Intra-organizational decision-making and staff morale in secondary schools in Arua District.

Abstract

The study set out to investigate the effect of intra organizational decision making on staff morale in Secondary Schools in Arua District. The need for the study arose from the prevalence of information in Arua District that indicated low morale and dissatisfaction among the staff in Secondary Schools as reflected by reports on strikes, conflicts, absenteeism, stress and frustration among staff. This scenario revealed poor management of decision-making process by the administrators. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 95 percent confidence interval using a linear regression analysis technique. The research design used was a cross sectional approach. From a target population of 400 respondents, a random sample of 163 was selected using stratified random sampling. Data pertaining to the study was collected using a self administered questionnaire and an interview guide.

The findings revealed that centralized decision making was a negative significant predictor of staff morale in Secondary Schools in Arua District. On the other hand, delegated and group approaches to decision making had a significant positive effect on staff morale. For that reason, the study concluded that the three approaches to decision making (centralized, delegated and group decision making) have a significant effect on staff morale. Basing on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended a trade off from centralized decision making to the adoption of delegated and group decision making approaches in order to boost employee morale.