Information Management Practices and Job Performance of Secretaries in Public Polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria

Information explosion has become the order of the day in every organization. With the emergence of ever dynamic technologies, secretaries are expected to upgrade their skills of information management practices to enrich their performance. This necessitates enquiry into influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria. The descriptive research design was adopted in the study and the population comprised 648 secretaries from both federal and state polytechnics in six states of South-west, Nigeria. The sample size was 242 which was determined using the Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination table. A stratified proportionate sampling technique was used to determine the number of questionnaires that was given in each of the institutions. Results showed that the level of information management practices of secretaries under examination is moderate with a mean of 3.32. There was a significant influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria (Adj.R 2 = 0.328, F (5.212) =22.191,p< 0.05). The study concluded that information management practices have significant influence on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria. It was therefore, recommended that management of polytechnics in South-west Nigeria should provide training sessions for secretaries to enhance their information management skills. Workshops should be mounted on the use of software tools, managing emails, and organizing digital files efficiently among others


INTRODUCTION
Job performance refers to the job or activities carried out by employees as a part of their contributions to the achievement of organizational success.According to Okorie (2015), job performance encompasses all of the behaviors that employees exhibit when working, and it may be conceptualized in three dimensions as a function of outcomes, behavior, and personal attributes.The level of job performance is measured through evaluation which is the systematic way of determining the worth, quality, importance and relevance of a program with a view to rating, correcting, improving or changing the system or program (Abosede & Akintola, 2015).It is often displayed that performance of employee is the ability expressed in technology.Secretaries are trained individuals who operate in offices to fulfill the administrative needs of business executives.They manage a variety of responsibilities and tasks, including operating technological tools, gathering and organizing data for reports and memoranda, keeping confidentiality, disseminating information about administrative policies, securing data, writing and dictating specific letters, performing any other tasks assigned by management, and managing the organization's records (Olatunde, 2023).
One of the factors that could influence job performance of secretaries is information management practices.Information has been taken to be relevant to all aspects of human endeavor.It is very valuable to social promotion, economic development, political enlightenment, technological advancement, knowledge enrichment and decision-making process.Access to information is, therefore, crucial because, it allows everyone to seek, receive and impart information effectively.Secretaries are saddled with responsibility of managing information.Their ability to identify needed information, acquire, organize, disseminate it to appropriate quarters for maximum use will go a long way to help the organization's management in better decision making.
The operation of polytechnic is not left out from the demand for effective information management practices from her employees because the operation of educational institution is basically informative.Demand from students, faculty and staff continue to increase and take new dimension.Consequently, the polytechnic as one of the highest cadres of learning in the educational system where large volumes of information are handled in offices for operations needs information managers who are up to the task.(Hussein, Nasserddine & Younis, 2023).Secretaries being information managers must adapt to the changes in order to be effective and enrich their performance hence, the reason for this study.This article will examine the relationship between information management practices and the job performance of secretaries in polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria.Within this context, the various facets of information management practices will be explored such as identification of information need, information acquisition, organization/storage, distribution and use.The paper will examine how these variables impact the daily tasks which secretaries are known for.By understanding the significance of information management practices, polytechnics can empower their secretarial staff to excel in their roles and contribute to the overall success of the institution.

Statement of the Problem
The job performance of secretaries is very essential in every organization simply because of its ripple effects on how executives dispel both their academic and administrative roles effectively.In the era of information management practices, the IT environment has been found to be stressful for secretaries due to inability to use technological facilities efficiently, job repetition, work overload, information overload, poor working conditions and so on.This, therefore, continues to dwindle the performance of secretaries and consequently has negative ripple effects on organizational general performance.Few studies have been conducted on how to enhance the information management among secretaries, however, the dearth of empirical studies on information management practices in tertiary institutions has poised this study to investigate how this variable influences the job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in south-west Nigeria.This is the gap the study filled.

Objective of the study
The main objective of this study is to examine the influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria.The specific objectives are to: i. identify the level of information management practices by secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria; ii. determine the influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria.

Research question
1. What is the level of information management practices of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria?Hypothesis H01.There is no significant influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria.

