Effect of strategic human resource management practices on performance of public Universities in Kenya – a need for hr-driven adaptive leadership

Abstract

As organizations cope with a myriad of operational challenges driven by the ensuing political and economic trends, the need for strategic human resource management has become pertinent.   It is in this context that this study addresses Adaptive Leadership and Societal Development. Like all other organizations, public universities in Kenya have human resource management units, which are meant to ensure optimal utilization of their employees as the most critical asset. However, the extent to which the leadership of public universities creatively adapt and leverage on their human resources towards the achievement of their mandates, should be a matter of great concern for the universities and their stakeholders. The two-pronged objective of this study was to determine the effect of strategic human resource practices (SHRMPs), singularly, as well as jointly, on the performance of public universities in Kenya. The bundle of SHRMPs conceptualized and tested is rigorous recruitment, staff training, reward strategies and performance management. The study was philosophically hinged on positivist ontology, mainly based on the resource-based theory, and designed as a cross sectional descriptive survey. Targeting all public universities in Kenya, data was collected from 31 public universities, aided by a self-administered questionnaire. Out of the 117 questionnaires distributed, 110 were returned, representing a 71% response rate. Descriptive statistics and linear regression analyses were used to analyze the data.  There was a statistically significant relationship between each SHRM practice in the studied bundle of SHRMPs, and performance of public universities in Kenya, rigorous recruitment being most impactful of the four practices studied. There is need for public universities to strategically prioritize and leverage more on their human resource management functions as represented by the bundle of four practices studied. This would potentially lead to improved performance, in terms of developing and delivering more and better learning programmes, achieving increased student enrolment rates, attainment of enhanced learner graduation rates, generate more research outcomes, as well as enhancement of the much-sought-after staff career promotion rates.  Thus, embracing strategic human resource management potentially presents a means to attaining and sustaining competitive levels of performance, towards becoming autonomously self-supporting, as expected.