dc.description.abstract |
Employee performance remains an important concept in enhancing individual and
organizational performance in contemporary organizations. However, in recent years,
performance of academic staff in public universities has not improved to the expected
standards as reports of poor performance in terms of ineffective teaching, low records
of publications, and inability to attract and win grants continue to prevail in most
public universities. Amidst the vice, there are many factors affecting employee
performance, but no conclusive studies have examined the indirect effects of the
factors associated with employee performance in public universities. Hence, study
sought to examine the effect of talent management, employee engagement and
transformational leadership on employee performance of academic staff in public
universities in Uganda. The specific objectives were to examine the effect of: talent
management on employee performance; employee engagement on employee
performance; transformational leadership on employee performance; talent
management on employee engagement; to assess the mediating effect of employee
engagement on talent management and employee performance, to analyse the
moderating effect of transformational leadership on talent management and employee
engagement, to determine the moderating effect of transformational leadership on
talent management and employee performance, to establish the moderating effect of
transformational leadership on the indirect effect of talent management and employee
performance through employee engagement. The study was anchored on AMO
framework, human capital theory, social exchange theory, and transformational
leadership theory. The study adopted positivism philosophy and explanatory design.
The target population was 3,335 academic staff of public universities in Uganda with
a sample of 536 academic staff selected using multistage sampling technique.
Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. Data was
analysed using hierarchical regression model and Process Macro version 4.1 was used
to test for the direct and indirect hypotheses. The study found that talent management
(β = .609, p < .001), employee engagement (β = .226, p < .001), transformational
leadership (β = .286, p < .001) were significant predictors of employee performance.
Talent management (β = .471, p < .001) was a significant predictor of employee
engagement. Employee engagement mediated the relationship between talent
management and employee performance (β = .101, p < .001, CI = .059, .149).
Transformational leadership moderated the relationship between talent management
and employee engagement (β = -.110, p < .05, CI = -.186, -.035). Transformational
leadership moderated the relationship between talent management and employee
performance (β = -.090, p < .05, CI = -.152, -.027). Furthermore, transformational
leadership moderated the indirect relationship between talent management and
employee performance through employee engagement (β = -.015, CI = -.035, -.001).
The study concluded that transformational leadership moderates the indirect
relationship between talent management and employee performance through
employee engagement. The study contributes to literature by highlighting the
conditional indirect effect of transformational leadership on talent management and
employee performance through employee engagement among academic staff in public
universities in Uganda. The study recommends that leaders in public universities need
to develop an integrated talent management and employee engagement strategies to
identify, deploy, develop, retain, and engage academic staff to achieve extra ordinary
levels of performance among academic staff in public universities in Uganda. |
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