Reward Management Practices and Employee Performance of Public Universities in South-East, Nigeria

The purpose of the paper was to examine the relationship that exists between Reward Management Practices and Employee Performance in selected Public Universities in the South-East Nigeria. The paper was anchored on Equity Theory. A descriptive survey research design was adopted by the study. Stratified sampling techniques were used to obtain a sample of 365 out of a target population of 7411 using Krejcie and Morgan (1970) formula. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was tested for reliability by using Split half test to determine the internal consistency of the items. The paper used expert judgment method to determine content validity. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (PPMCC) at .05 level of significance. The findings revealed that there was a significant positive relationship existing between distributive justice and employee commitment (cal. r .893 > crit. r 0.098) and there was a significant positive relationship existing between employee recognition and job satisfaction (cal. r .942 > crit. r 0.0980). It was hence recommended among other things that the focused public universities need to ensure that employees are rewarded justly and fairly and that they need not rely solely on the base pay employee earn but also inculcate several recognition programs into their reward systems.