Gender and Age as Determinants of Innovative Work Behaviour Among Public Non-Formal Education Employees in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

This study explored gender and age as determinants of Innovative Work Behaviour (IWB) among public non-formal education employees in southwestern Nigeria. The study employed the explanatory sequential mixed-method design and purposive sampling procedure was used to enumerate 208 non-formal education employees of the officer cadres and above from five states in Southwestern Nigeria. The instruments used were IWB Questionnaire and the interview guide, respectively. The quantitative data were analysed with the aid of simple statistics, t-test, and Analysis of Variance while the qualitative data were content-analysed. The findings indicated that the public non-formal education employees exhibited high degree of opportunity exploration, idea generation, idea promotion, idea realisation and idea sustainability, respectively. The results indicated that there were significant differences in innovative work behaviour on the basis of age. This was in favour of those public non-formal education employees from thirty years of age and above compared with their counterparts who were below such age. Lastly, the result revealed that the public non-formal education employees innovative work behaviour did not differ on the basis of the employee’s gender. This means that there was no significant difference between male and female non-formal education employees’ ability to embrace innovative work behaviour in the course of monitoring, evaluating and implementing the Agency’s literacy-oriented programmes. The study’s findings have implications for promoting innovation and sustainability in non-formal education settings through competency development among employees. The findings further imply that non-formal education programs should prioritise innovation development strategies, particularly for younger employees. The finding implies that innovative work behaviour initiatives in non-formal education settings can be designed without gender bias by focusing on universal strategies that benefit all employees.