Advances in transportation and communication have resulted in the ease of
migration of people across transnational borders and the internationalisation of
business organisations. These events have brought about changing workforce
demographics, intense global competition, and the quest for talents across the world.
These trends have made workforce diversity inevitable for transnational companies
(TNCs). TNCs operating in Nigeria face a peculiar problem as there are two layers of
ethnic diversity created by the country’s enormous diversity. The task of managing
the layers of diversity is complicated by the weak legal and institutional provisions for
the management of diversity in public and private firms. Also, there is a general lack
of awareness about diversity and inclusion (D&I) in Nigeria; hence, the field has
received scant attention from academics and practitioners. This study explored the
D&I policies and strategies adopted by selected subsidiaries of TNCs in Nigeria and
describes ethnic minority employee perception of D&I policies and the effects these
policies have on performance at the individual and team levels. To achieve these
objectives, it aims to provide answers to two research questions: “What are the
organisational policies and strategies that enhance diversity and the inclusion of
ethnic minority employees in TNCs; and how do D&I policies and strategies impact
the performance of individuals and groups within the organisation?” The study adopted the exploratory mixed-methods design to collect qualitative and quantitative
data for analysis. The qualitative data included the primary and secondary sources;
and involved semi-structured interviews with six senior managers in four subsidiaries
of TNCs and documentary analysis. While the quantitative data involved a survey of
133 employees across the four participating companies. The reflexive thematic
analysis method was used to analyse the qualitative data, leading to the generation
of themes; while the quantitative data were analysed using the descriptive statistical
technique. Findings reveal the presence of varying degrees of D&I initiatives among
the participating organisations, ranging from well-articulated and established
programmes in one company to medium range policies in two companies, and no
initiatives in one company. Findings also suggest a high level of inclusion of ethnic
minority employees at the group or team level and a low inclusion at the top
management level. Also, participants generally report a positive perception of the
relationship between workforce D&I and performance at both the individual and team level. Some of the variables used to indicate inclusion are access to information,
participation in group activities, membership of informal networks, participation in
decision-making and participation in meeting with supervisor and senior
management. Similarly, some of the performance variables include creativity,
innovation, timely completion of tasks and quality of work output. Finally, the findings
from the study contributed to filling the gap in the literature as well as empirically
highlighting the D&I policies operational in TNCs in Nigeria. The study recommends
that diversity policy-makers pay attention to the additional layer of diversity while
developing global policies for a more inclusive organisational environment. This
study has provided valuable insights into the policies and practices as well as
employee perception of diversity in light of the dearth of studies from the Nigerian
context. Despite some inherent limitations, it serves as a starting point that could
ignite the interest of other researchers and practitioners in the fields of diversity. / Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19193 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Utam, Kingsley U. |
| Contributors | Archibong, Uduak E., Walton, Sean |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, Faculty of Health Sciences, Centre for Inclusion and Diversity |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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