







































Asian Themes in Social Sciences Research 
ISSN: 2578-5516 

Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1-9 
2023 

DOI: 10.33094/atssr.v7i1.69 
© 2023 by the authors; licensee Online Academic Press, USA 

 
Accepted: 15 December 2022 | Published: 13 February 2023 

1 
© 2023 by the authors; licensee Online Academic Press, USA 

 

  

 
 
 
 

Relationship between promotion and employees' performance: 
Evidence from the university of Abuja 
 
 

Innocent Uchechukwu Duru1* --- Millicent Adanne Eze2 --- Abubakar Yusuf3 --- Iyaji 
Danjuma4 --- Abubakar Sadiq Saleh5 

 

1Department of Economics, Rhema University Nigeria, Aba, Abia State, Nigeria. 
Email: iud3x@yahoo.com  
2School of Business, Law and Social Sciences, Abertay University, Dundee, United Kingdom. 
Email: ezemillicent@gmail.com  
3National Metallurgical Development Centre, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. 
Email: bbkr_yusuf2000@yahoo.com 
4Department of Economics, Nigerian Army University, Biu, Borno State, Nigeria. 
Email: danjumaiyaji@gmail.com  
5Department of Banking and Finance, University of Abuja, Abuja, Nigeria. 
Email: abubakar.saleh@nileuniversity.edu.ng  
 

 
Abstract 

This study investigated the relationship between promotion and employees' performance at the 
University of Abuja. The study utilized a descriptive research design. The multiple regression 
methodology and descriptive statistics were employed for the analysis of data. The data was 
derived through structured questionnaires from 337 workers at the University of Abuja. The 
findings indicated that the university treats you fairly and equitably with regard to 

promotion, the university provides opportunities for career development and the university 
provides promotional opportunities had a positive influence on employee s’ performance at the 
University of Abuja. Conversely, the university is fair and equitable in its treatment of 
management had a negative impact on employees’ performance at the University of Abuja. 
However, the university provides clear and consistent requirements for promotion, the 
university supports ongoing professional development, the university acknowledges the long 
hours you devote to work and the university rewards excellence in performance through a 
promotion system did not exert a significant effect on employees’ performance at the 
University of Abuja. The University treats you fairly and equitably with regard to promotion, 

the university provides opportunities for career development and the university provides 
promotional opportunities had a positive influence on employees’ performance at the 
University of Abuja. However, the university is fair and equitable in its treatment of 
management had a negative impact on employees’ performance at the University of Abuja.  
The results suggest that the management of the University of Abuja should continue treating 
their employees fairly concerning promotion to increase performance. In addition, the 
university management should sustain their policies on promotions and career development. 
Furthermore, the management of the University of Abuja needs to review and reinforce the 

way it handles its management. 
 

Keywords: Employee’s performance, Nigeria, Promotion, University of Abuja. 
Licensed:  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.  

Funding: This study received no specific financial support.    
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. 
 

 

http://doi.org/10.33094/atssr.v7i1.69
mailto:iud3x@yahoo.com
mailto:ezemillicent@gmail.com
mailto:bbkr_yusuf2000@yahoo.com
mailto:danjumaiyaji@gmail.com
mailto:abubakar.saleh@nileuniversity.edu.ng


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1. Introduction 
The realization of an organizational mission and vision in a world characterized by competition and 

uncertainties is contingent on the satisfaction of its workforce. Workers' satisfaction in organizations could be 
attained through promotion among other factors. In developing and developed economies, promotion acts as a 
veritable instrument for self-development, the attainment of workers satisfaction, the development of the spirit 
of competition, reduction of workers turnover, the attraction of skilled and industrious individuals and 
realization of optimal performance from the workforce. The low performance of universities in Nigeria in 
particular and Africa in general is a major challenge of the 21st century. There is no African university in the 
first 244 universities ranked in the web ranking of universities in the world (Webometrics, 2022).   

The performance of employees in private and public institutions is a critical issue because it serves as the 
yardstick for employees' promotion to higher ranks. The recommendation of Chen and Silverthorne (2008) 
that the performance scores of employees should be used as the benchmark for promotion to foster hard work 
and competition among employees for the advancement of business organizations' growth and development 
underlines this. In the contention of Hameed and Amjad (2009) promotion is important to employees and the 
owners of the business. Arthur, Kaphova, and Wilderon (2005) stated that it inspires promoted workers to 
increase their productivity resulting in improvement in the general growth and development of organisations.  

