profit or performance related benefit alternatives. Specifically compensation practices should be such as to identify and reward entrepreneurial work behavior and performance rather than just length of service or status as it is now common in the civil services.
This study shows that there is a significant positive relationship between specific set of industrial relations best practices and corporate entrepreneurship. The awareness of industrial relations actors and policy makers at all levels should be directed to these practices and the need to adopt polices and skill for innovation-friendly industrial relations practices. It is therefore recommended that organization should embrace best practice in industrial relations such as team oriented culture, utilization of every possible channel of communication to help employees understand company direction and expectations from them, giving more and more control over how, when, for whom and where employees work to the employees, openness of management to criticism and the adoption of industrial relations system based on cooperation and coordination.

This study concluded that the internal environment of HRM practices has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between HRM and CE. This suggests the need for organization to provide environment for the enhancement for practice of human resource management so as to effectively promote corporate entrepreneurship. Such environment, as shown in this study, include structured corporate management practices, appropriate devolution and integration of of human resource functions and processes, professionalization of human resource management staff and the positioning of the human resource management to play strategic role in corperate planning and policy making.

Finally, this study suggests that HRMP can be an alternative strategy for promoting entrepreneurship through its CE expression. It is therefore recommended that, government should develop and adopt a national human resource management policy and programmes (NHRMP&P) that promote appropriate organizational environment and professional practice of best HR practices for the development and expression of entrepreneurial work behavior in organizations. This is likely to produce more entrepreneurial organizations which would, as a result expand and generate more and greener employment as advocated by the ILO as well as reduce poverty directly and indirectly; by being a source of future experienced and resource-able self employed entrepreneurs who are likely to succeed than the current school-to-business entrepreneurship policy. To ensure this, the NHRMP&P should promote the employment and proper placement of qualified and lisenced human resource management practitioners to man human resource management functions. Hence, it is recommended that the practice of placing non-lisenced human resource practictioner on human resource management function should be discouraged. The policy should also encourage and expect the human resource professionals to specifically focus, develop and use the skill of human resource management practices for the production of entrepreneurial workforce than before
Implication of the Findings

The findings of this study have implications for Management, professional practice, Government policy makers and industry as discussed below:

5.4.1. Implication for Managerial Practice

Surviving and profitability is increasingly becoming dependent on corporate entrepreneurship through innovative, proactive and bold workforce. The question for management and managers has therefore been, not whether or not to develop and activate entrepreneurial workforce, but how to do so. This study has shown a way out by demonstrating that human resource management practices can be a tool for achieving the much desired corporate entrepreneurship to beat competition and prosper in today’s turbulent global market.

It can be inferred from this study that entrepreneurial orientation among the workforce is desirable and possible in the public sector as in the private sector. It also provides insight into how HRMP could be used to develop, nurture and activate entrepreneurial workforce in the civil service which has been the unachieved objective of many reforms in the public services of Nigeria for many years. The implication of this study is that management need to shift to and intensify attension on human resource management practices and also engage professioners who have the professional knowledge, skill and exposure to use these to produce entrepreneurial workforce.
5.4.2 Implication for Professional Practice

The professional body for the regulation and promotion of best practices in human resource management have concentrated their contribution to entrepreneurship development in the country more on vocational skill development for self employment rather than the use of their core tool (HRMP) for promoting the entrepreneurial workforce or corporate entrepreneurship which has proved to be more economic, effective and relevant to them. This study has highlighted the potential of these human resource management practices as a tool for entrepreneurship development. It also supplies material for their function as advocates of best practice in human resource management practice.

5.4.3. Implication for Industry

Competition among firms in the same industry is a common phenomenon. This study shows that competitiveness, based on the innovativeness and proactivity of firms’ workforce (or corporate entrepreneurship) is possible and viable as an alternative strategy for industries. This study has highlighted how this may be achieved through human resource management practices. By this, firms wishing to be ahead of competition now have the option of using corporate entrepreneurship through human resources management practices.

5.4.4 Implication for Government Policy Makers

The Policy attention of government with respect to entrepreneurship is on self employment version of entrepreneurship. This has not been effective as the failure rate of the consequent small businesses continued to be high. Global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM, 2012) has now drawn attention to interpreneurship or corporate entrepreneuship as the unnoticed, but viable alternative or complement in entrepreneurship promotion. This study supports the wisdom of this position in Nigeria and hence suggests an evaluation of the current policy on entrepreneurship in favour of corporate entrepreneurship development alternative. This would not only more cheaply enhance employment than is currently the case, but promise to solve the problem of increased failure rate of the small size businesses and increasing green jobs, through entrepreneurial workforce in established businesses, as advocated by the United Nations, which small scale business have been unable to provide.

5.5. Contribution to Knowledge

This study has made an important contribution to knowledge in the following ways:

5.5.1. Conceptual Knowledge

A major portion of literature portrays human resource management as a rule-focuesd process by which employers in large establishments keep their employees in check, thereby inhibiting entrepreneurship. The two concepts have hitherto being regarded as contradictory; the human resource management as bureaucratic and enterprepreneurship as anti-bureaucratic. By this understanding, employees who desire to be entrepreneurial are expected to resign from paid employment and be self employed. This study has shown that the concept of entrepreneurship is not limited to self employment and that human resource management can be a tool for stimulating entrepreneurial work behavior by employees (corporate entrepreneurship) in both private and public sector of the economy, rather than inhibiting it.

