By Dr Nobert Osemeke

When culture and values are poorly managed, the society is faced with favouritism, tribalism and nepotism in their different shades. Those who feel left out of the arrangement and most often feel cheated resort to some form of rent seeking. This has some form of what in Nigeria is regarded as the Omo oni’le (catchment area or ‘son of the soil’) syndrome, which manifests in agitation for resource control and in the extreme, there is the taking up of arms in some form of xenophobia like happened in South Africa some months ago when outlets owned by Nigerians were broken into and even destroyed by youths who felt they were been oppressed even in their fatherland by immigrants who seem to corner all the jobs available somehow. All you hear is ‘mine,’ ‘I,’ rather than ‘we,’ ‘they’ or ‘ourselves’.
Favouritism is when you work so hard for many years in a company with the intention of earning a promotion or being rewarded in the form of a pay rise, and suddenly the boss brings a relative, that is oftentimes less qualified, who, worse still, has very little or nothing to offer the establishment, and then places him/her above you, in a “take-it-or-resign” attitude.
Favouritism does negatively affect corporate governance, just as tribalism is a barrier to effective corporate performance.
There is likelihood of bosses not being disciplined enough to punish subordinates, whether from his/her ethnic stock or not, where they do, such persons often escape with less sanctions than others. In Nigeria, it is known that when a boss punishes his kinsman for bad behaviour, the victim reports such incidence to their community leaders at the village meeting.
In other instances, community leaders may question the staff to know the circumstances leading to the punishment, or even why the manager will punish a staff knowing that they are kinsmen who should watch one another’s back, rather than scolding the complainant for bad behaviour. Then, the manager is face-to-face with the possible loss of respect of their community leaders, which can affect his social status.
The community could even summon the manager before a panel headed by elders at a village square meeting to give reasons why he/she punished his/her kinsman, rather than address the wrong committed by the complainant. During the meeting, the poor manager is faced with questions like: Don’t you know he/she is our son/daughter?
It is worse where the manager in question has a political ambition sometime in the medium to long-term and would not want to offend these elders who could mobilise votes against him.
Different cultural background is a factor on its own because in Nigeria as a whole, ethnicity, tribalism, and ‘who you know’ do affect our mode of operations.
The bottom line is that these cultural values or the lack of them hamper our ability to achieve set goals, because we have difference in language, religion, due to the way we perceive issues. So every ethnic group wants to work in favour of its own tribe or religious inclination, rather than for the corporate good.
Most times it is not an overstatement that the MD/CEO would be biased in dealing with misconduct involving employees from his ethnic stock, compared to if the employee is from a different ethnic group or religious inclination.
These kinds of behaviour or favouritism exhibited by management can demoralise employees’ emotion when discharging their duties, leading to poor performance.
Worse still, not all companies place excellence over mediocrity; merit over favouritism. When people are favoured because of their ethnicity rather than their performance it affects the company’s system, because such entity hardly achieves the set goals. This is because the workers try to infuse certain socio-cultural values into the company’s policy and decisions.
This attitude of bringing socio-cultural values into the company’s policy is part of what is derisively tagged the “Nigerian factor,” just as tribalism is a major challenge facing corporate governance in Nigeria.
It is appropriate to put cultural issues aside when it comes to the working environment, while focusing on teamwork, realising that good corporate governance should be priced highly at all times to ensure the company’s long-term survival. If a team lead is able to remove sentiments and bias from the team, there is a possibility that he/she will achieve set goals and objectives. However, in a situation where the team lead is biased, there is the tendency that he will be favourably attached to certain persons at the expense of other members of the team. This would most likely result in disaffection, which then affects the overall performance of the team, because the one shown affection would most likely flaunt the fact that he/she is the favoured one or “oga’s boy”. There is no other explanation for this than that the team lead failed to ensure every member works with unity of purpose to achieve the set goal.
Those instances where the team lead is able to carry everybody along irrespective of background, promotes the desire of the team to deliver on the company’s mandate.
Therefore, the effect of culture is a function of the team lead and how he/she relates with subordinates. Even if some of the team members are trying to be sentimental, the team leader can address the emerging issue in such a way that favouritism or partiality is reasonable subdued, if not eliminated.
There was an incidence involving a staff member from one tribe, who was related to the company supervisor. Both communicated in their local dialect rather than in English, the official language whenever they were together. This employee was not hard working, and spent most of the time on the internet on non-work related matters. The manager, though aware, said nothing, but only cautioned them verbally, a situation that is unprofessional. But when another staff from a different ethnic group was caught in the act the outcome was unfavourable as the manager confronted the staff member. In most cases, he reports such to the management, complaining that the particularly employee’s pace of work was intolerably slow, and that he/she was not hard working and even inefficient
Although it is a problem all over the world, the rate in Nigeria is alarming, leading often to a high rate of staff turnover, especially for the very good hands.
Some members of staff want their work to speak for them and when what they do is not appreciated, or they are not treated fairly based on their performance, some of them become frustrated, leading to low morale and reduced job satisfaction, resulting in poor performance.
There are cases where decisions are taken in the workplace, no matter how fair the intentions there will still be the likelihood of sentiment being attached either knowingly or unknowingly. This means that every person has an attribute of sentiment which portrayed anytime to satisfy an outcome that goes against their wish.
This means that sentiments cannot be totally eradicated, but can be managed through the provision of training and enlightenment that will encourage teamwork and good corporate governance at work place and during decision making.
The ability of management to take a neutral position, listening and looking at issues objectively and critically in line with the company’s policies and strategies, should be encouraged in organisations as a way of guaranteeing its long-term survival. There is need for top management to pay attention to the views of their subordinates as they could bring about suggestions that when fine-tuned can significantly impact performance positively. Not paying attention to subordinates’ comments might be seen as their opinions not being made to count. Management should adopt a bottom-up approach to ensure the buy-in of the various cadres of staff, thereby helping implementation.
It is also important to note that the ethnic background of employees could be a function of the approach the leader adopts when handling issues that affect their subordinates. If ethnicity is not properly managed, it can affect the job function as well as the performance of the company.

Osemeke, a Senior Lecturer in Financial Accounting at Liverpool Business School, UK, holds a PhD in Culture and Corporate Governance.
Correspondence: : nobertosmek@yahoo.com