International Journal of R&D Innovation Strategy

Volume 1 • Issue 2 • July-December 2019

Impact of Workplace Diversity

on Employee Performance
A Case of Some Selected Private
Universities in Ghana
Juliana Serwaa Andoh, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4766-2469

Benjamin Ghansah, Data Link Institute, Ghana

Joy Nana Okogun-Odompley, Data Link Institute, Ghana
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2286-3291

Ben-Bright Benuwa, Data Link Institute, Ghana

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3085-706X

ABSTRACT

The authors explore how the milieu of workplace diversity affects the relationship between employee
and performance. In particular, we theorize and empirically examine the moderating effects of four
(4) categories of diversity context variables: age, gender, ethnicity, and educational background. The
authors perform analyses on 175 out of 320 respondents consisting of academic and administrative
staff of four selected private universities in Ghana. The results showed, for example, that workplace
diversity has an overall influence on employee performance, however, educational diversity has more
effect on employee performance in the universities compared to the other competing variables used
in this study. Age and educational diversity had a significant impact on employee performance in the
universities whilst gender and ethnicity diversity had no influence on their performance. We discuss
future research directions regarding diversity, workgroup context, and performance outcomes and
outline some recommendations for administrators and university leaders.

KEyWoRDS
Organization, Performance, Private Universities, Workplace Diversity

1. INTRoDUCTIoN

With the world that is changing or revolving constantly, diversity management has become a popular
term used in modern society and management practice. Many organisations around the world have
developed policies that aim to promote and manage diversity. Diversity management refers to the
voluntary organizational actions that are designed to create greater inclusion of employees from various
backgrounds into the formal and informal organizational structures through deliberate policies and
programs (Hays-Thomas, 2004; Kaiser & Prange, 2004; Nyambegera, 2002; Özbilgin, Mulholland,
Tatli, & Worman, 2008; Palmi, 2001; Shifnas & Sutha, 2016).

DOI: 10.4018/IJRDIS.2019070103
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Emuze and James (2013) are of the view that organisations which adopt diversity as a source of
innovation, growth and development are more likely to show behavioural support and facilitate its
implementation with greater focus, persistence, and effort. With respect to current realities threatening
organisations today, it might be concluded that workforce diversity may create opportunities or pose
challenges to the workplace (Osita-Ejikeme; Ugwuzor, 2014). In a Nation like Ghana with various
ethnic nationalities and dialects, as well as different social and religious backgrounds, the subject
of diversity in the workplace, particularly among groups, cannot be over emphasized. The study
therefore seeks to find out the relationship between workplace diversity and employee performance.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Concept of Diversity

According to Green, López, Wysocki, and Kepner (2002) citied from Esty, Griffin, and Hirsch
(1995), diversity is defined as recognizing, accepting, accommodating, appreciating, and celebrating
differences among people with reverence to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability,
race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice, and public assistance status whilst Naqvi, Ishtiaq, Kanwal,
Butt, and Nawaz (2013) defined diversity as the existence of a workforce in which personalities come
from different socio-cultural and religious backgrounds.
Workplace diversity is similarly defined as intergroup relations, which play out alongside one
another in communication and interaction. It develops a host of complexities related to diversity
(Brouwer & Boros, 2010). Lee and Gilbert (2014) further clarified that workforce diversity based
on age, gender and ethnicity cannot be viewed in a similar way as workforce diversity that is based
on organisational roles and individual aptitudes.
Roberge, Lewicki, Hietapelto, and Abdyldaeva (2011) was of the opinion that managing a diverse
workforce is complicated and thus needs organisations’ total attention in terms of implementing
proper and clear practices that will enhance the performance of the organisation in the short and long
term. In addition, Mahadevan, Primecz, and Romani (2014), explained that dysfunctional workforce
diversity management arises due to lack of communication between management and employees on
how workforce diversity benefits the organisation.

