The main purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational commitment of academic staff in public universities. Because, good management of recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, supervisory support, training and development, compensation and employment relationships are interpreted positively by employees and this in turn enhances organizational commitment. The study employed a cross-sectional survey research method to collect and analyze the data secured from the study participants. A multistage sampling technique was used to select respondents for the study. Data was collected from instructors, head of department, deans, HR practitioners, and university top management. Besides, human resources (HR) policies, proclamations, reforms and education sector development were used as secondary sources of data. The study result showed that collectively the HR practices significantly predicted the level of employee commitment at universities. A stepwise regression analysis result showed that of the six HR practices treated in this study, recruitment and selection, training and development opportunities and employment relationships were significantly predicted the organizational commitment and the remaining three failed to influence organizational commitment. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that there is a variation among the HR practices in predicting power employee commitment. That is, all the HR practices are not equally important in impacting the organizational commitment. From this it is possible to suggest that although good HR practices are necessary to enhance employees’, it is critical to identify which one works best and which do not.
Academic Staff, Higher education, Employee commitment, HR practices
