Effect of Human Resource Management on Operational Efficiency of Universities in Kenya

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Operational efficiency facilitates an organization to increase profitability, improve competitiveness, increase productivity, use freed up capacity and position business for growth and increase organizations’ prospective market significance. The effects of information systems are often indirect and are influenced by environmental, organizational, technological, and human resource factors. The objective of this study was to establish the effect of human resource management on operational efficiency of universities in Kenya. Operational efficiency is defined as aligning resources with core mission and services, reducing fragmented, duplicative operations, and goal of increasing service levels of an organization To maximize organization’s operational efficiency, it is paramount that more dependable means of dealing with the organizational, technological and environmental variations related with IS projects be established. Understanding how teaching, research, extension and prudent utilization of public resources allocated to universities contribute to the overall efficiency of university operations is of great importance for universities to improve their performance. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proven to be reliable for appropriately assessing the efficiency of university operations due to its capability of effectively handling the multiple input and output simultaneously in a given situation. This study attempted to establish whether a combination of appropriate IS and HR coupled with institutional factors may lead to enhanced operational efficiency of an organization. Given the pivotal role universities play in the development of a country, this study adapted a multi-theory paradigm to outline a socio-technical information system implementation and organizational change for improved efficiency. To achieve the overall goal, hypothesis were formulated and tested. The interaction effects and relationships of the constructs were specified using SEM diagrams comprising of measurements and models. A cross sectional survey was conducted on all the universities charted in Kenya. A census survey was employed since the total population was considered relatively low and could further be reduced by possibility of non-response. A total of 102 questionnaires were dropped to the 34 universities which had approved the request. Out of the 102 questionnaires, 70 responses were received for a response rate of 68.6 percent. On examination of the completeness of the questionnaires, 11 were found to be incomplete. To complete the missing values, a sub-group mean value replacement function and linear interpolation methods were used. To test for reliability of the individual construct items Cronbach’s Alpha test was used. The results indicate that human resource management practices have a negative effect on the universities’ operational efficiency in Kenya. A major implication of this study is that human resource management practices in universities be improved. Additionally, the findings have implications on the formulation and implementation of IS innovations policy. Keywords: Operational efficiency, Human Resource Management, Data envelopment analysis DOI: 10.7176/JIEA/11-2-07 Publication date: June 30 th 2021