EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES AND EMPLOYEE INNOVATIVENESS IN SELECTED UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTH-WEST NIGERIA

Abstract

Employee Innovativeness which is the ability to generate ideas, promote ideas and implement ideas in the teaching, and research in tertiary institutions can be achieved through workforce diversity management. Despite the researcher’s studies in the area of employee innovativeness and it relationship with workforce diversity, there are still dearth of studies that investigated it from the perspective of tertiary institutions. The inconsistency in the previous researcher’s findings and methodology adopted, create a gap to fill in the current study. Therefore, the broad objective, which was to investigate workforce diversity management and employee innovativeness among selected Universities in South-west, Nigeria, While the specific objectives are to examine the effect of inclusion, reward practice, equal opportunities, representation, policies and programs and employee innovativeness. The theory that anchored this study is the Resource-Based theory, which was propounded by Barney in 1991, thus emphasizing the need to exploit diverse backgrounds to create value for the organization. A descriptive survey research design was employed, and a population of 10,656 university managers and 2,048 employees (lecturers) were sampled using multi-stage sampling procedures. while the Data collected, were analysed using descriptive, and inferential statistics The demographic information of respondents were analysed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages. Research questions were answered using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation. Results showed that inclusion (X = 2.741) which implies that there is a positive relationship between inclusion and employee innovativeness, fair reward practice (X = 2.705) which also revealed that there is positive relationship between employee innovativeness, equal opportunities (X = 2.684) has a shown there is positive relationship between equal opportunities and employee innovativeness, and representation (X = 2.600) had a moderate relationship on employee innovativeness. However, for policies and programs (X = 2.469) which implies a negative relationship on employee innovativeness. The hypotheses were tested using inferential statistics such as linear regression at 0.05 level of precision. Descriptive Research analysis was used and linear regression was also adopted. workforce diversity management in areas of inclusion, fair reward practice, equal opportunities, representation, policies and programs and employee innovativeness in areas of teaching, research and publication were carefully outlined. The study's findings conclude that workforce diversity management which comprises inclusion, fair reward practices, equal opportunities and representation have a positive, significantly enhances employee creative ability within the Federal, State, and Private Universities. This is because diversity management practices can foster a culture of belongingness and psychological safety among lecturers, where diverse perspectives are valued, resulting to better creativity, innovation, problem-solving, and ultimately, enhanced performance of the institutions. The study recommends among others that the Universities should re-evaluate their approach by thorough assessment of the relevance of existing policies and ensuring that they effectively align with lecturers’ need so as to foster a culture strictly to boost and reward innovativeness.