Restructuring of Tertiary Institution and Its Effects on Organisational Commitment and Job Satisfaction: A Study of Tamale College of Education, Ghana

Abstract

Restructuring of an institution requires significant modification to the goals, operations or general functional structure of the institution (Stubblefield, 2018; Woods, Jeffrey, Troman & Boyle, 2019). Such actions are usually made when management observe significant problems in the institution (Woods et al., 2019). Such problem may be causing financial losses or putting the overall institutional performance in jeopardy (Lurie, Zlatev, Liao, JBowden & Angst, 2019). Therefore, by restructuring, Lund & Medellín-Azuara, (2018) argued that management may be able to eliminate problems that threaten the operations of the institution and improve overall performance in a profitable way. To achieve such improvement, Biener, Eling & Wirfs (2018) delineate that restructuring of an institution can involve making dramatic changes to the basic fabric of the institution. This may include cutting out or merging departments that often has the effect of displacing staff members. Conversely, Abildgaard, Nielsen & Sverke (2018) are of the opinion that changes as a result of restructuring often provide opportunities to improve work organization, the content of jobs and changes in roles and responsibilities. Similarly, Akinci and Sadler-Smith (2018) argued that such changes may enhance skills and career development while leading to better and more efficient use of staff resources as well as other resources. Kalfa, Wilkinson, and Gollan (2018) on the other hand noted that in most educational institutions, a handful of people often share the large workload associated with running the daily operations which often lead to different areas of the institution being underserved. Kalfa et al. (2018) further explained that such imbalance in workload delays in delivery of expected results as employees multitask and make choices about what work to put on a back burner. Therefore, proper restructuring results in stronger employee job descriptions as well as assign specialists to work in each area (Abildgaard, Nielsen & Sverke, 2018). This results in more efficient accountability and greater focus on individual tasks. A typical example of proper restructuring in Nematbakhsh, Hooshmand and Hemmati's (2018) opinion is when management improves efficiency by moving human resources out of a congested department to create two separate departments. Safronova, Kurenkov, gorov, Sokolova and Pilipchuk (2018) on the other hand caution that restructuring is not just about reallocating materials and human resources but rather doing it based on a strategy to achieve efficiency. To this, Vinichenko, Kirillov, Maloletko, Frolova, and Vinogradova (2018) posit that institutional restructuring can increase or decrease costs depending on the type of restructuring adopted and how it is implemented. Evidence of Vinichenko et al.'s assertion is seen in the