Demographics and District Managers’ Commitment to Inter-organisational Collaboration during Disasters’Management in Ghana

Abstract

This paper aims at examining whether the demographic features of public managers make a difference in terms of their commitment to inter-organisational collaboration in Ghana during disasters’ management. Using quantitative method, questionnaires were distributed to 195 public district managers from Ashanti region but with a return rate of 87%, 170 managers responded to the questionnaires. The data were analyzed using SPSS software (Version, 22). In analysing the data, descriptive frequencies, analysis of variance with Independent-samples t-test and one-way ANOVA, together with the Pearson’s correlation analysis were employed to present the study results. Additionally, to further understand the extent of the various demographic factors’ influence on managers’ commitment to inter-organisational collaboration the regression analyses were performed. From the bivariate analysis, the demographic variables used were: educational qualifications, age, gender, tenure, and marital status. The empirical results suggested that indeed inter-organisational collaboration is influenced by the demographic characteristics of district managers. In particular, the extent of inter-organizational collaboration was found to be influenced positively by gender, tenure of office, age and educational qualifications but negatively influenced by their marital status. It was therefore recommended that in order to ensure effective inter-organisational collaborative activities amongst public managers during disasters, the individual characteristics should be taken into consideration in the strategic plans of public organizations.