2.2 Concept of Employee Performance

According to Okoro and Washington (2012), employee performance is the effective discharge of duty
for which one is hired. That is, how well an employee is fulfilling their requirement for the job. In
the words of Tinofirei (2011) as citied by Zhuwao (2017), employee performance is the “successful
completion of tasks by a selected individual, as a set and measured by a supervisor or organisation,
to pre-defined acceptable standards, while efficiently and effectively utilising available resources
within a changing environment”.
Mwatumwa (2016) sees employee performance as a self-perceived performance of an employee
in doing their day to day activities

2.4 Workplace Diversity Challenges

Embracing diversity solely cannot help organisations achieve success; organisations need to manage
it well (Farrer, 2004). According to Oyewunmi (2018), a major challenge of the diverse workforce is
the omission of certain individuals or groups grounded on differences such as, gender; age; ethnicity
or cultural affiliation; religion; social class; disability etc.

2.5 Gender Diversity

Gender diversity implies psychological disparities and experience that socially or culturally
attached to being a male or a female within the organization (Ali, Kulik, & Metz, 2011). Connell

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and Messerschmidt (2013) view gender as the description of masculinity or femininity of people.
According to Ngao and Mwangi (2013), gender often plays a significant role in affecting employee
performance, performance ratings, and related human resource decisions.
Ivanova-Stenzel and Kübler (2011) in their research examined the influence of gender differences
in teamwork and team competition using wages. They discovered that performance depended on both
the combination of gender and incentive scheme not just the incentive scheme. They also identified
a gap between the performance of men and women; men performed better than women when paid
according to joint output and when the competition is between teams of the same gender. They
advised that combinations of incentive scheme and gender composition in teams should be avoided.
Some researchers also indicate that the absenteeism rate among women is higher than men,
which requires the development of initiatives to manage diversity to overcome these problems, such
as flexible working hours initiatives and telework. Jayne and Dipboye (2004) argued that gender
diversity does not automatically bring positive result such as increased motivation, improved talents,
build commitment, and decline conflict.

2.6 Age Diversity

Backes-Gellner and Veen (2009) define age diversity as generational differences among individuals
or employees in a corporation and the values and perspectives attached to each. People tend to share a
place with their generation no matter the experience they share (Akpakip, 2017). Johnson and Johnson
(2010) and Zemke, Raines, and Filipczak (2013) view generation as a set of individuals born and
living in the same period, who have mutual attitudes, preferences, knowledge and experiences that
affect their thoughts, values, beliefs and behaviors. Pitt-Catsouphes, Matz-Costa, and Besen (2009)
categorised the age group present at work into six, namely: traditionalists (born before 1946), older
boomers (born 1946 to 1954), younger boomers (born 1955 to 1964), older generation X’ers (born
1965 to 971), younger generation X’ers (born 1972 to 1980) and generation Y/millennials (born
after 1980).
Backes-Gellner and Veen (2009) observed that age diversity can negatively affect productivity
due to differences in the values and preferences of distinct age groups. Joshi and Jackson (2003)
observed that there was no impact of age differences on reports of work group or objectives measure
group performance.
However, Boehm and Kunze (2015) disputed that an age heterogeneous workforce yields a host of
numerous skills, intellectual styles, morals, and preferences that may result in increased productivity.
Josef (2010) was of the opinion that older employees have the tendency of opposing change and due
to advancement in age, they might have failing memories and are more likely to be absent from work
due to ill health and injuries, which could be the result of their being less energetic and enthusiastic
unlike the younger employees. Additionally, since jobs are performed the same way by all the different
generations of employees of an organisations, the unwillingness of the older employees to learn new
skill and acquire new knowledge affect decline in work capacity and performance The resulting effect
of these are the main causes for their decline in work capacity and performance (Akpakip, 2017).

