Abstract

Current researches show that strategic human resource management practices are important for enhanced
corporate performance of private sector organizations (e.g. Katou and Budhwar, 2006; Dimba and K’Óbonyo,
2009), but little has been reported on the effect of these practices on public sector organizations. This paper
attempted to cover this gap by examining the effect of strategic HRM practices on the effectiveness of
public sector organizations. 255 civil servants cutting across thirty ministries and agencies in Niger state were
sampled. Using correlation and multiple regression analysis, the results indicate that strategic HRM is
moderately practices by ministries and government agencies in Niger State. Results also found that strategic
human resource management alignment with overall government objectives; line management devolvement,
training and development, compensation, career planning system and employee participation are the most
important strategic HRM practices that impacted more on organizational effectiveness in the public sector.
The paper therefore recommends that government should consider the benefits of integrating their HR
function with the overall government strategy and operations and that special attention should be given to the
training of non-personnel officers in HRM in order to achieve the objectives of devolvement.
Introduction
Governments that desire to be effective are increasingly realizing that of the varied factors contributing
to the attainment of set goals and objectives, the human resource is the most critical. Physical assets,
such as facilities, products and services or technologies can be cloned or imitated by another organization.
Human assets cannot be duplicated and therefore, becomes the competitive advantage that an organization
enjoys.143 The development of any nation, therefore, depends to a very large extent on the calibre,
organization and motivation of its human resources. In the specific case of Nigeria where diversity exerts
tremendous influence on politics and administration, the capacity to increase the benefits and reduce the
costs of this diversity constitutes a human resource management challenge of epic proportion. How well an
organization performs its mission and accomplishes its goals of program service delivery is of paramount
concern. Improving administrative capacity and especially, those aspects dealing with human resource offer
the most challenge for improving organizational effectiveness. Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM)
enhances employee productivity and the ability of government agencies to achieve their mission (Jules and
Holzer, 2001). Integrating the use of human resource practices into the strategic planning process enables an
organization to better achieve its goals and objectives. Civil service systems are designed to integrate the
multiple goals pursued by the public sector. While bureaucracy in the public sector can inhibit the adoption of
progressive human resource practices, they are not the necessary rigid barriers to change. A lot of studies
(e.g. Bowen and Ostroff, 2004; Singh, 2004; Katou and Budhwar, 2006; Dimba and K’Óbonyo, 2009) examining
the effect of strategic human resource management practices on organizational performance have been
conducted most especially in the developed countries. But, most of these studies were actually based on the
operations of big private business organizations. How public sector responds to strategic HRM practices is still
an unanswered question in the literature. This study fills the identify gap by evaluating strategic HRM
practices in the public sector.
The Problem and Objectives
The performance of organizations has been the focus of intensive research efforts in recent times. How
well an organization implements its policies and programs and accomplishes its strategic intent in terms of its
mission and vision is of paramount concern. Managers in both private and public organizations are becoming
increasingly aware that a critical source of competitive advantage often not come from indigenous product and
services, best public relations strategy, state-of-the-art technology but from having an appropriate system of
attracting and managing the organization’s human resources. Despite the large bulk of literature on strategic
HRM produced since the late 1990s, there is very little solid evidence on the ways in which various types of
human resource management strategies and practices are shaped in practice in public organizations and how
their synergistic effect can impact on organizational effectiveness. Majority of the studies on strategic HRM
(mostly US based) focused on the impact of strategic HRM practices on organizational performance of big
business organizations. There is, therefore, a dearth of research on the relationship between strategic HRM
practices and organizational performance in the public sector. Consequently, this is an area ripe for research
and the filling of this gap is, therefore, the basic problem that this research work is designed to resolve.
The general objective of the study is to examine the effect of strategic HRM practices on organizational
effectiveness in the public sector. Other specific objectives of the study are to:
a. Determine the extent to which strategic human resource management is practice by public
organizations in Nigeria;
b. Examine the degree of relationship among the individual strategic human resource management
practices;
c. Examine the relationship between individual strategic human resource management practices
and organizational effectiveness.
Research Questions
The study seeks to provide answers to the following research questions:
a. Is there any relationship between strategic HRM practices and organizational effectiveness in the
public sector?
b. To what extent is strategic HRM practiced by public organizations in Nigeria?
c. Do public organizations that strategic approach to HRM experience better performance
outcomes?
d. How can strategic HRM contribute towards the overall improvement effectiveness of the public
sector?
Research Hypotheses
In order to provide answers to the basic questions raised above, the following hypotheses which are
stated in their null form were tested in this research work:
Hypothesis One
Strategic HRM practices have no significant effect on organizational effectiveness.
Hypothesis Two
Strategic HRM is not practiced by public organizations in Nigeria.
Hypothesis Three
There are no significant relationships among the individual strategic HRM practices.
Hypothesis Four
There is no significant relationship between individual strategic HRM practices and
organizational effectiveness.
Scope of the Study
The scope of this study is limited to the administration of the Chief Servant, the current Governor of
Niger State (i.e. May 2007 to Date) who popularized the concept of mission and vision statements in
the Niger State Civil Service. Though, the general objective of this study is to examine the effect of
strategic HRM practices on organizational effectiveness public sector organizations in Nigeria, only
senior civil servants working in the core government ministries were considered. The study does not
cover senior civil servants working in parastatals and other government agencies. The justification for
this is that ministries are the engine that is supposed to drive government business and ineffectiveness
of government policies and programs can directly be traced to the actions or inactions of employees
working in these ministries.
Another reason is that some parastatals’s HRM practices may differ from those of the core
ministries. For example, performance and compensation systems in the state owned tertiary institutions
are significantly different from those of the core ministries.
Review of the Literature
The Nature of Strategic Human Resource Management
Strategic Human Resource Management implies a managerial orientation that ensures that human
resources are employed in a manner conducive to the attainment of organizational goals and mission.
The concept of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) evolved in the 1990s with an
increase emphasis on a proactive, integrative and value-driven approach to human resource
management (Schuller,1992). Strategic HRM focuses on several issues including the fit between
human resource management practices and organizational strategic goals, the integration of human
resource management in the organizational strategic management, the involvement of human resource
function in senior management teams, the devolvement of human resource practices to line managers
and taking of strategic approach to employee selection, compensation, performance appraisal and the
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value that is added to the organizational performance by HRM. It has also been defined as the pattern
of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its
goals (Wright and McMahan, 1999). The latter definition highlights the two important dimensions that
distinguish SHRM from traditional HRM. It links HR practices with the strategic management process
of the firm vertically and horizontally, it emphasizes that HR practices are integrated and support each other.