II. METHODOLOGY
The study adopted the descriptive survey design.

Secretaries and Information Management Practices
Information management practice is indispensable among the numerous roles that secretaries play in the technology driven organization of nowadays.Bulks of information are usually generated in polytechnics institutions of learning to show the evidence of operations from their various departments and units Abdulrazaq (2015).Nigerian polytechnics possess huge amount of information on administration, students, researches, financial information and other academic activities, hence, there is need for good information management practices to enhance institutional growth.(Abdulrazaq, 2015).The Federal government of Nigeria established polytechnics with the aim of training technicians, technologists as well as managing different courses leading to award of ND, HND and professional diploma.The skills and competency being acquired by these calibers of professionals go a long way to promote the sustainability of the nation's economy.This implies that it is very germane to keep records of events and activities in such an institution so as to promote research and growth of the institutions to enhance national development (Muhammad, Mannan & Farash, 2021).Though all the cadres of employees generate information but it is pertinent to know that secretaries play indispensable roles in information management practices in every organization.
Based on this, they need to be equipped both mentally and digitally.
The 21st century is an information era and good information management practices need to be put in place if any organization must keep thriving.Information management practices is the process by which information is received or collected in form of data, organized, sorted, disseminated, stored for proper use and later disposed.Information management practices (IMP) is a saleable aspect of endeavor which concerns the management of all business records all through their life cycle (Tagbotor, 2015).Sipior (2017) believes in his own opinion that information management practices anchor on information technology and the primary functions are to change raw data acquired from both external and internal sources into information; such information constitute reports that could be used to make better decisions by different departments in an organization.Information management practices ensure the instant availability of information to the potential users through an effective records management and it is essential to know that records usually contain bulks of information which need to be managed efficiently.
Information management practices is very important in the administration of polytechnic institutions as the process involves the application of technology and procedures which ensure that meaningful information is made available within the reach of the user for achievement of institutional aims and objectives.Information will be effective when it is significant to the desire of the organisation.Similarly, it must be accurate, reliable, consistent and timely.These features of information can only be achieved with the effort of effective and competent information managers among who are secretaries (Robertson, 2015).However, effective information management practices can only be achieved through a link of interrelated activities like identification of information needs, information acquisition, information organization/storage, information distribution and information use.
Information Needs: Information needs will always identify the type of problem on ground, as well as the type of solution needed and where such solution could be found.The identification of information needs begins with an analysis of tasks performed by key decision makers and the environment of the organization, and key decision makers are found to be at the top of the organization, among middle managers and tactical employees (Kalio, & Zeb-obipi 2018).The need arises when employees seek relevant information pertaining to a specific task and thereafter it will have the required information to assist with decisionmaking or to solve a problem.This will denote what type of information needed; why the information is needed and how the needed information will be used (Ngirigacha1, Wasike & Gichuhi, 2019).Secretaries as well create and acquire information within an institution from various processes like word processing of documents, typing and sending of an email, construction of a spreadsheet, taking minutes of meeting, entering of transaction within the institutional system, receipt of documents among others (Pari & Tamar, 2022).Institutions like polytechnics generate data on their students' admission, details of their staff, and the methodology of teaching.This array of information is needful for smooth and effective operation of the institution.Once the need for information is identified, it is important and required to devise the means of acquiring it.
Information Acquisition: Inevitably, in this information age, institutional secretaries should have a good ability to collect and integrate institutional operation information, and can accurately evaluate the operation, which can help the management to make better decisions (Shuo & Yulin, 2021).Secretaries acquire information from the analyzed data for effective job performance.The ability of secretaries to acquire relevant, timely, reliable, current, sufficient, accurate and complete information is very important in efficient and effective decision-making (Popoola, 2009).Before information can be created there must be needs for it.Information acquired need to be organized and stored and distributed to the appropriate quarters for right use.

