Mediating Role of Employee Engagement on the Relationship between Organizational Culture and Employee Performance in Higher Educational Institutions in Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigates the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationship between organizational culture and employee performance within higher educational institutions in Adamawa State, Nigeria. While organizational culture has been widely acknowledged as a critical determinant of employee performance, limited empirical attention has been given to the psychological mechanisms through which culture influences performance in higher education, particularly in developing countries. Based on the Social Exchange Theory and the Job Demands–Resources model, this study proposes employee engagement as a key explanatory mechanism linking organizational culture to employee performance. Adopting a cross-sectional survey design, data were collected from academic and administrative staff across selected higher educational institutions in Adamawa State and analysed using Hayes’ PROCESS macro for mediation analysis. The results reveal that organizational culture has a significant positive effect on employee performance and also significantly predicts employee engagement while employee engagement was found to exert a strong positive effect on employee performance and to partially mediate the relationship between organizational culture and performance, as evidenced by a statistically significant indirect effect. These findings suggest that organizational culture enhances performance not only directly but also by fostering higher levels of employee engagement. The study recommends that the management of these institutions are to prioritize cultural practices and engagement-enhancing strategies as pathways to improving employee effectiveness and institutional performance. The study contributes to organizational behavior literature by empirically integrating Social Exchange Theory and the Job Demands–Resources model within a higher education context, thereby deepening understanding of how cultural and psychological factors jointly shape performance outcomes.