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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Constraints on Succession Planning: The Nigerian Public Service Experience |
Author: | Aduaka, E.C. |
Year: | 1992 |
Periodical: | African Administrative Studies |
Issue: | 38 |
Pages: | 47-60 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Nigeria |
Subjects: | civil service management education personnel management Labor and Employment Politics and Government |
Abstract: | Planning is one of the basic functions of management and planned succession ensures that an employee is effective immediately he or she takes over a new role. Given the haphazard practice of succession planning in many public service organizations, the author investigates what constraints are experienced by managers in the practice of succession planning. The study is based on a questionnaire administered to 135 middle and senior management cadres from a total of 104 public enterprise organizations or extraministerial departments of the Nigerian public service who attended management training courses organized by the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON). The responses indicated eleven constraints on succession planning: those so prepared may not be eventual successors; noncooperative attitude when a would-be successor comes from outside the department; supersession if the would-be successor is lower in rank than other serving officers; preferential treatment; inadequate information on employees' aspirations and available career openings; pressure groups within and outside the organization; difficulty in getting required calibre of personnel; those that need training may not be released by their bosses due to long period required; the financial costs of training programmes; concealment of knowledge by managers who see themselves as indispensable; and political considerations/interference at the expense of merit. The author discusses the findings, draws out the management implications and makes a number of recommendations. Bibliogr., sum. in Arabic (p. 45) and French (p. 46). |