The influence of motivation and organizational climate on academician effectiveness in North-Western Nigeria: the mediating role of emotional labour

Academician effectiveness evaluation should be an effective mechanism for promoting academia growth in higher learning institutions. Thus, the aim of this research is to examine the relationship between motivation, organisational climate (communication climate and social climate) and academician effectiveness. Emotional labour (surface acting and deep acting) was a mediator on the relationship between motivation, organisational climate and academician effectiveness. Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Affective Event Theory (AET) were utilized in constructing the research framework. The respondents were 233 university lecturers and 1665 students from selected thirteen Nigerian public universities spread over north-western Nigeria. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was employed for initial data screening and aggregation of the dyad’s relationships, while the PLS-SEM technique was used to examine the relationships among the constructs. A purposive sampling approach was used to meet an adequate representative sample. Research findings indicated that communication climate was positively and significantly related to academician effectiveness and deep acting. Deep acting and social climate were positively and significantly related to academician effectiveness, while motivation was positively and significantly correlated to deep acting. However, communication climate was not significantly related to surface acting. Likewise, motivation was notsignificantly related to academician effectiveness and surface acting. Also, social climate was not significantly related to deep acting, surface acting and academician effectiveness. The findings revealed that emotional labour mediated the relationship between motivation, organisational climate and academician effectiveness. Conversely, the emotional labour strategy of surface acting had no mediating effect on the relationship in this study. Research on academician effectiveness should focus on new methods and approaches for improving effectiveness among academicians. This study also contributes to the new literature on SET and AET theories.