The implications of human resource practices on employee commitment at the University of KwaZulu-Natal institution of higher education.

Abstract

While organisational commitment has been discussed frequently in organisational psychology for approximately four decades, insufficient studies have involved higher learning institutions’ professionals. This study looks at Human Resource (HR) practices along with their implications in the educational industry. It focuses on HR practices and their application in South Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), one of Africa’s leading higher educational institutions as well as one of the top 3% of universities worldwide. The goal of the study was to examine the implications of Human Resource practices on employee commitment at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Objectives were achieved through a survey using a cross-sectional design. This study implemented a quantitative, positivist paradigm, which included questionnaires designed with quantitative questions to collect data. Respondents’ experiences of HR practices and employee commitment were obtained through the administration of surveys such as the discretionary and transactional HR practices measure, which was developed by Gavino, Wayne and Erdogan along with the Mowday et al. Organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ). Data collected was analysed using statistical data analysis, SPSS. The use of statistical data analysis proved appropriate due to its coherence with the epistemology of the research, as it was a good tool to ascertain overall inclines as well as links in the data without tainting it with the partiality of the researcher. This assisted the researcher to amass adequate data to derive a conclusion. Moreover, to limit the study to a focused area, the author conducted this study only with employees at the School of Management, Information Technology & Governance (SMITG), Westville Campus, UKZN, with a sample size of approximately 80 staff members across the executive management, school leadership, academic and professional / support workforce, N= 80; S= 66. The results showed a correlation between HR practices and employee commitment in the sampled institution of higher education, with training and developmental opportunities as the two main discretionary HR practices (DHRP) that contributed to the commitment of employees. The transactional HR practices (THRP) with the highest correlation to employee commitment were benefit enrollment and information provided by HR, as they account for 25.3% of the variance in commitment each, and thus constitute 50,6% of the predictors of employee commitment. Furthermore, findings showed that discretionary HR practices account for 54.1% of variance in employee commitment (R 2= .541), F (1, 74) = 87.376, p<.0005). This suggests that discretionary HR practices are a significant predictor of organisational commitment (β =1.042, p<.0005). From this, the study concludes that discretionary HR practices play a greater and a more significant role in ensuring and enhancing employee commitment and are the chief predictors of commitment amongst employees.