No wonder, Yasmeen, Umar, and Fahad (2013) stressed that job promotion exerts a powerful effect on the 
performance of organizations. Thus, workers' promotion in organizations should follow laid-down promotion 
policies and practices. The findings of this study may inform the design of appropriate p romotion practices to 
drive the productivity of workers at the University of Abuja. In addition, the findings would enable the 
policymakers of government to make knowledgeable decisions in the articulation of incentive policies in 
tertiary institutions. Furthermore, the findings may result in a policy for the attraction, satisfaction and 
retention of competent workers at the University of Abuja.  

Armstrong (1984) stressed that promotion inspires individuals to work in an organization for a long time 
for the fulfilment of their needs, which subsequently results in increased performance and stability of 
organizations. Thus, as was stated by Tilahun (2019) ''the loss of employee represents a loss of skills, 
knowledge and experiences which can create a significant economic impact and cost to the organization as well 
as impacting the needs of customers (p. 4).  

The Nigeria's National Development Plan (NDP) 2021-2025, envisions an economy on the path to 
unlocking its capability in every sector of the economy for sustainable and all-inclusive national development 
(Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning (FMFBNP, 2020). This plan is tailored towards 
the attainment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s pledge of removing 100 million Nigerians from poverty in 
10 years. Specifically, 21 million permanent jobs are expected to be created by this plan by 2025. In addition, 
by 2025, 35 million persons are anticipated to be lifted out of poverty. As was stated in the plan, high -quality 
economic growth and a more inclusive economy are the avenues through which these goals can be 
accomplished using its youthful labour force and supplemented by the ability for implementation at national 
and subnational levels.  

Therefore, Nigeria will grow meaningfully in the direction of unlocking its capacities in every sector of 
the economy for sustainable and all-inclusive national development with the efficient execution of this plan. As 
part of other issues for implementation, if the young workforces who are also part of the University system are 
not adequately motivated through promotions among others, this objective may not be achieved. 
Notwithstanding the presence of some academic and non-academic staff that are highly productive, generally, 
the University of Abuja is lagging far behind similar institutions in the universe.  

Statistics from the ranking of world universities confirm this. This statistical fact underscores the poor 
performance of African universities in general and the University of Abuja in particular. No wonder, Duru, 
Eze, Yusuf, Udo, and Saleh (2022) stated that ''the Federal Government of Nigeria has been deficient in the 
management of workers of government universities in Nigeria, particularly from the perspective of career 
advancement, remuneration and training of these workers'' (p. 70). Again, regardless of the attempts by the 
management of the University of Abuja to promote its workers, some employees believe that promotions are 
delayed and characterized by nepotism as well, resulting in labour turnover particularly the loss of highly 
skilled employees.  

Most of the time, all the employees qualified for promotions are not promoted. This prompts the question 
of whether the management of the University of Abuja engages in annual performance evaluation at the 
appropriate time and promotes their employees based on it to inspire them and prepare the m to adapt to 
increased competition triggered by changes in economic and political environments, changes in technology 
and globalization to improve their performances?  

The objective of this study is to examine the influence of promotion practices on employees' performance 
at the University of Abuja. The question to address is what is the influence of promotion practices on 
employees' performance at the University of Abuja? The rest of this paper is organized into five sections. The 
second section discusses the literature review and theoretical framework. The methodology was discussed in 
section three. Section four would focus on results and discussions. Section five consists of conclusion and 
recommendations. 
 



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2. Theoretical and Empirical Issues 
2.1. Theoretical Framework 

This study was reinforced by the equity theory developed by Adams (1963). This theory proposed that 
employees would be motivated to work better when there is fair treatment in the workplace. In other words, 
when the promotion practices in an organization are fair, the motivation of employees increases resulting in 
increased performance and productivity respectively. Furthermore, this theory stressed the need for a balance 
between employees' work inputs and outputs in the workplace referred to as inputs and  outputs. Perkins 
(2011) opined that this is the yardstick for determining what represents a fair balance of inputs and outputs.  

Johnsrud and Rosser (2002) maintained that workers' impacts on the establishment, comprising of 
education level, hard work, loyalty, number of years with the establishment, skills and training constitute 
inputs. Contrariwise, the apparent reward that employees can obtain from this circumstance, which is 
promotion, in this situation is known as outputs or outcomes. Thus, in the contention of Adams (1965) the 
ratio of input to the output of workers should be compared to the ratio of input to the output of their co-
workers in the same circumstances and workplaces.  Hence, this theory strikes a balance between the ratio of 
input to the output of an employee to attain satisfaction which in this case is promotion. Thus, any 
establishment that wants to retain its employees needs to adopt equity principles concerning promotion.  

