Effects of organizational support for career development on employee performance: A case of Kenyan Public Universities

Abstract

Unprecedented changes have pushed organizations to undertake various initiatives to stay afloat. This has put pressure on organizations to maximally utilize the resources at their disposal for their benefit. As a result, the realization of the central role played by a firm's human resources in giving it a competitive advantage has brought to the fore the need for emphasizing human resource development in organizations, universities included. Debate has raged on the party responsible for career development programmes. Whereas individual employees have initiated and funded such processes, consensus has been building on the need for organizations to take a prominent role in initiating, managing and enhancing such processes. This study sought to examine the effect of university support for career development on lecturers' performance in public universities. Guided by the psychological contract theory, data was collected from 328 academic staff drawn from all the public universities in Kenya using questionnaires. It was analyzed using descriptive statistics and hypotheses tested using Pearson Product moment correlation coefficient. The results indicated that organizational support for career development of employees positively affected their performance in public universities. This support in terms of study leave, financial support for further studies as well as incentives such as salary increases and promotions on completion of such programmes enhanced organizational citizenship hence improved employee performance.