2.7 Ethnicity Diversity

Ethnic diversity refers to the heterogeneity in the mother religion, languages, cultures and races that
exists among employees in a firm (Hoogendoorn & Van Praag, 2012). Rasul and Rogger (2015) claim
that ethnic diversity has an effect on productivity by influencing how people feel motivated about
their jobs, the level of efficiency in the firm, employee satisfaction with their job and the quality of
products and services that a firm produces.Østergaard, Timmermans, and Kristinsson (2011) observed
that ethnic diversity boosts creativity and innovativeness in the firm by expanding the perspectives
and viewpoints in the firm. Please cite refrences to suggest that it can also decline same.

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2.8 Education Background Diversity

Conferring to Combs (2002), organisational leaders implement educational diversity initiatives in
efforts to motivate and encourage individuals to work effectively with others so that organizational
goals are achieved. Tracy and David (2011) in their study about the effects of education background
diversity towards the employee performance in Britain found that employers commonly reject
employing employees whose training, experience, or education is judged to be inadequate.
bestowing to Eduard (2010), employees who are less educated are prone to suffer inferiority
complex which affect their performance to a large extent. He argued that such employees who develop
a persistent feeling of being inferior end up feeling socially insecure and less confident at work. He
concluded that the lack of confidence would greatly damage their performance and could even make
them develop a negative attitude toward other employees and the entire organisation.

2.9 Diversity and Employee Performance

Chew, Lee, Tan, and Tee (2011) investigated the effect of work force diversify (gender, age, ethnic
and education background of the employees) on employee performance. The results showed there
is increased performance in a diverse workforce. They observed that age diversity has no influence
on performance.
Selvaraj (2015) in his study “The Effects of Work Force Diversity on Employee Performance in
Singapore Organisations” was of the opinion that workforce diversity yields positive benefits when
properly managed; if not, it could lead to negative results. His analysis revealed that age, gender and
ethnicity had no statistically significant impact on the performance of employees. He recommended
that human resource programmes suggested by the employees to improve the effectiveness of workforce
diversity should be worked on.
Magoshi and Chang (2009) in their research found workforce diversity to be a significant factor in
explaining a variation in employee performance. Whilst Mwatumwa (2016) in his research found out
that workforce diversity does not influence employee work performance at the County Government
of Mombasa as ethnicity, gender and educational background did not portray significant effect on
performance, positively nor negatively.
Maingi and Makori (2015) showed that, work diversity in terms of education and ethnicity had
and influence employee performance. They however suggested that there should be effective policies
and strategies regarding the education background diversity and ethnic diversity in the workforce for
better employee performance.

3. METHoDoLoGy

The population of the study consisted of academic and administrative staff of four (4) selected private
universities in Ghana (Table 1). The questionnaire was developed to measure diversity on the basis
of instruments used by Chew et al. (2011). The sample size was selected using Krejcie and Morgan
(1970) sample size determination table for a finite population. A sample size of 175 out of 320 was
utilized for the study. The sample for individual universities was attained by implementing the stratified
sampling technique which ensures better coverage of the population.
The questionnaire comprised of three sections. Section 1 consisted of demographic attributes
like gender, age, level of the respondents and institution. Section 2 comprised of questions related
to gender, age, ethnicity and educational diversity measured on a 5-point Likert scale anchored by
“Strongly Disagree” (1) to “Strongly Agree” (5). Section 3 comprised of questions related to employee
performance also measured on a 5-point Likert scale. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS) was used to calculate the Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Multiple
Regression Analysis.

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Table 1. Population and sample size

Universities Population Sample

Data Link Institute 86 46
Fountain Head University College 69 38
Central University 122 67
Methodist University College 44 24
Total 320 175
Source: Field work (2019)

Ethical issues that were taken into account in this study were respecting the rights of the research
participants, acknowledging the research sites and reporting the research fully and honestly (Stuart &
Barnes, 2005). Participants were informed about the nature and purpose of the study. The researcher
sought the consent of the participants and assured of their confidentiality and anonymity of the
information that was given. The study was done in four Ghanaian private universities due to proximity
as the four universities were in the same community. Provide geographical location.

