GENDER AND EXPERIENCE OF BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING STRATEGY ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Abstract

The study focused on the impact of gender and experience on business process outsourcing (BPO) strategy on competitive advantage and organizational performance. Three secondorder constructs of BPO were identified as strategic risk, capability evaluation and relationship commitment. These variables were moderated in terms of gender and experience against competitive advantage. The survey research design was employed in other to obtain information on the characteristics of the respondents. The population (100) comprised of all manufacturing firms registered with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Edo/Delta. Each firm was administered a questionnaire and only 86 was found useable which then constituted our sample size. Data was first analyzed using Microsoft excel (2010) to code and screen data, while AMOS 23.0 was further used to perform moderating effects of gender and experience on competitive advantage and organizational performance respectively using AMOS 23.0. The result showed that with respect to capability evaluation, females (P < 0.001) have more impact on competitive advantage than males (p < 0.011), while with respect to competitive advantage respondents within 1-5 years (p < 0.32) and 6-10 years (p < 0.44) of experience had more impact on organizational performance. The study concluded that with respect to capability evaluation, female have more impact on competitive advantage and this could be as a result of either they had a clear understanding of the core and non-core capabilities or some other factors. Also, with respect to the impact of competitive advantage on organizational performance, the males had more influence and this could be attributed their consistent emphasis on quality, reliability and or quick responsiveness to customers. The study concluded that with respect to capability evaluation on competitive advantage, employees within the experience range of 1-5 years had more impact than others and this could be as a result of either careful consideration was given to capabilities that may be important in the failure or some other factors. Finally, the study concluded that the impact of competitive advantage on organizational performance was attributed to employees in the category of 1-5 years and 6- 10 years of experience. The study recommended that organizations should motivate and train the workers equally without prejudice to gender preference. Where teams are inevitable, a detailed understanding of core and non-core business process outsourcing capabilities be conveyed to the workers, specifying their responsibilities followed with appropriate authority and they should know what is expected of them.