Modelling the influence of managerial competence on managerial performance in the Ghanaian banking sector

Abstract

The importance of human resource for the success and growth of every organisation, including banks in developing economies, cannot be underestimated. The banking sector in Ghana, a developing economy, has recently faced some significant performance-related difficulties, such as suspending the licences of new banks, raising the minimum capital required, and recording fraud cases. These developments in the banking sector seriously questioned the managerial competencies of bank managers providing leadership roles to these banks in Ghana. It was for this purpose that this study examined the influence of managerial competence on the performance of branch and operational managers in the Ghanaian banking sector. The study sought to achieve, among other things, to explore how managerial competencies such as customer value management, interpersonal, leadership and intrapersonal relate to managerial performance in the banking sector of Ghana. The study adopted the quantitative approach from the positivist philosophical perspective and, specifically, the cross-sectional survey method. A sample of 127 branch and operation managers from the sixteen administrative regions of Ghana was drawn for the study. Data were collected with an adopted questionnaire and analysed with partial least square structural equation modelling. The study found a significant relationship between customer value management, interpersonal, leadership, intrapersonal, technical competencies and managerial performance in the banking sector. The relative importance of each of the five managerial competencies found was customer value management competence, interpersonal competence, leadership competence, intrapersonal competence and technical competence. The study concluded that managerial competence relates to managerial performance in the banking sector in Ghana. The implications of the findings of this study are that human resource managers in the banking sector should pay attention to these managerial competencies in hiring and developing managers for their branch and operational managerial positions in developing economies.