4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIoN

4.1 Demographic Analysis

Sharma (2004) states that demography is the study of the size, territorial distribution, and composition
of population, changes therein, and the components of such changes, which may be identified as
natality, mortality, territorial movement (migration), and social mobility (change of status).
The distribution presented in Table 2 shows that approximately 68.6% of the respondents are males
while 31.4% were females. It can be deduced from the pattern that majority of the respondents were
males. The age distribution indicates 23.4% of the respondents were within 20-29years, 52% were
within 30-39years and 24.6% were within 40-49years. From the pattern, majority of the respondents
were within 30-39years.
The ethnicity of the respondents shows that 9.7% of the respondents were Gas, 19.4% were
Fantes, 11.4% were Ashantis, 16.6% were Ga Dangbe, and 13.7% were from other ethnicities. The
educational level of the respondents showed that 37.7% of the respondents have obtained bachelor’s
degrees, 53.1% have obtained master’s degrees and 9.1% has obtained doctoral which can be deduced
from the pattern that majority of the respondents have obtained master’s degrees.
The name of the institution of the respondents indicates that 25.3% of the respondents were from
Data Link Institute, 22% were from Fountainhead University College, 38.7% and 14% were from
Methodist University College.

4.2 Reliability Test

Cronbach’s Alpha and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure (KMO) of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s
Test of Sphericity was used to measure the reliability of the questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha is a
measure of the internal consistency of a test or scale (Taber, 2018). It is stated as a digit amid 0 and
1. A reliability coefficient of 0.7 or greater is considered acceptable. The Cronbach alpha of 0.908
shows that our instrument is reliable (Mohajan, 2017). This is shown in Table 3.
KMO and Bartlett’s Test to scrutinize sampling adequacy see whether the data was fit to use
factor analysis in data analysis. Table 4 shows KMO measure of sample adequacy as 0.671 which is
close to 1. Furthermore, Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity significant value of 0.000 was less than 0.05.

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Table 2. Demographics

VARIABLES RESPONSES PERCENTAGES

Gender Male 68.6
Female 31.4
Age 20-29years 23.4
30-39years 52.0
40-49years 24.6
Ethnicity Ga 9.7
Fante 19.4
Ewe 29.1
Ashanti 11.4
Ga Dangbe 16.6
Others 13.7
Level of Education Bachelor’s Degree 37.7
Master’s Degree 53.1
Doctorial 9.1
Institution Data Link Institute 25.3
Fountainhead University 22
Central University 38.7
Methodist University College 14
Work Experience 2-5years 19.4
6-10years 39.4
10-15years 25.7
More than 15years 15.4
Source: Field Work (2019)

4.3 Relationship between Workplace Diversity and Employee Performance

H1 there is a significant relationship between workplace diversity and employee performance

Pearson correlation analysis was conducted on workplace diversity and employee performance in
order to establish the relationship among the variables. The correlation shows that there is strong
positive relationship between workplace diversity and employee performance at the 1% level of
significance (Table 5). Therefore, an increase in workplace diversity would lead to an increase in

Table 3. Reliability statistics

Cronbach’s Alpha No. of Items

.908 39
Source: Field Work (2019)

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Table 4. KMO and Bartlett’s Test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .671

Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 599.086
df 10
Sig. .000
Source: Field Work (2019)

employee performance and a decrease in workplace diversity would lead to a decrease in employee
performance and its p-value (0.000) which is lesser than the level of significance (0.01) shows that
the relationship is statistically significant.

