Implementation of the Human Capital Development Strategies for Employees in the Publicly-Funded Universities in Ghana: Myth or Reality

Abstract

The seeming inadequate implementation of human capital development strategies has been a major challenge facing public universities in Ghana. The study was therefore intended to investigate the implementation of the human capital development strategies. The mixed-methods research design, was used to collect and analyse the views of the respondents in this study. Data were collected from 291 teaching staff and 63 administrative senior members who were selected through the multi-stage sampling technique from a population of 4,282. The purposive sampling technique was used to select 42 key informants comprising Provosts, Deans, Head of Human Resource and Head of Finance in the universities for the study. Data were collected through the use of interview schedule and an interview guide. The data analysis was done using the SPSS (Version 20) software. The Chi-square test was used to examine the associations between the human capital development strategies and the organisational factors. Key informants interviews and documentary analysis were used to substantiate the findings. The study found that top management’s support and allocation of resources have positive associations with human capital development strategy implementation. It was concluded that strategy implementation in the publicly-funded universities is a reality as seen in the support by top management and the allocation of finance and other resources projected in their strategic plans. However, there are limits to the achievement of the reality due to funding inadequacies. It was recommended that the publicly-funded universities must diversify their mode of income generation to resource the implementation of their human capital development strategies.