Information Organisation/Storage:
Organisation of information enables employees to save documents and records that result from organizational activities for future reference.The institutions are getting advanced in the storage of information with the emergence of technologies, hence information organisation is moving forward to organize information better for easy accessibility for the users (Ezeonwurie & Ugwoke (2021).Relevant information is usually stored and frequently consulted for valuable decision making for the sustainability of the institution.In the polytechnic institutions today, secretaries are scheduled with the tasks of effective collection, organisation, saving and sharing of information to the potential users.A secretary is expected to organize and keep documents, records and files of the institution.Keeping documents, records and files organized is another important task that secretaries can be expected to perform.
In polytechnic institutions there are various systems of storing information.Equipment like file folder, shelve and cabinet are used to keep paper documents in the records office.Database is another efficient tool used to store pool of organized information.Operation and management of database is usually carried out by trained personnel like secretary.Other devices like flash drive, compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD), memory card and phone are useful in storing documents.Some organisations prefer storing information with cloud for the sake of security and easy accessibility.This enhances outsourcing backup plans, servicing of server and the availability of information to the provider.It could as well reduce the costs and enable employees to concentrate on other better tasks (Ali, Muhammad & Adrian, 2023).Today's secretaries are exposed to office technology including the internet that makes work much more amicable and information more accessible.It is now easier to send and receive messages by telex, electronic mails (e-mails), fax and telephones (Onu & Amadi, 2020).Consequent upon this, the institution must make it a point of duty to put the necessary apparatus in place for proper documentation of records which could serve its standards.
Information Distribution: Once information is organized and stored it is ready for dissemination to the potential users.Distribution is determined by identifying the information needed.Identifying information needed indicates the kind of data that must be acquired.Organisational culture usually determines the modality for sharing information in both business organisations and educational institutions.This denotes that information stored should be manipulated to conform to the organisation's format before being disseminated to the right quarters for effective use in the organization (Carlos Alberto & Carlos, 2015).
Information Use: This is what happens immediately after information shared in the organization has been received by the user.Acquired information must be ensured to conform to organizational format, appropriate for management decision making, useful for further action as well as relevant to serve other purposes.Individual employee can use the acquired information to add to his own knowledge or share it with others or across the organization.It may be used to solve the current problem and to create new ideas (Wilson, 2007).A secretary must take note of these information and data, and exhibit her competence by using them to procure rapid development of institution as a professional.

Challenges Faced by Secretaries in Information Management Practices
Poor information management practices among secretaries and between secretaries could inhibit the growth of the institution.This could be consequent to most of its objectives and goals that were not met due to the fact that certain employees such as secretaries are unable to efficiently manage or produce the information needed for the institution to make an informed decision.This could however hinder the institutional performance.Traditional method of records keeping has given birth to evolution of information management practices with the introduction and application of sophisticated technology (Laudon & Laudon, 2018).This era ushers in the introduction of devices like computers to manage information which means that secretaries should embrace the change as well.Today's secretaries are exposed to office technologies including the internet that makes information more accessible.Messages are sent and received by telex, electronic mails (e-mails), fax and telephones (Onu & Amadi, 2020).However, it could be found that most of the secretaries of today fail to embrace the change hence, find it difficult to efficiently operate these sophisticated tools.Consequent upon this, they need series of workshops and training to get them acquainted to the operation of the new office automation like the internet, database management system, information storage systems, and other new software applications as this will heighten their level of performance (Oladeji & Afolabi, 2021).On the other way round, inadequate modern facilities, poor power supply, inadequate knowledge based, and required skills have been the big challenges that secretaries are encountering in their bid to practice effective information management (Oladeji & Afolabi, 2021).This assertion has buttressed the opinion of Okoli, 2019, who believed that inability of the secretaries to efficiently exhibit the required modern technological skills being used in today's offices has really jeopardized their job performance.