This is premised on the fact that workers appreciate fair treatment contingent on the ir responsibilities. As 
far as the promotion of employees is concerned, workers compare their labours to climb through the stages of 
an establishment to their co-workers to draw motivation to boost their performance or not (Ansah, 2017). 
Adam's equity theory proposed that workers will be motivated, glad and work to boost the production level in 
the organization if inputs are justly and sufficiently rewarded by outputs (Adams & Kirst, 1998). By 
implication, if the efforts of the employees are yielding the desired reward for getting promotions compared to 
co-workers, it would motivate them to increase their performance. Hence, if workers' promotions are based on 
the results of the annual performance evaluation, there would be an improvement in the general performance 
of the organization. Bowles and Gelfand (2010) maintained that this happens if the annual performance 
evaluation results are used as the main standard for promotion in an establishment. In contrast, when the 
annual performance evaluation results are not utilized as a yardstick for promotion, workers will not be 
motivated to boost their performance in an establishment. It results in work dissatisfaction, low morale of 
workers, low workers performance and poor organizational performance. One of the ways through which 
employees can get this kind of promotion is nepotism. However, Ross and Kapitan (2018) claimed that the 
absence of equity at the workstation could prompt dissatisfied workers to leave their present jobs in pursuit of 
well-paid jobs or reduce the overall productivity of the organization by lowering their effectiveness at work.  

Based on the equity theory, two things to be considered by managers for promotion are a uniform chance 
for promotion among all workers and the link between workers' inputs and outputs (Hellriegel, Slocum, & 
Woodman, 1998). As far as the current study is considered, the position of the equity theory is that promotion 
practices at the University of Abuja should be free and fair to motivate the workers to improve their general 
performance. Thus, when workers are satisfied with the University of Abuja's promotion practices, it would 
serve as a yardstick to perform better causing an increase in performance. 
 
2.2. Review of Empirical Studies 

The studies on the relationship between promotion and employees’ performance (Ansah, 2017; Hidig, 
2014; Ligare, Wanyama, & Aliata, 2020; Peter, 2014; Ratemo, Bula, & Makhamara, 2021; Rinny, Purba, & 
Handiman, 2020; Winoto, Surati, & Wahyulina, 2021) were little. First, Peter (2014) employed the survey 
research design and descriptive statistics to investigate the effect of promotion on employees' performance at 
Dar es Salaam City Council (DCC). The 150 employees employed for this study were selected from 300 
employees utilizing purposive, convenience and simple random sampling techniques. The results revealed the 
awareness of promotion procedures among DCC workers. However, there was an emphasis that it should be 
spelt out clearly to all workers by the human resource department.  

In addition, the results showed that promotion influenced the performance of employees and the 
organization respectively.  Furthermore, the findings revealed that non-adherence to procedures of promotion 
affected individual and organizational performance respectively. These were in terms of accumulated 
promotion, poor performance, poor relations and labour turnover. Hidig (2014) used descriptive research 
design and inferential statistics to examine the link between promotion policies and employees' performance in 
Golis Company branches in Dhahar. The 160 employees employed for this study were selected from 267 
employees utilizing purposive and systematic sampling techniques and the Slovene formula. The results 
revealed that promotion policies had a positive and significant relationship with employees' performance.  

Ansah (2017) utilized the mixed method research design to determine the effectiveness of two criteria of 
promotion in engendering the performance of the senior staff of the University of Cape Coast. Five assistant 
registrars and 200 senior employees constituted the sample. The findings indicated that supervisors had mixed 
opinions about the qualification criteria for senior staff promotion. In addition, the results showed that the 
systems of promotion had a significant influence on senior staff performance. Rinny et al. (2020) used the 
multiple linear regression methodology to investigate the relationship between compensation, job promotions, 



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job satisfaction and the performance of the academic staff of Mercu Buana University. The 77 employees 
employed for this study were selected from 332 employees utilizing the convenience sampling technique.  

