Cultural Hegemony in Staff Recruitment and the Performance of Nigerian Public Universities

Abstract

This study examined cultural hegemony in staff recruitment and the performance of Nigerian public universities, with particular focus on political-institutional hegemony and civil-society-institutional hegemony as dimensions of hegemony as they influence the performance of Nigerian public universities. The research adopted a quantitative design, using survey data collected from 124 out of 139 distributed questionnaires, representing an 89.2% response rate. Multiple regression analysis was conducted using SPSS version 27. The findings revealed that political-institutional hegemony exerted a statistically significant negative effect on the performance of Nigerian universities (β = −.589, p < .05), indicating that political interference, patronage, and favouritism reduced institutional outcomes. Conversely, civil-society institutional hegemony had a statistically significant positive effect on the performance of the Nigerian public universities (β = .491, p < .05), suggesting that transparent recruitment norms and professional safeguards enhanced performance. The model explained 57.5% of the variance in university performance (R² = .575), demonstrating that cultural hegemonies are key predictors of institutional outcomes. The study concluded that minimizing political influence in recruitment while strengthening civil-society practices would improve productivity, research outputs, and governance in Nigerian universities. It recommends promoting merit-based recruitment and institutional transparency to mitigate the negative effects of political dominance. The study contributes to the literature by empirically quantifying the dual impact of political and civil-society hegemonies on university performance. Limitations include the exclusion of other structural factors such as funding and strikes, with suggestions for future research to adopt a more comprehensive model.