ACADEMIC STAFF

This study examined the relationship between organizational silence and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) among lecturers in the University of Benin. The study sought to determine how the dimensions of organizational silence, acquiescent silence, defensive silence, prosocial silence, and supervisor silence climate influence the display of OCB among academic staff. The research was driven by concerns that silence in academic institutions may limit participation, reduce innovation, and hinder voluntary behaviours that promote institutional performance. A descriptive survey research design was adopted, and data were collected from a sample of 100 lecturers across various faculties using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) were used to summarize responses, while Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses were employed to test the hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance. The results revealed that prosocial silence recorded the highest mean (M = 4.04, SD = 0.90), indicating that lecturers often withhold information for altruistic or constructive reasons, such as maintaining team harmony or protecting colleagues. Conversely, acquiescent silence (M = 2.73, SD = 1.39) and defensive silence (M = 2.88, SD = 1.10) were relatively low, suggesting that most lecturers do not remain silent out of fear or a belief that their opinions will not matter. The regression model yielded R = 0.304, R² = 0.093, F(4,91) = 2.325, p = 0.062, indicating that the combined effect of the four silence dimensions on OCB was not statistically significant. Further analysis showed that none of the individual silence dimensions significantly predicted OCB (p > 0.05), though prosocial silence exhibited a weak positive relationship (β = 0.185, p = 0.082). The correlation analysis confirmed these findings, revealing weak and statistically insignificant relationships between organizational silence dimensions and OCB. The study concludes that while organizational silence exists within the University of Benin, it does not significantly influence lecturers’ willingness to engage in citizenship behaviours such as altruism, conscientiousness, courtesy, sportsmanship, and civic virtue. The findings suggest that lecturers’ engagement in OCB is primarily driven by intrinsic motivation and professional commitment rather than silence dynamics. The study recommends that the university should continue to foster open communication channels, participative decision-making, and supportive leadership practices to sustain a positive organizational culture that encourages voluntary, extra-role behaviour among academic staff.

The study examined workplace humor and employee job satisfaction among academic staff of the University of Benin, Benin City, Edo state, Nigeria. The study specifically sought to ascertain the extent to which workplace humor impacts on the level of job satisfaction among employees. The study adopted a survey research design with questionnaire as the research instrument tailored towards the study objectives. The study sampled 257 respondents randomly drawn from a population of 1,896 academic staff of the University of Benin. Data gathered for the study was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the linear regression model to ascertain the causal relationship between the variable via SPSS 28.0. Findings obtained from the analysis showed among other things, a low level of workplace humor, and a low level of job satisfaction among the respondents. The regression analysis showed a lack of significant relationship between workplace humor and job satisfaction among the staff. Hence, the study concluded that workplace humor, though vital in maintaining social relations among employees; is majorly focused on the informal aspects of work which do not impact on employees satisfaction, performance or productivity.

Stress occurs in various forms in every workplace. Stress has been defined by many in different ways. Olagunju (2018) defines stress as “a chronic complex emotional state with apprehension and is characteristic of various nervous and mental disorders”. According to Topper (2010) stress is a person‘s psychological and physiological response to the perception of demand and challenge. Hence, Stress is a condition of physical and psychological mental disorder which occurs in a situation of pressure, when resources are unable to fulfill the demand of an individual (Syed, 2013). Work-related stress is increasingly becoming a source of concern among organizations and employees around the globe (Gyllensten& Palmer, 2005; Khurshid, Butt & Malik, 2011) as productivity is basic to organizational effectiveness. Organizational performance refers to those attitudes' that have been assessed or measured as to their contribution to organizational goals (Cook &Hunsaker, 2001). High productivity can stimulate improvement and motivate employees (Prokopenko, 2018).