The findings indicated that job promotions and job satisfaction exerted a positive influence on the 
academic staff performance of Mercu Buana University. However, compensation had a negative and 
insignificant effect on the performance of the academic staff  of Mercu Buana University. In Kenya, Ligare et al. 
(2020) used a survey research design, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics to investigate the influence 
of job promotion on the performance of administrative police officers in Bungoma County. The 384 
administrative police officers employed for this study were selected from 1318 administrative police officers 
utilizing simple random sampling, stratified random sampling and systematic random sampling methods. The 
findings revealed a positive and significant relationship between job promotion and the performance of 
administrative police officers in Bungoma County.  Ratemo et al. (2021) used a survey research design, 
descriptive statistics and inferential statistics to examine the influences of job promotion practices on workers' 
performance at Kenya Forestry Research Institute in Muguga. The 121 workers used for this study were 
chosen from 178 employees using a stratified random sampling method. The results indicated that job 
promotion practices exerted a significant effect on employee performance  at Kenya Forestry Research 
Institute. The effect of demotion, promotion and transfer on work motivation and performance of the West 
Nusa Tenggara Regional Police was investigated by Winoto et al. (2021) employing the Structural Equation 
Model (SEM) Partial Least Square (PLS). The findings disclosed that promotion and transfer exerted a 
positive influence on work motivation.  

Contrariwise, demotion exerted a negative effect on work motivation. However, motivation exerted a 
positive influence on the performance of West Nusa Tenggara Regional Police. The literature review indicated 
that studies on the relationship between promotion and employees’ performances were limited. A number of 
the studies were undertaken in the context of other African countries. On the other hand, the absence of 
empirical studies on the nexus between promotion and employee performance in Nigeria informed this study. 
To the best of our knowledge, the only related previous study in Nigeria had a different focus. This was the 
study conducted by Abdulmumini (2021) on the impact of promotion on academic staff development in the 
State Higher Educational Institutions of Borno State. This study consequently intends to close this gap by 
examining the relationship between promotion and employee performance at the University of Abuja.  
 

3. Methodology  
This study was based on the University of Abuja and employed the descriptive research design. The 2145 

employees of the University of Abuja formed the study population. It involves 640 academic staff and 1505 
non-academic staff. The Yamane’s formula was ut ilized to select a sample of 337 workers from the population 
of 2145 workers.  

𝑛 =
𝑁

1 + 𝑁(𝑒)2
 

𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 : 
𝑛 = 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒  𝑠𝑖𝑧𝑒 

𝑁 = 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛  

𝑒 = 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒  𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 (%) 

Substitution into the formula yields: 

     𝑛 =
2145

1+2145(0.05) 2 

𝑛 =
2145

1 + 2145 (0.0025 )
 

𝑛 =
2145

1 + 5.3625
 

𝑛 =
2145

6.3625
 

𝑛 = 337.13 

The sampling method used for this study was simple random sampling. It was utilized to ensure that each 
worker has an equal chance of being chosen in the sample. The instrument for data gathering was a structured 
questionnaire. The eight items established by Krivokapic-Skoko, O'Neill, and Dowell (2009) were used to 
measure promotion. On the other hand, we employed 11 items to measure workers’ performance. Out of the 11 
factors of work performance, productivity was utilized to measure it because it was extensive ly used by other 
scholars in the literature. Regression methodology and descriptive statistics were employed for the analysis of 
data. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to determine the presence of unique items from the 
construct of promotion.  
 

4. Results and Discussions 
Out of the Three Hundred and Thirty-Seven questionnaires administered to respondents, 300 

questionnaires were retrieved. This denotes response and non-response rates of 89% and 11% respectively. A 
Cronbach-alpha reliability value of 0.969 and 0.859 was realized for work performance measures and construct 



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of promotion respectively. These values showed that the instrument was reliable. A Cronbach Alpha score of 
0.932 was obtained for the whole instrument. These coefficients were  deemed reliable for data analysis. Table 
1 shows the background characteristics of the respondents. The background characteristics of the respondents 
are depicted in Table 1. It revealed that 220 respondents representing 73.3% were the academic staff. 
Conversely, 80 respondents representing 26.7% were the non-academic staff. It revealed that 116 respondents 
representing 38.7% had worked at the University of Abuja between 11 to 15 years. However, the rest 
representing 61.3% were distributed among less than 5 years, 6 to 10 years, 11 to 15 years, 16 to 20 years, 21 
to 25 years and 26 years and above. From the angle of their marital status, 225 respondents representing 75% 
were married and 75 respondents representing 25% were single. However, 0 or 0% was shared equally by the 
divorced, never married, engaged to be married, widowed and separated. The findings showed that 235 
respondents representing 78.3% were male and the remaining 65 respondents representing 21.7% were female. 
Furthermore, 124 respondents in the age group of 31 to 35 years representing 41.3% constituted the majority.  
Conversely, the remaining respondents in the age groups of 21 to 25 years, 26 to 30 years, 36 to 40 years, 41 
to 45 years, 46 to 50 years, 51 to 55 years and 56 to 60 years represented 58.7%. In terms of education, 272 
respondents representing 90.7% had tertiary education. In addition, 16 respondents representing 5.3% had 
secondary education. However, 12 respondents representing 4% had polytechnic education.  
 

