An Assessment of External Factors Affecting the Quality of Governance among Public Sector Institutions in Nigeria

The study assessed the impact of external factors (EF) on the quality of governance among public sector institutions (PSI) in Nigeria. Descriptive research design was used while survey method of data collection using questionnaire as an instrument was adopted. Twenty-seven (27) public sector entities were purposely selected from among over 500 MDA’s in Nigeria for the purpose of raw data collection using structured questionnaire which was designed using the Likert scale format. The questionnaires were properly validated and its reliability was assured using test –retest reliability and obtaining a r value of 0.78. Due to multidimensional nature of the explanatory variable, factor analysis was used to generate factor score representing each of the factors in the variables. Model Analysis was confirmed with a KMO>0.6 across the models. The study which was anchored on both Agency and stewardship theories considered factors like religion, traditional institution, political influence, culture, ethnitism and unionism. The impact of these factors on governance was analysed using multi- regression statistical method. The grand mean of 2.16 shows that external factors moderately affect the quality of governance. However, unionism has strong impact on governance. The study recommended that while external factors can be given minimal consideration in governance, their effect must be well managed as they have the tendency to weaken the quality of governance in any institution and promote inefficiency.