4.4 Relationship between Various form of Workplace

Diversity and Employee Performance
Table 6 shows the relationship between various forms of workplace diversity and employee
performance. It was observed that there was a moderate positive relationship between gender diversity
and employee performance. Thus, an increase in gender diversity will increase employee performance
and a decrease in gender diversity will decrease employee performance. Also, the relationship is
statistically significant as its p-value (0.000) is lesser than the level of significance (0.01) which was
consistent with Alghazo and Al Shaiban (2016) and Akpakip (2017) findings.
There was a moderate positive relationship between age diversity and employee performance.
This means that an increase in age diversity will increase employee performance and a decrease in age
diversity will decrease employee performance. Also, the relationship is statistically significant as its
p-value (0.000) is lesser than the level of significance (0.01) which was in contrast with Selvaraj (2015).
There was a strong positive relationship between ethnicity diversity and employee performance.
Thus, an increase in ethnicity diversity will increase employee performance and a decrease in ethnicity
diversity will decrease employee performance. However, the relationship is statistically significant
as its p-value (0.000) is lesser than the level of significance (0.01).
Finally, there a strong positive relationship between educational diversity and employee
performance. Thus, an increase in educational diversity will increase employee performance and
a decrease in educational diversity will decrease employee performance. Also, the relationship is
statistically significant as its p-value (0.000) is lesser than the level of significance (0.05) which was
consistent with Akpakip (2017) findings.
Table 7 generated the specific regression equation as

Table 5. Correlations

Employee Workplace Diversity

Performance
Employee Performance Pearson Correlation 1 .897**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 175 175
Workplace Diversity Pearson Correlation .897** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 175 175
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Source: Field Work (2019)

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Table 6. Correlations

Gender Age Ethnicity Educational Employee

Performance
Gender Pearson Correlation 1 .399** .473** .668** .567**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 175 175 175 175 175
Age Pearson Correlation .399** 1 .386** .378** .509**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 175 175 175 175 175
Ethnicity Pearson Correlation .473** .386** 1 .866** .653**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 175 175 175 175 175
Educational Pearson Correlation .668** .378** .866** 1 .796**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 175 175 175 175 175
Employee Pearson Correlation .567** .509** .653** .796** 1
Performance
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 175 175 175 175 175
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Source: Field Work (2019)

EP = -0.050GEN+ 0.267AG- 0.231ETH+0.928EDU

The regression coefficient for gender diversity of employee performance (B1) = 0.050 implies
that 1% increase in gender diversity will decrease employee performance by 5% holding AG, ETH
and EDU constant and its P value of 0.417 which is greater than the 0.05 level of significance shows
that there is not enough statistical proof that an increase in gender diversity will decrease employee
performance and vice versa, thus the null hypothesis has to be accepted. This findings was in line
with YISRAK (2017) and Kerga and Asefa (2018) research and in contrast with Chew et al. (2011),
Eshegbe and Dastane (2015), Zhuwao (2017) and Akpakip (2017) findings.
The regression coefficient for age diversity (B2) = 0.267 implies that 1% increase in age diversity
will increase employee performance by 26.7% holding GEN, ETH and EDU constant and its P value
of 0.000 which is lesser than the 0.05 level of significance shows that there is enough statistical proof
that an increase in age diversity will increase employee performance and vice versa, thus the null
hypothesis was rejected. This was in harmony with (Alghazo & Al Shaiban) and contradictory to Chew
et al. (2011), Eshegbe and Dastane (2015), Zhuwao (2017) and Kerga and Asefa (2018) findings.
The regression coefficient for ethnicity diversity (B3) = 0.231 implies that 1% increase in ethnicity
diversity will decrease employee performance by 23.1% holding GEN, AG and EDU constant and
its P value of 0.011 which is lesser than the 0.05 level of significance shows that there is enough
statistical proof that an increase in ethnicity diversity will decrease employee performance and vice
versa, thus the null hypothesis was rejected. This was comply with (Maingi & Makori, 2015) and
Kerga and Asefa (2018) results
The regression coefficient for educational diversity (B4) = 0.928 implies that 1% increase in
educational diversity will increase employee performance by 92.8% holding GEN, AG and ETH
constant and its P value of 0.000 which is lesser than the 0.05 level of significance shows that there is

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Table 7. Regression Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Standardized t Sig. Collinearity Statistics

