PROJECT TEAM DEMOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY AND PERFORMANCE OF RURAL ROADS CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS IN KENYA

Abstract

Technology sustainability in organisations is enhanced through creativity and innovation. By so doing, organisations are able to compete in turbulent markets and risky environments. With advances of technology, demographic diversity among the workforce has quickly become the greatest engine in business growth around the world since it enriches the workplace through broadening employee perspectives, strengthening their teams, and offering greater resources for problem resolution. Today’s workforce in organisations is a mix of different demographic factors. Most studies on demographic diversities among the workforce as well as emerging technologies have continuously resulted into inconsistent results on the direction and magnitude of their influence on performance of projects. The most affected include the construction of rural infrastructure projects especially roads due the role they play in supporting creativity, innovation and technology transfer in the rural areas and importantly demographic diversity is more pronounced. This paper therefore sought to establish the influence of age, gender, ethnicity and religion diversities of workers on performance of rural roads construction projects. The study was based on Kenya Rural Roads construction projects in Kenya. This paper adopted cross-sectional correlational survey design where structured questionnaire, interview guide and focussed group discussion were used in obtaining data from workers in rural roads construction projects. Descriptive and inferential analysis carried out indicated r= 0.788, R2 = 0.783, and F (1,195) = 319.256 at level of significance p=0.000<0.05. The null hypothesis was therefore rejected and concluded that there is a significant relationship between project team demographic diversity and performance of rural roads construction projects in Kenya. These findings indicate a thoughtful need to consider demographic diversity when constituting the project team to enhance performance in rural roads construction projects. This is therefore a clear evidence for government to draft policies to reaffirm the importance of project team demographic diversity in all its projects. For organisations and business practitioners, this paper recommends that firms should establish a robust system that records, collates, analyses, evaluates and recommends the best practices on effective implementation of diversity initiatives. This study recommends further study that would identify all demographic