The Influence of Leadership Career Development on the Organizational Adaptiveness of Millennial Engineers in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry

Introduction: This study seeks to assess the attitude of millennial engineers towards leadership career development opportunities in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. It was conducted based on the gap in the literature of none existence of a framework that explains the organizational adaptiveness of millennial engineers in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

Method: This study adopted a quantitative descriptive and deductive approach. Based on the reviewed literature and the resulting conceptual model, 18 questions 5-scale Likert closed ended questionnaire was administered cross-sectionally to 250 participants selected through non-probability convenience sampling. First, a descriptive analysis of the mean and standard deviation for each question in the questionnaire was conducted. Second, both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were conducted with the main aim of understanding how the questions in the research instrument interacted to produce grouped factors and components. Third, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to identify high loading questions that define the millennial engineers’ organizational adaptiveness.

Results: The instrument retrieval was 89% successful with 86% fit for analysis. The results are summarized as follows: (1) leadership career development is a significant contributing factor in the work related attributes of a millennial engineer; (2)leadership career development aspiration is a significant factor influencing the organizational adaptiveness of a millennial engineer, provided the organization can offer him or her the opportunity to be creative; and (3)a millennial engineer’s organizational adaptiveness is not totally driven by aspiration for a higher leadership position, but partly on how the workplace dynamics matches his or her personality.

Conclusion: The conclusion was that the millennial engineer is one with a unique personality of strong leadership career ambition in an organization that offers avenues for creativity and a work environment that is free from harassment and gender biases.