Table 1. Percentage distribution of respondents based on background characteristics. 

Variable Items Frequency Percentage (%) 

Type of staff Academic staff 
Non-academic staff 
Total 

220 
80 
300 

73.3 
26.7 

100.0 

Number of years worked Less than 5 years 
6-10 Years 
11-15 Years 
16-20 Years 
21-25 Years 
26 Years and above 

Total 

40 
49 
116 
29 
40 
26 

300 

13.3 
16.3 
38.7 
9.7 
13.3 
8.7 

100.0 
Marital status Married 

Single 
Widowed 
Separated 

Never married 
Divorced 
Engaged to be married 
Total 

225 
75 
0 
0 

0 
0 
0 

300 

75.0 
25.0 
0.0 
0.0 

0.0 
0.0 
0.0 

100.0 
Gender Male 

Female 
Total 

235 
65 
300 

78.3 
21.7 

100.0 
Age 21-25 Years 

26-30 Years 
31-35 Years 
36-40 Years 
41-45 Years 
46-50 Years 
51-55 Years 
56-60 Years 

61-65 Years 
66-70 Years 
Total 

4 
41 
124 
14 
42 
15 
45 
15 

0 
0 

300 

1.3 
13.7 
41.3 
4.7 
14.0 
5.0 
15.0 
5.0 

0.0 
0.0 

100.0 
Education No education 

Primary education 

Secondary education 
Polytechnic education 
Tertiary education 
Total 

0 
0 

16 
12 
272 
300 

0.0 
0.0 

5.3 
4.0 
90.7 

100.0 
Source: Field survey, 2022. 

 
In Table 2, the evaluation of the effectiveness of promotion practices at the University of Abuja was done 

through a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. The eight items used to measure promotion were adopted from 
Krivokapic-Skoko et al. (2009). The respondents were requested to assess their agreement level with the 
promotion practices at the University of Abuja.  

 
 



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Table 2. Influences of promotion practices at the University of Abuja. 

Code Opinion Strongly 
agree 
(X5) 

Agree 
(X4) 

Undecided 
(X3) 

Disagree 
(X2) 

Strongly 
disagree 

(X1) 

Sum Mean Std. 
dev. 

Rank 

PP1 The university provides clear and consistent 
requirements for promotion 

275 424 174 88 37 998 3.33 1.28 1st 

PP2 The university treats you fairly and equitably with 
regard to promotion 

50 500 150 136 47 883 2.94 1.19 2nd 

PP3 The university is fair and equitable in its treatment 
of management 

45 252 177 210 64 748 2.49 1.13 4th 

PP4 The university provides opportunities for career 
development 

190 116 126 212 85 729 2.43 1.33 5th 

PP5 The university supports ongoing professional 
development 

245 92 102 86 151 676 2.25 1.53 7th 

PP6 The university provides promotional opportunities 215 128 96 44 171 654 2.18 1.54 8th 
PP7 The university acknowledges the long hours you 

devote to work 
45 344 126 238 44 797 2.66 1.13 3rd 

PP8 The university rewards excellence in performance 
through a promotion system 

45 360 99 70 133 707 2.36 1.38 6th 

 

Note: PP denotes promotion practices. 

Source: Field survey, 2022. 



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The average of a five points ranking scale (3.00) was used as a standard for decision. If the mean value was 
≥ 3.00, the view was regarded as agreed. Conversely, if the mean value was < 3.00, the view was regarded as 
not agreed. The respondents agreed that the university provides clear and consistent requirements for 
promotion. It was ranked first and was the only promotion construct variable ranked above a mean score of 
3.00. On the other hand, the respondents accepted that the remaining practices of promotion were ineffective 
at the University of Abuja. This was underscored by the ranking of these promotion practices below the mean 
score of 3.00. 
 

