WORKFORCE DIVERSITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION OF FOOD AND BEVERAGE FIRMS: THE STUDY OF RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The paper notes on the relationship between workforce diversity and organizational innovation of manufacturing firms in Rivers State, Nigeria. Cross-sectional research design was adopted in studying thirteen (13) of these firms. Our respondents were managerial employees constituting the population of the study. From the field survey, we retrieved and analyzed forty eight (48) copies of the questionnaire from the participants; Structural Equation Modeling as a statistical tool from AMOS version 20.0 was used to determine the relationship existing between the variables while the p-value obtained was used to test hypotheses developed for the study. Findings revealed the existence of a significant relationship between the dimensions of workforce diversity namely; gender diversity, age diversity and marital status and organizational innovation. It was then concluded that practices directed at encouraging diversity and inclusion in the workplace are a healthy strategy to tap enormous benefits prevalent in the business environment as well as to remain innovative and competitive. This gave rise to our recommendations for the firms and other business organizations operating in this competitive business environment develop strategies directed at workforce diversity and inclusion to remain innovative satisfying their relevant stakeholder groups and competitive to survive the turbulence.