Modern Scientific Press

ABSTRACT: Variation order has been one of the serious issue that building construction industry has been battling with, the aim of this research are to identify factors that are responsible for this menace and to examine its effects on building construction project in southwestern Nigeria. Questionnaire method was used to extensively obtain the view of people, construction projects consultants, employers, contractor, tiller, carpenter, plumber, Iron bender, were consulted. The study was able to isolate more than seven causes of changes in order out of as many as 26 causes. Cost and time factor constituted the most visible consequences of variation orders in construction projects. These findings seem to agree with the view of experienced specialists. However, this research is restricted to building construction project, construction management problems is common within the developing countries, change of plans or scope by employer, error and omission in design, differing site conditions and contractor???s financial difficulties were some of the critical factors causing variation order in building construction projects. Safety performance index, non-safety performance index and spearman rank correlation coefficient were used to carry out the analysis, generally, these result shows a low correlation between owner and the contractor while that of the employer and contractor is as high as 97%. It was observed that change of plans or scope by employer, error and omissions in design and owners??? financial problems were the critical factors that cause the existence variation orders in building construction projects We hope that this work will give a sensitive clue towards reducing [if not totally eradicating] variation order by the owner, planner and executors of building construction projects in Nigeria.

ABSTRACT: The scope of the current study was to investigate the impact of flexible HRM Practices on the employee retention with mediating role of employee creativity and psychological empowerment. The unit of analysis for the study is nursing staff employed in different government and private hospitals of Pakistan. Total response rate of the data collection is 91%. Sample size of 272 was faced as restraint. Sampling technique is convenience based and data collection is cross-sectional. The study has its originality as an integrative model formulated with the combination of these variables has not been tested earlier specifically in hospitals of Pakistan. Results of the study indicate that the HRM Practices (job security, flexible work arrangements, incentive & pay and skill training) have a significant and direct relationship with employee retention with effective mediating role of psychological empowerment and employee creativity. 04 HRMP selected for current study out of 14 were faced as a limitation. However, the organizations should encourage flexibility in HRMP and ensure formulation and implementation of employee concerned policies and procedures which will resultantly assist in employee retention. The study has its significance for policy makers, managers, supervisors and employees at all levels.

ABSTRACT: School examinations including Physics have been fraught with biased questions. Equality in the nature of examination questions is not attained between focal and reference test-takers. This makes assessment of the learners??? knowledge of subject content, no matter the instructional strategy deployed a mirage. This study therefore is an attempt to produce a psychometrically gender-neutral Physics achievement test, using differential distractor functioning approach. Ex-post-facto was the design adopted. A sample of 153 senior secondary school Physics students was determined through random sampling with replacement from Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State. Dichotomously scored Physics achievement test (PAT) with high face and content validities was the instrument used. The internal consistency of PAT using Kuder-Richardson???s formular-21 was .71. Data were analyzed using multinomial log-linear procedure in r.3.4.3. The result indicated that out of sixty items presented for calibration, fifty-one of them fit multinomial log-linear model. It was recommended that the fifty-one valid items should be used for school Physics examination.

ABSTRACT: This study assessed the impact of job stress on employee performance in the Nigerian Banking Industry. Pressure induced stress, workload induced stress and target induced stress were parameters of job stress. Three hypotheses were tested in this study: pressure induced stress, workload induced stress and target induced stress were hypothesized as having a relationship with employee performance in the Nigerian Banking Industry. The sample size for the study was 300, while only 250 questionnaires were used for the data analysis. Results from the regression analysis showed that pressure induced stress, workload induced stress and target induced stress are related to employee performance in the Nigerian banking industry. It was recommended that organizations should redesign jobs to reduce workload, set realistic targets that can be achieved and improve the quality of services to reduce pressure on employees.