Workforce diversity and academic staff productivity in private chartered universities in central Uganda
Loading...
Date
2023-10
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kampala International University, College of Education and Distance Learning
Abstract
The study investigated the relationship between workforce diversity and academic staff productivity in private chartered universities in Uganda. The specific objectives were; to examine the relationship between gender diversity and academic staff productivity; to assess the relationship between age diversity and academic staff productivity; to determine the relationship between nationality and academic staff productivity and; to establish the relationship between workforce diversity and academic staff productivity. Similarity /Attraction Theory by Byrne (1971) and Adams Equity Theory (1960) guided the study. The research employed a descriptive cross - sectional survey design and qualitative and quantitative approaches. The study was carried out in six chartered private universities of Central Uganda. A sample of 375 respondents was obtained from a population of 1109 using Krecjie and Morgan table. Simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents who were the academic staff. Data were collected using questionnaire and interview guide. Quantitative data were analysed using frequencies, means and standard deviations, ANOVA (one-way analysis of variance), student‟s two independent samples, t-test and OLS (ordinary least square) regression. While qualitative data were arranged thematically and reported normatively. The findings revealed that gender diversity has no significant relationship with academic staff productivity (t=0.6520, p=0.515); however, there were significant differences in research productivity between male and female academic staff (t=2.0270, p=0.043), with males being more productive than females. Age diversity has no significant relationship with academic staff productivity but it significantly affects teaching productivity (F=2.899, p=0.032), with academic staff in the middle age of 31 - 50 years, being more productive than those in lower and upper age brackets. In general, nationality diversity had no significant relationship with academic staff productivity (F=0.016, p=0.997). Overall, workforce diversity (measured by gender, age and nationality) had no significant effect on academic staff productivity; workforce diversity showed a small insignificant contribution towards variations in academic staff productivity (R-squared = 0.0153; F = 0.74; p= 0.6362), accounting for only 1.53% towards variations in academic staff productivity. The research concluded that; workforce diversity (age, gender and nationality) is not significantly related to academic staff productivity in private chartered universities in Central Uganda. The study recommends that the management of universities should draft research policies with affirmative action to boost research productivity of the female staff and rewards for research outputs with extra incentives. Management of universities must issue that when teaming up staff for teaching, research and community service to mix up with age groups.
Description
Thesis submitted to the college of education, open, distance and e-learning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of a Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in educational management, Kampala International University
Keywords
Workforce diversity, Academic staff productivity, Uganda