Abstract
In recent years, numerous higher education (HE) institutions worldwide have introduced the performance management (PM) system as a human resource management (HRM) strategy to achieve institutional goals. This study investigated the perceptions and attitudes of academic employees towards the PM system in the Engineering Faculty of a South African university. The study pursued four research objectives: the elucidation of the current understanding of PM system by academic staff, the determination of the academics’ acceptance levels with regard to PM, the identification of the reasons underpinning their perceptions and attitudes towards PM and the determination of possible ways of improving the implementation of the system. To achieve the above objectives, a quantitative paradigm was adopted as the research philosophy. The study was implemented in the form of a census using a web-based questionnaire consisting of 40 five-point Likert scale statements. The statements addressed nine PM themes, namely the meaning of PM, the reasons for PM, the purpose of PM, the emotional responses of academics towards PM, the behavioural reactions of academics towards PM, the PM ease of use, the PM system fairness, the training on PM and the PM system improvement. In addition, the questionnaire collected the demographic information of respondents, specifically their positions and tenures in the faculty. The data analysis of responses obtained by means of descriptive statistics and U-test comparison of two groups of respondents including the respondents who started working at the engineering faculty before the creation of the new university and the ones who were recruited in the faculty afterwards was carried out using the SPSS statistical software. Factor analysis could not however be performed due to the relatively small size of the target population of 113 academics...
M.Com. (Business Management)