Analytic Investigation of Mediating Mechanisms in Human Resource Management Practices on Kenyan Public Universities’ Organizational Outcomes

Strategic HRM research has shown that the use of systems of HR practices intended to enhance employees’ knowledge, skills, abilities, motivation, and opportunity to contribute, is associated with positive outcomes such as greater commitment, lower turnover, higher productivity and quality, better service performance, enhanced safety performance, and better financial performance. Despite the robust evidence for the positive relationships between HRM and various organizational outcomes, important issues remain regarding the mechanisms through which HRM is associated with different organizational outcomes. This study develops an integrative model of the mechanisms mediating between HRM and Kenyan public universities’ organizational outcomes through a meta-analytic approach. It draws on the behavioral perspective on HRM, human capital theory, and the resource-based view of an entity, and aims to extend and refine existing HRM-organizational outcomes models by exploring multiple mediating paths and differentiating among the effects of sub-dimensions of HR systems. The HR dimensions had significant and positive effects on human capital. The results of Z-tests show that the regression coefficient of skill-enhancing HR practices was significantly larger than the coefficients of motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing HR practices. Moreover, the analyses of relative weights indicate that skill enhancing HR practices explained the largest percentage of variance in human capital, followed by motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing HR practices. Similarly, significantly positive effects of the three HR dimensions on employee motivation were established. Consistently with prediction, the influences of motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing HR practices were significantly stronger than that of skill enhancing HR practices. Motivation-enhancing and opportunity-enhancing HR practices respectively explained the variance of employee motivation, whereas skill-enhancing HR practices were as well explained. Mediation results were found that confirmed the prediction that the three HR dimensions have both direct effects and indirect effects through human capital, employee motivation, voluntary turnover, and operational outcomes on financial outcomes.