Coefficients Coefficients
B Std. Error Beta Tolerance VIF
1 (Constant) 2.504 2.785 .899 .370
Gender -.067 .083 -.050 -.814 .417 .475 2.106
Age .991 .177 .267 5.599 .000 .786 1.273
Ethnicity -.357 .139 -.231 -2.564 .011 .220 4.539
Educational 1.161 .131 .928 8.852 .000 .163 6.144
a. Dependent Variable: Employee Performance
Source: Field Work (2019)

enough statistical proof that an increase in educational diversity will increase employee performance
and vice versa, thus the null hypothesis was rejected. The omission of the constant value in the
regression equation shows that employee performance cannot be achieved in the study without the
influence of the independent variables. Chew et al. (2011), Maingi and Makori (2015) and (Akpakip,
2017) had similar findings whilst Eshegbe and Dastane (2015), Alghazo and Al Shaiban and Kerga
and Asefa (2018) findings were in contrast.
Finally, the tolerance value of less than 0.20 or 0.10 indicates a multicollinearity problem. In
Table 7 the tolerance values of all independent variables (0.475, 0.786 and 0.220) except educational
diversity (0.163) is greater than 0.20 tolerance value which shows that the tolerance level is moderate
and good and there is no problem of multicollinearity. The reciprocal of the tolerance is known as the
Variance Inflation Factor (VIF). The VIF of 5 or 10 and above indicates a multicollinearity problem.
The VIF values of independent variables also shows that there is no problem of multicollinearity as all
values except the educational diversity are less than 5, thus independent variables have no influence
on each other and will not influence the outcome of employee performance in the study.

4.5 Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of workplace diversity on employee
performance. The impact of workplace diversity was measured in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and
educational background. The results of the study are discussed below:
From the results, majority of the respondents were males. This was in contrast with Zhuwao
(2017) and Kossek, Lobel, and Brown (2006) findings.
With regards to ethnicity, there were various ethnicities in the Universities though the Ewes are
majority. One can resolve that the workforce is ethnically diverse at the higher education institution. The
institutions has an aged diverse workforce which was consistent with Kunze, Boehm, and Bruch (2011)
findings who claimed that age diversity has become an unavoidable feature of many organisations.
For educational qualification, Bachelor’s degree holders were the least of all. A study conducted
by Hoff (2014) found that organisations usually reject hiring people with insufficient educational
qualifications, for example primary and secondary qualifications. Gender diversity had a negative and
insignificant relationship. Age had a positive and significant relationship with employee performance
whereas, Kyalo and Gachunga (2015) had a weak negative and insignificant relationship between
age diversity and employee performance.
Ethnicity had a significant effect on employee performance which can be supported by Opstal
(2009) ethnic diversity can have both advantages and disadvantages for the organisation.
Educational diversity had a significant and positive relationship with employee performance.

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5. CoNCLUSIoN AND RECoMMENDATIoNS

A diverse workforce is an indication of a changing world and marketplace. Based on the overall
result, workplace diversity has an influence on employee performance, however, educational diversity
has more effect on employee performance in the Universities compared to other variables. Age and
educational diversity had a significant impact on employee performance in the Universities whilst
gender and ethnicity diversity had no influence on their performance.
The study recommends higher educational institutions to make use of common languages such
as English to cater for all different ethnic groups as this circumvents communication difficulties and
ethnic related conflicts.

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Juliana Serwaa Andoh is a senior assistant registrar at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
Benjamin Ghansah is a senior lecturer. Joy Nana Okogun-Odompley is a lecturer. My interests are in social
sciences research Ben-Bright Benuwa holds a PhD in computer science and Technology from Jiangsu University
after obtaining his master’s degree from Sikkim Manipal University and a BSc Computer science degree from
valley view university. He is currently the Academic Dean at Data Link Institute. His research area includes video
semantic analysis, sparse representation, multimedia applications, AI, and machine learning.

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