The study investigated work incentives and job commitment among university lecturers in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The study examined the extent to which lecturers are committed to their job in the university as well as the level of work incentives available to lecturers in university. The study investigated the relationship between each of the work incentives components (remuneration, recognition and job security) and job commitment of university lecturers. The study adopted a descriptive research design of the survey type. The population for the study consisted of 1,185 lecturers in the three universities in Ekiti State as the time of this study. The sample for the study consisted of 300 respondents selected from the 3 universities using multistage sampling procedure which involved simple and purposive sampling techniques. The instrument used for this study was self-designed questionnaire titled ‘Work Incentives and Lecturers Job Commitment Questionnaire (WILJCQ)’. The instrument was validated by experts in Educational Management and Tests and Measurement. Test-retest method of reliability was used to ascertain the reliability of the instrument. The data collected from the administration of the instruments were correlated using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and a reliability co-efficient of 0.76 was obtained for WILJCQ which was considered high enough to be reliable for the study. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the level of work incentives available to lecturers was moderate. The study also showed the extent to which lecturers are committed to their job in the universities. The study further revealed that there was significant relationship between work incentives and lecturers’ job commitment in universities in Ekiti State. Work incentives are highly related to lecturers’ job commitment. It was found that there was significant positive relationship between remuneration and lecturers’ job commitment. There was no significant relationship between recognition and lecturers’ job commitment. The study also revealed a positive significant relationship between job security and lecturers’ job commitment. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that prompt payment of salaries and allowances as well as all other allowances to lecturers should be paid as and when due, as this goes a long way to improve lecturers’ job commitment. It is also recommended that management of universities should put in place favourable conditions of service that will guarantee job security of academic staff towards enhancing their job commitment.
Keywords: Job Security, Recognition, Remuneration, Work incentives, job commitment