Table 3. Factor analysis results of the construct of promotion. 

Code Factors and observed variables Loadings Eigenvalues Percentage 
of variance 

Factor: Promotion practices 
PP1 The university provides clear and consistent 

requirements for promotion. 
0.713 4.199 52.483 

PP2 The university treats you fairly and equitably with 
regard to promotion. 

0.786 2.239 27.988 

PP3 The university is fair and equitable in its treatment of 
management. 

0.856 0.670 8.372 

PP4 The university provides opportunities for career 
development. 

0.851 0.292 3.645 

PP5 The university supports ongoing professional 
development. 

0.790 0.279 3.482 

PP6 The university provides promotional opportunities. 0.779 0.157 1.963 
PP7 The university acknowledges the long hours you devote 

to work. 
0.405 0.124 1.554 

PP8 The university rewards excellence in performance 
through a promotion system. 

0.470 0.041 0.514 

Total variance explained by motivation 100.000 
Note: Extraction method: Principal component analysis. KMO measure of sampling adequacy = 0.754, Bartlett’s chi-square 2304.44 with 28 D.F., p < 

0.05, and bartlett’s test of sphericity = 0.000. 

 
The PCA result is shown in Table 3. No element of promotion practices was rejected. The whole factors 

showed good internal reliability and were validated for additional analysis. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) 
measurement assumption was satisfied. The relevance of the investigation was underscored by the KMO value 
of 0.754. The importance of factor analysis was further underlined by the significance of the Bartlett test of 
sphericity. 
 

Table 4. Results of regression analysis. 

Factor/Model Unstandardized 
coefficients 

Standard 
error 

t-statistic Sig. 

Constant 0.636 0.187 3.397 0.001 
The university provides clear and consistent 
requirements for promotion 

-0.090 0.070 -1.300 0.195 

The university treats you fairly and equitably 
with regard to promotion 

0.556 0.087 6.425 0.000 

The university is fair and equitable in its 
treatment of management 

-0.309 0.081 -3.807 0.000 

The university provides opportunities for 
career development 

0.254 0.093 2.732 0.007 

The university supports ongoing professional 
development 

-0.237 0.135 -1.756 0.080 

The university provides promotional 
opportunities 

0.660 0.109 6.037 0.000 

The university acknowledges the long hours 
you devote to work 

0.003 0.098 0.031 0.976 

The university rewards excellence in 
performance through a promotion system 

0.039 0.081 0.488 0.626 

Model parameters 

R2 0.571 
Adjusted R2 0.559 
F-value (Sig.) 48.394 (0.000) 

Note: Dependent variable: Workers’ performance. 

  



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The findings of the regression analysis are shown in Table 4. The findings showed that four factors of 
promotion practices had a significant relationship with workers’ performance at the University of Abuja. The 
university treats you fairly and equitably with regard to promotion had a positive effect on employees’ 
performance at the University of Abuja. The university is fair and equitable in its treatment of management 
had a negative impact on employees’ performance at the University of Abuja. In addition, the university 
provides opportunities for career development exerted a positive influence on employees’ performance at the 
University of Abuja. Furthermore, the university provides promotional opportunities had a positive effect on 
employees’ performance at the University of Abuja. The findings revealed that promotion practices explained 
57% of employees’ performance at the University. The good fit of the model was underlined by the F-statistic 
of 48.394 and its significance estimate of 0.000. 
 

5. Conclusion and Recommendations 
Four out of the eight promotion practices did not have a significant effect on employees’ performance at the 

University of Abuja. These are as follows: the university provides clear and consistent requirements for 
promotion, the university supports ongoing professional development, the university acknowledges the long 
hours you devote to work and the university rewards excellence in performance through a promotion system. 
In addition, three promotion practices had a positive effect on employees’ performance at the University of 
Abuja.  These are the university treats you fairly and equitably with regard to promotion, the university 
provides opportunities for career development and the university provides promotional opportunities. 
However, the university is fair and equitable in its treatment of management had a negative impact on 
employees’ performance at the University of Abuja. 

The study recommends that the management of the University of Abuja should continue treating their 
employees fairly concerning promotion to increase productivity. In addition, the university management 
should sustain their policies on promotions and career development. Furthermore, the management of the 
University of Abuja needs to review and reinforce the way it handles its management.  
 

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