BOARD DIVERSITY AND OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY OF DEPOSIT MONEY BANKS IN BAYELSA STATE, NIGERIA

This study investigated the relationship between board diversity and operational efficiency of Deposit Money Banks in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Board diversity was proxied by gender diversity, age diversity and professional diversity, while operational efficiency was treated as a single construct. The study was anchored on the Resource Dependence Theory and the Institutional Theory, and was guided by the positivist philosophy. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. The population of the study comprised 280 staff of the sixteen Deposit Money Bank branches in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, from which a sample of 162 respondents was drawn using the Krejcie and Morgan sample size determination table, with the Bowley proportional allocation formula and the stratified random sampling technique deployed to distribute the sample across the banks. A structured five-point Likert-scaled questionnaire served as the instrument of data collection, and 140 correctly completed copies were used for the analysis. The hypotheses were tested with the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modelling technique via SmartPLS 4.1.1.1 at a 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed a weak positive but not significant relationship between gender diversity and operational efficiency; a strong positive and significant relationship between age diversity and operational efficiency; and a weak positive but not significant relationship between professional diversity and operational efficiency. The study concluded that age diversity is the dominant board diversity driver of operational efficiency among Deposit Money Banks in Bayelsa State, while gender and professional diversity do not, on their own, significantly improve internal operational processes. It was recommended, among others, that the management of Deposit Money Banks in Bayelsa State should deliberately constitute inter-generational boards that blend the operational wisdom of older directors with the technological fluency of younger directors, in order to optimise internal processes and sustain operational efficiency