A framework to link strategic human resources management leadership dimension and public service performance in the North-West Province

Abstract

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) is viewed as one way that organisations can achieve superior performance through its employees and there are empirical studies and literature to support this view. The theory also emphasises that specific leadership behaviour is required in an organisation to enhance their human resources ability to achieve higher performance outcomes. However, no such study has been undertaken in public sectors in an African setting such as South Africa where there is evident cries for efficiency in the delivery of services and better management of employees as significant components in overall performance of public service departments. The study's original contribution to the research area addresses this gap and provides a framework that links SHRM leadership dimension (SHRML) and performance in provincial public service departments of the North-West Province, South Africa. In this study SHRML embraces the leadership dimension of the theory and is linked to SHRM performance outcomes in the public service. The study's results, from a survey of a sample of 759 respondents from across 11 North West provincial public service departments showed that for individual level of performance outcomes, public service employees reported high job satisfaction, high perceived organisational support, high organisational citizenship behaviour, but low organisational commitment. In addition SHRML had a significant positive relationship with job satisfaction, perceived organisational support, organisational commitment and organisational citizenship behaviour, and had the strongest weight in all models best predicting these outcomes. The final outcome of this study is a framework that shows the statistically significant interactions between SHRML and performance outcomes for provincial public service departments in the North-West Province.