Empirical Review
Extant literatures have been revealed on the influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries.Yan & Ying (2022) conducted a study on the impact of information management practices on employee performance and found that for electronic information management practice to be effective, it is needful to constantly edit information regarding the employee by means of regular verification which will help in generating various reports on the employee.Employee update system being a fractional part of information management practices is ascribed with editing and updating of employee details when the need arises.The updates also include items such as the scores for appraisal, reports generation, other documents necessary for the update exercise e.g.recent job description, recent training, additional qualification.It is important to spell out the effective date of each item for update.
In a study conducted by Mensah & Adams (2014) on the influence of information management practices on job performance of employees using the descriptive survey and purposive sampling, the author found that effective information management practices call for blending different plans from various departments together.There is need to invest in information management and be further guided by intelligence techniques, policies, strategy and needs.The policies are the procedures by which information management practices are guided, hence, the workforce must generally embrace them and consistently apply them in the course of discharging administrative duties.In a similar study conducted by Opoku & Enu-Kwesi (2017) on the evaluation of information management practices in organisations in Ghana using the descriptive survey design and purposive sampling technique.The sample size comprised 939 employees.It was confirmed in the results that Ghana has many other organisations which their operations are being guided by information management strategies and policies, as evident in the presence of staff and departments who were obliged to manage information and databases.Nonetheless, generally, heads of information management departments were counted out of strategic management teams, and a large number of the organisations manage information with traditional methods.Despite the shortcomings, the respondents preferred the present state of information management practices in their organisations, and that no disparity was found between the public and private sectors in terms of information management practices.The authors recommended that the organisations should intensify efforts on managing their databases with technology as well as including the heads of their information management department in the strategic management teams.
In another similar study conducted by Kalio and Zeb-obipi (2018) on information management practices and human resources on employee performance in oil and gas sectors in Nigeria using the descriptive survey and correlational study.The total population size of 217 was examined for this study and a sample size of 141 was obtained via the Taro Yemen's formula.Questionnaires designed and distributed to the personnel/human resources staff of 4 leading oil and gas organizations in Port Harcourt metropolis.The quasi-experimental method was used in this survey to determine the influence of employee-information systems, human resource procurement and employee performance.Result revealed that there was positive significant relationship between information management practices and employee performance.The author concluded that the employee's information management practices is becoming more relevant in Nigeria.Technology has tremendously changed and transformed information management practices from parochial system to skillful and conventional method.Nigeria organisations are being developed to compete with a digitized world that offers an undisputed modern method of human resource procurement.It was recommended that organizations should implement information management practices in order to improve human resource procurement activities in the organization.

Theoretical Framework
This study is anchored on the Process model of information management.Process model is a balance of workflow diagrams and descriptions of workflows.The diagrams are so germane because they provide the construct for people's understanding of the text.Process model describes specific events within a single organization.Orlikowski formulated process model by using both primary and secondary sources of qualitative data as well a grounded theory analysis method.The model outlines five metamorphic stages in the evolution of work in a large company's customer service department (Shaw & Jarvenpaa, 1997).The events that are contained in process model are sequential; which means, one occurs after another.

Source: Organizations as "Information-use Systems": A Process Model of Information Management
The process model, shown above explains information management as a sequential cycle of five interlinked activities: identification of information needs; information acquisition; information organization and storage; distributing information; and using information (Choo, 1995).Information needs could arise from problems or events on ground.According to Jacqueline (2016), the organization's behaviour complies with newly acquired information to adapt and act for effective ways of gathering the demands of the situation as it changes.Consequently, information acquisition tends to please the needs of the information that has been identified.A functional depository should be created for the arrangement and storage of acquired information in order to enable retrieval and sharing of information in future.Information is distributed to facilitate sharing of vital information needed for organizational knowledge creation, and decision making (Immorlica, Leshno, Lo & Lucier, 2020).This will enable the users of information to perform their tasks efficiently.Once information has been distributed to the potential users, it could be used to accomplish different purposes within the institution.It may be used to add to or confirm their own knowledge, create new ideas and subsequent new information outputs.share with others in a team or across the organization, and apply to the solution of a current problem.
It is assumed that Choo's process model can indeed assist secretaries to get over the peculiar problems identified with information management practices life cycle, ranging from a lack of information life cycle management, stress encountered by institution to produce easy flow of useful information among the employees and high usage of systems and a low productivity caused by poor management of information through its lifecycle in the organization (Jacqueline, 2016).Furthermore, using IT as an enabling tool to manage information, secretaries will be able to use systems to create, organize, store, disseminate and use information.The process model has facilitated the need for secretaries to be well trained and equipped both mentally and technologically to acclimatize them to these processes in order to be able to perform efficiently.This is because, as information managers, they take the center stage of an organisation and assume major responsibilities for managing the information/records.

