Cultural Drift in Akwa Ibom North – West Senatorial District, Nigeria: Strategic Implications for Businesses

Cultural drift is defined as the slow, eventual, unregulated altering of a society, with its unique traditions, morals, and behavioral trends, in time, which eventually takes a system to a uniform (monoculture) state. It has been argued that forces of globalization account for this. Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria was once a unique cultural setting with its peculiar cultural values like dress code, music, religion, agriculture, etc. Over the years, all these sets of cultural values have given way to a somewhat universal (monoculture) pattern. The study sought to investigate the effects of cultural drift on the performance of businesses in Akwa Ibom North-west senatorial district, Nigeria. For the general elections of 2019, the number ofregistered voters in the senatorial district was 655, 525. (Daily Post, February 26, 2019). A pilot study showed that about 45% of the respondents were 50 years and above (the sector intended to use for the study).Therefore, 294986 respondents were the estimated population for the study. Godden (2004) formula, given by; SS = z2 x p (1-p)/M2, was used to obtain 350 sample for the study. Findings of the study revealed that there is a recognizable incidence of cultural drift in Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial district. This manifests in the area of food, clothing, language, and religion. Forces of globalization such as commerce, education, communication, and religion have caused the drifts. Therefore the relationship between globalization and cultural drift in the hypothesis tested significant at 0.01 levels (2-tailed). And it was concluded that there is actually a clear case of cultural drift in Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial district caused by globalization. It was recommended that culture of the people should form part of curriculum of studies at primary school system to create in the young children a positive image of their culture. Government should market their culture through the internet and parents should encourage their children to eat local food, speak local language, and attend cultural festivals of their places. This will preserve their culture and block the route toward extinction through cultural drift and thereby not reduce the businesses that focus on the local industries to mere museum images.