Theorising HRM in the Context of Nigeria’s Ethnic Diversity: An Institutional-Intersectional Framework

This study theorises a comprehensive framework for understanding how Nigeria's profound ethnic diversity intersects with institutional forces to shape HRM practices and outcomes in Nigerian organisations, filling a foundational theoretical gap in the African HRM literature. Nigeria's over 250 ethnic nationalities create an organisational environment in which ethnicity intersects with power, authority, identity, and resource allocation in ways that profoundly influence HR processes including hiring, promotion, team formation, and disciplinary action. The study employs a theory-building multi-case qualitative design, drawing on 60 in-depth interviews with HR practitioners, employees, and organisational leaders across 12 organisations in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna, and Calabar, representing multiple sectoral and geopolitical contexts. Discourse analysis, intersectional narrative coding, and theoretical abduction are combined methodologically. Institutional Theory, Intersectionality Theory, and Critical HRM Theory provide the multi-theoretic foundation. Findings reveal that ethnicity in Nigerian HRM operates through five intersecting mechanisms: ethnic patronage networks shaping informal hiring, ethnic salience modulating performance evaluation, ethnic coalition formation in collective workplace action, institutional isomorphic pressures from federal character and quota policies shaping formal HR systems, and ethnic identity intersecting with gender and class to produce compound HRM disadvantages. The study synthesises these findings into the Institutional-Intersectional HRM Framework, a novel theoretical contribution that advances beyond both universalist and simple cultural contingency HRM approaches. Practical implications challenge HR practitioners to recognise and actively manage ethnic intersectionality in all core HR processes. Keywords: Ethnic Diversity, Institutional HRM Theory, Intersectionality, Nigeria, Critical HRM.