Intellectual Stimulation on Employees’ Innovation Skills of Selected Manufacturing Firms in South East, Nigeria.

This study investigated the intellectual stimulation on employees’ innovation skills of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria. The objectives of the study are to examine the effect of intellectual stimulation on employees’ innovation skills of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria, evaluate the effect of inspirational motivation on employees’ commitment of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria and determine the degree to which individualized consideration boost employees’ job satisfaction of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research design and primary data was mainly used to obtain accurate data based on the opinion of the respondents and supported by reviews of information from secondary sources for validation. The target population of two thousand, three hundred and fifty-one (2,351) obtained from the fifteen (15) selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria. The sample size of three hundred and forty-two (342) respondents was derived from Taro Yamane formula. Therefore, a total of three hundred and forty-two (342) copies of the questionnaire were distributed to the various manufacturing firms. Out of this number, fifty-six (56) copies of questionnaire were lost/wrongly filled with percentage ratio of 16.6% while two hundred and eighty-six (286) copies of questionnaire were correctly filled and returned with percentage ratio of 83.4%, which formed the basis of the study. To test the hypotheses of this study, the study adopted simple regression model, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson Correlation Coefficient of SPSS Version 22. From the result of the findings, the study indicated that intellectual stimulation has a significant effect on employees’ innovation skills of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria (R2 = 83.0%, t-value = 4.161** at 5 percent significant level) and that inspirational motivation has a significant effect on employees’ commitment of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria ((R2 = 80.5%, t-value = 3.491** at 5 percent significant level). Also that  individualized consideration boost employees’ job satisfaction of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria (f- statistics = 486.133, mean square = 47.641 with p- value = 0.000< 0.05% significance level) From the results of the hypotheses testing, the study concluded that intellectual stimulation has a significant effect on employees’ innovation skills, inspirational motivation has a significant effect on employees’ commitment, individualized consideration boost employees’ job satisfaction, idealized influence enhances employees’ motivation while there is a positive and significant relationship between transformational leadership style and firms’ creativity of selected manufacturing firms in South East, Nigeria. The study recommended that Management of the selected manufacturing firms should regularly work on enhancing the еmployееs morale with inspirational words and actions as these will develop еmployееs strong sense of confidence to work harder towards achieving better organizational performance.