National Cultures and Employee Commitment in Nigerian Organisations: Exploring Conflicts and Relationships

PhDThis PhD thesis explores how core national cultural values of ethnically diverse employees in Nigeria influence their understanding/views of organisational values and their commitment to these values. The study is motivated by the need to understand the impact of ethnic culture on employee value allegiance and how this translates into ethnic loyalty or organisational commitment within private sector organisations in culturally diverse and developing economies like Nigeria. Twenty employees from two wholly-owned Nigerian commercial banks formed the subjects of this research. Using a multiple case study design, based on interviews and vignettes, constructs which represent employees’ ethnocultural values and organisational values were explored in relation to employees’ accounts of workplace practices. This thesis extends the knowledge in cross-cultural management, specifically in a multi-ethnic sample, first by revealing how commitment might be experienced in different cultures and why, and second, by putting forward propositions for applicable culture-specific considerations which can enhance the cross-cultural applicability/adaptability of egalitarian organisational values in a culturally diverse and developing country such as Nigeria. The findings show that ethnocultural values and practices thrive in Nigerian organisations which espouse egalitarianism due to the inability of employees to translate implicit/explicit organisational values into required job/workplace practices. Also, the employees' consciousness of differences is sustained through organisational relationships based on status, and the social distance between managers and subordinates. Consequently, this research reveals a missing link between organisational structure on paper and the relationships which that structure presumably supports, in practice, in Nigerian Banks. This research also shows that the structural elements of an organisation can be disconnected from its attitudinal counterparts, which can have far-reaching implications, including negative consequences, for managing employees within organisations in a multi-ethnic context

A Bourdieusian Exploration of Ethnic Inequalities at Work: The Case of the Nigerian Banking Sector

© The Author(s) 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)This article draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s critical sociology to explore the socio-political processes through which social resources or capital are sought and ethnic inequalities negotiated, legitimated and enforced in a postcolonial work context. Applying Bourdieusian analysis to data from interviews and vignettes in the Nigerian banking sector, the constructs ‘ethnicised identity’ and ‘symbolic identity’ are developed to show how employees across ethnic divides and work hierarchies use symbolic ethnic markers to negotiate benefits and enforce control as a status-independent capital. Realising diversity management goals in multiethnic workplaces may, therefore, require refocusing initiatives from racial to ethnic inequalities and, consequently, from inter-group inequalities (ethnic membership) to intra-group discriminations (ethnic affiliation). This research suggests that a more nuanced, contextually sensitive perspective is necessary to address workplace inequalities linked to ethnic diversity in organisations with indigenous multiethnicities.Peer reviewe

Exploring Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Multiethnic Settings : A Context-Sensitive Approach

Organisations, worldwide, have introduced human resource management (HRM) and equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies to address the inherent disadvantages experienced by employees with diverse social identities in different national contexts. In this study, we draw on McCall’s comparative intersectional framework and Chadwick’s narrative methodologies on materiality and voice, to investigate employees’ experiences of EDI policies in a multiethnic setting. Vignette and interview data were obtained from employees in two banks, in the ethnically extremely diverse country of Nigeria, and analysed. Our findings suggest that EDI policies require a universal, widely acknowledged, core alongside specificities reflecting the context in which the EDI is to be enacted. Furthermore, we integrate and build on intersectionality, materiality, and voice to nuance and challenge EDI approaches and mutually supportive HRM policies in the Global South that may, in turn, have implications for the Global North and, particularly, multinational companies

Exploring equality, diversity, and inclusion in multiethnic settings: A context-sensitive approach

© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12441Organisations, worldwide, have introduced human resource management (HRM) and equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies to address the inherent disadvantages experienced by employees with diverse social identities in different national contexts. In this study, we draw on McCall's comparative intersectional framework and Chadwick's narrative methodologies on materiality and voice, to investigate employees' experiences of EDI policies in a multiethnic setting. Vignette and interview data were obtained from employees in two banks, in the ethnically extremely diverse country of Nigeria, and analysed. Our findings suggest that EDI policies require a universal, widely acknowledged, core alongside specificities reflecting the context in which the EDI is to be enacted. Furthermore, we integrate and build on intersectionality, materiality, and voice to nuance and challenge EDI approaches and mutually supportive HRM policies in the Global South that may, in turn, have implications for the Global North and, particularly, multinational companies.Peer reviewe

A Bourdieusian exploration of ethnic inequalities at work : the case of the Nigerian Banking Sector

This article draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s critical sociology to explore the socio-political processes through which social resources or capital are sought and ethnic inequalities negotiated, legitimated and enforced in a postcolonial work context. Applying Bourdieusian analysis to data from interviews and vignettes in the Nigerian banking sector, the constructs ‘ethnicised identity’ and ‘symbolic identity’ are developed to show how employees across ethnic divides and work hierarchies use symbolic ethnic markers to negotiate benefits and enforce control as a status-independent capital. Realising diversity management goals in multiethnic workplaces may, therefore, require refocusing initiatives from racial to ethnic inequalities and, consequently, from inter-group inequalities (ethnic membership) to intra-group discriminations (ethnic affiliation). This research suggests that a more nuanced, contextually sensitive perspective is necessary to address workplace inequalities linked to ethnic diversity in organisations with indigenous multiethnicities. Keywords: Bourdieu; diversity management; Ethnicised Identity; Inequality; Nigeria; Status; Symbolic Identity; Wor