IV.
RESULTS   The results showed that information storage was ranked the highest with a mean of 3.37 and was followed in succession by information usage 3.23, information acquisition 3.22, information distribution 3.14 and lastly, information needs 3.06.The Table showed that the grand mean for information management is 3.203 and based on the decision scale, suggest that the respondents rated high the statement representing information management practices such as Information Needs, Information Acquisition, Information Organisation, Information Distribution, and Information Use.This implies that the level of information management of secretaries under examination is moderately high nonetheless, there is room for improvement which can be achieved when secretaries attend regular workshops and seminars to update their knowledge on the job, ensure the use of teleconferencing to coordinate official meetings, prepare slides and setting up projector during presentation, and engage in periodical training on the use of technologies.All of these should improve the capability of secretaries to managing information better.
Hypothesis one: There is no significant influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria The results in Table 3, shows that information management practices have strong positive and statistically significant relationship with the job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria.(R = 0.586, p<0.05).The results also show that information management practices positively and significantly influence job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west, Nigeria (Adj.R 2 = 0.328, F(5.212)=22.191,p<0.05).This implies that information management practices accounts for or explains 32.8% of the variations in job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in Southwest, Nigeria; while the remaining 67.2% changes in job performance of secretaries would be attributable to other exogenous variables not considered in this study.Further analysis concerning the regression coefficient revealed that a positive and statistically significant relative influence was reported for only information acquisition and information organization (β=0.257,p<0.05; β=0.405, p<0.05) respectively.However, information need (β = 0.052, p> 0.05), information distribution (β = .084,p> 0.05), and information use (β = -0.097,p> 0.05) exert no significant relative influence on job performance of secretaries working in these institutions of higher learning.This implies that information acquisition contributes 25.7%, while information organization contributes 49.5% to job performance of secretaries in South-west, Nigeria.Also, looking at the results of regression coefficients in table 3, they indicate that at 95% confidence level, a unit change in information acquisition will lead to a 0.134 increase in the job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria, given that all other factors are held constant.Also, a unit change in information organisation will lead to 0.260 increase in the job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria, having been that all other variables being unchanged.On the strength of this result, this study rejects the null hypothesis one (H01) which states that information management practices will have no significant influence on the job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria.

V. DISCUSSION
The research question revealed that the level of information management practices of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria is moderately high as already asserted by Yan & Ying (2022).This implies that the level of information management of secretaries under examination is moderately high.Nonetheless, there is room for improvement which can be achieved when secretaries attend regular workshop and seminars as recommended by Oladeji & Afolabi (2021).This would enable them to update their knowledge on current skills required in a modern office, such as the use of teleconferencing to coordinate official meetings, preparing slides and setting up projector during presentation (Laudon & Laudon, 2018).
There is need for secretaries to engage in periodical training on the use of modern office technologies.All of these suggestions should improve the capability of secretaries to manage information better.These findings agree with a study of (Moriasi and Muturi, 2019) which aimed at examining the impact of information management on performance of public institutions in Kisii County.The study adopted descriptive survey design with population of 200 which consisted top managers and heads of department.Questionnaire was distributed to the respondents by the researcher to elicit relevant information.Weighted averages and percentages were used to analyze data collected.It was found that information management positively affected performance.Nevertheless, it is needful to provide more training to enhance employees' efficiency.The process of effective communication among different sections of an organization as well as workers who are affected by the process of change stands to be an important factor that could aid the successful implementation of the change process.
The hypothesis showed that there is significant influence of information management practices on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in South-west Nigeria.
The finding corroborates the study of Kusuma & Dalam (2022) who examined the effect of advances in information technology, management participation, and work motivation on employee performance at PT Cladtek Bi-Metal Manufacturing Indonesia.The administrative and managerial sections are so critical in the course of determining the company's performance.The performance of employee improves when factors like information technology, management participation, and work motivation are put into consideration in the process of accomplishing tasks.It is inferred from results of this study that advances in information management have a significant positive effect on performance of an employee.The authors concluded that the variable -information technology progress has a positive and significant influence on employee performance.

VI. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings of the study, it could be inferred that when secretaries are able to manage information properly, they tend to be more productive at their places of work.It could be concluded, therefore, that information management practices have significant influence on job performance of secretaries in public polytechnics in Southwest Nigeria.
Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that: 1.For effective information management practices, secretaries could be encouraged on transition from paper-based documentation to digital systems.Implement a centralized electronic document management system to store and organize files, making it easier to search for and access information.

2.
Secretaries should ensure that sensitive information is protected with strong passwords and access controls.They should regularly back up data to prevent loss in case of technical failures.
3. Management of polytechnics in South-west Nigeria should provide training sessions for secretaries to enhance their information management skills.Offer workshops on using software tools, managing emails, and organizing digital files efficiently.
4. Polytechnic management should establish clear policies for information sharing among secretaries and other staff members.This will ensure that sensitive information is only accessible to authorized individuals.

Table 1 :
Demographic information of the Respondents

Table 2 :
Descriptive Analysis of Responses on the level of Information Management Practices