Exploratory Factor Analysis of Prevailing factors Affecting Outsourcing Decisions for Maintenance of Physical Facilities: A Case Study of Nigerian Army University Biu

Abstract

The deficit of outsourcing decision guidelines for maintenance services of physical facilities has attracted an extensive debate in the extant literature. As until now, little is known about the prevailing factors influencing the outsourcing decision of maintenance of physical facilities in most of the African universities. The aim of this study is to adopt EFA analytical approach to identify the prevailing factors required and further measure the strengths of such dominant factors in predicting outsourcing decisions in Nigerian Army University Biu. A survey research design was introduced for the study and structured questionnaires were distributed to 104 respondents to assess each factor influencing the decision to outsource maintenance services in the Nigerian Army University Biu. The respondents who have opted to outsource several of their maintenance services to specialty contractors were asked to indicate their perceived level of importance for each of the identified factors. The level of importance of the factors and the groups was then measured using PCA with Varimax Rotation, which determines the factor loadings. The Exploratory Factor Analysis was used to determine the correlation of the factors using the factor loadings. Results pointed out similarity in perceptions of respondents for the prevailing factors and their strength across six groups of factors, namely, Strategic Factors, Economic Factors, Management Factors, Technological Factors, Function Characteristics and Quality Factors. Prior to this, however, KMO value was achieved at 0.860, which indicates sample size sufficiency. It is concluded that, six major constructs, containing 38 items, emerged from the EFA analysis. 30 of the items were found to be more significant and reliable predictors of outsourcing decision of maintenance of physical facilities in the Nigerian Army University Biu.