Secondly, most definitions of HRM describe it as the process by which people who comprise the organization are enabled to contribute their best to achieving organizational goal, without showing by what specific behaviors and how this is done. This study has filled this gap and expanded our understanding of the concept of HRM by supplying the idea of how HRM contribute to achieving organizational goals through the entrepreneurial HRM role model discussed. From this perspective, HRM can now be described as the process by which employees are enabled to contribute their best to achieving organizational goal through entrepreneurial work behavior. In this way the study has assisted to resolve the criticizism of earlier conception for showing association between HRMP and firm performance, but leaving uncertainties about their concrete cause and effect relationship by showing the underlying mechanisms supporting the existence of the relationship between the two. Also, it has provided the specific domain of contribution that more clearly distinguishes it (HRM) from other management disciplines contributing to organizations success; creating entrepreneurial workforce.
5.5.2. Theoretical Knowledge

The main theoretical based of this study are the human capital theory and behavioural theory. This study has uniquely combined these theories to explain the role of human resource management practices in the development and expression of corporate entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial work behavior. By this it has become clearer that entrepreneurship is not only a quality of human behavior/capital; it may be enhanced by appropriate human resource management intervension to differentiate organizations in term of effective and competitive performance. In this way, the study has demonstrated the limitation of the trait theory in the explanation of entrepreneurial behavior and confirmed the utility of behaviourial and human capital theories. Specifically the application of the behaviourial theory has been extended to show the primary role of HRMP as a tool of developing entrepreneurial behavior and hence the secondary role of passion, talents and destiny as bye products, contrary to the suggestion of the trait theory which tends to dominate most contemporary discussions and writings on entrepreneurship development programmes and inspirational speakers. In this way, this study has contributed to the advancement of the HR entrepreneurial development role model initiated by Jibran and Sara (2010), in their labour to build on the Ulrich (1997) business partner model. Also, by demonstrating that entrepreneurship may be seen as a reflection of the quality and an expression of human resources or labor through education, this work cast doubt on the orthodox assumption that an entrepreneur is a separate factor of production, apart from labour and provides support for Akintunde (2013) worker/entrepreneur continuum conception of labor in industry.

5.5.3. Empirical Knowledge

The study has contributed to our empirical understanding of the application of human resource management as a tool of developing entrepreneurial workforce for revitalizing industry and the civil service. This also suggests it potential for developing more successful future self-employment entrepreneurs in a more effective and sustainable way than the current popular self-employment-for-all strategy. This was done through the testing of the hypotheses which established that there are significant positive relationship between each of recruitment and selections, job design, training and development, performance appraisal, compensation practices, industrial relationship on one hand and corporative entrepreneurship on the other, in the private and public sectors of Ogun and Lagos States of Nigeria. The study also demonstrated that the environment of HRMP has significant impact on the the relationship between HRMP and CE. Empirical studies that focused this, especially in Africa are scanty when compared with the self employment version of entrepreneurship, being an emerging area of interest in literature. By this, the study has contributed to the development of interdisciplinary study of entrepreneurship and human resource management for effective practice of both. In the same way, it has provided alternative or complementary policy base that is needed for reviewing the current entrepreneurship policies and education which appears to be failing despite massive institutional and financial support by many stakeholders.

5.6. Limitation of the Study

Every research has weakness and limitation that can affect its reliability and the application of its findings. This study is not an exception. The limitations of this study can be seen from the angle of its methodology and findings:

Methodology

This study adopted a quantitative and cross sectional study of the relationship between human resource management practice and corporate entrepreneurship. A combination of the quantitative approach could have yielded more information and insight which would assist to more properly interprete the quantitative data obtained through structured questionnaire. In addition a longitudinal approach could have added greater insight. However, the large sample size of the study and the high level of validity of the instrument used are expected to mitigate the possible negative effect of these limitations.

The population from which the data for the study were elicited comprise of middle level managers. It is possible that other levels of staff such as the junior workers and top managers might have a different perspective, leading to different result. However, the location of the middle manager at the middle of organisation’s hierarchy have been shown to enable them to understand and reflect the scenarios in the organization much more than any other cadre of staff. Hence the difference, if at all, is not likely to be significant.

Findings

Findings from a study are expected to apply to similar situations and issues within its scope. The general applicability of these findings is therefore expected to be within spheres that are similar to this scope only. This study does not consider external environment. The application of the findings may be limited by varying external factors not considered in the study. However, the assumption of this study is that entrepreneurship manifests, despite limitation of resources being currently controlled, including these environmental factors. The application of the findings may also be limited to only the industrial sectors other focused in this study; civil service and banking service sub-sectors respectively. However, both of these sub-sectors were carefully chosened based on their catalytic role in their respective sectors. Also, the findings of the study may be applicable to the south western geopolitical zone of Nigeria, in which it was conducted. This zone however represents the commercial center of Nigeria and known to influence industrial developments in other zones.

5.7. Suggestions for Further Studies

The Lagos state government has just started the process for the professionalization of human resource management practices through establishment circular reference number CIR/HOS/15/Vol.1/066, at the time of compiling this report. As a result of this, all directors and key officers in the general administration cadre of the civil service concerned with human resource management functions are just being trained. It would therefore be instructive if this study is replicated in this state, five years after the completion of the process.

The focus of this study is the impact of human resource management practice on the expression of corporate entrepreneurial work behavior at the individual level. Further studies may therefore examine the same theme at the group and corporate levels respectively. Our sample was drawn from middle-level managers of the civil service and the banking industrial sectors because of their central role in the organization. Further studies may draw sample from the other levels of workers such as the junior staff and the top management personnel. This would confirm if the differences in levels organization hierarchy can influence the relationships being investigated in this study.
Studies on this theme are scanty in African context. It is therefore suggested that this study is replicated in more African contexts to confirm the conclusion of this study in other African countries. Finally, the focus of this study is the civil service and the banking industrial sectors in Lagos and Ogun States of Nigeria. Other studies may focus other geographical zones and industrial sectors in Nigeria such as the manufacturing, construction, education industrial sectors respectively. This would confirm the general applicability or otherwise of the findings of this study across industries.