Abstract This paper will discuss the effect of specialization on acting agility and the moderating effect of meaningfulness of work on the relationship between the two in the oil and gas companies of Nigeria. Although the industry generates high economic values, the firms experience dynamic challenges, which demand quick and efficient response in the operations. The issue dealt with is the ongoing difference between the technical specialization and the capacity of organizations to respond quickly, as well as ambiguous evidences of how meaningful work focuses this connection. Cross-sectional survey design was adopted by use of data on 384 managers working in large upstream oil and gas companies. Two hypotheses were tested by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through SmartPLS. The results indicate that specialization leads to a great improvement in acting agility, and it proves that profound knowledge increases responsiveness. Nonetheless, the relationship is moderated negatively by work meaningfulness, which means that, meaningful work of high meaning will decrease the rate at which the specialized employee is responsive. The researchers find that despite the agility enhancement of specialization; its impacts differ depending on the meaning of employees. It has been suggested to enhance role-based specialization and create work systems with meaningfulness and agile routines.Keywords: Specialization; Acting Agility, Work Meaningfulness; Organizational Structure; Organizational Agility; Nigerian Oil and Gas Sector.
Gborogbosi et al. (Sun,) studied this question.