Exploring Recruitment and Selection Practices of Ghanaian Organisations

Although Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) has emerged as the new approach to human capital management, operational level Human Resource Management (HRM) activities (traditional personnel functions) remain crucial when linking business strategy with HRM. This paper is inspired by the contribution of selection and recruitment practices in managing the global talent war, particularly in less developed economies. It is based on a multiple case-study research into employee recruitment and selection techniques within five case-study firms located in Tema, Kumasi and Accra. The paper draws on in-depth face-to-face interviews and documents to explore the various recruitment and selection practices utilised by Ghanaian firms. The findings suggest more commonalities in the utilisation of the following employee recruitment sources – for example, newspaper advertisement, campus recruitment, employee referrals, direct applications and unsolicited applications among all case-study organisations and a slight variation in the utilisation of selection techniques such as: psychometric testing or aptitude testing, the use of assessment centres and employee referrals due to differences in employees’ categories and industry types. Though internet-based recruitment is growing significantly among organisations, yet the evidence in this paper rather demonstrate limited growing visibility towards internet-based or social media recruitment among Ghanaian organisations. This paper set out a rationale for utilising multiple case-study design in Human Resource Management research in under-researched contexts. Keywords: recruitment sources, selection techniques, multiple case-study research, Ghana DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-12-02 Publication date: April 30th 202

Corporate Identity: The Case of the University for Development Studies

The new competitive environment within the higher education sector is propelling most Universities to continuously embark on some thoughtful strategic and consistent marketization and planned effort to project their corporate image and reputation. Established a little over two decades ago, the University for Development Studies (UDS) as a higher educational institution is gradually moving from its growth stage to a matured staged. This requires the university to move from a comprehensive institution to a more focused entity. It is therefore extremely crucial to examine what makes the UDS unique and how the community perceive the University as an institution and finally, in what ways key stakeholders or actors can do to improve its corporate identity and reputation. The paper argues that the corporate identity and reputation of the University lie in its Community Development embedded programmes and the blended community-based teaching and learning model. The paper found that 69.84% of the respondents agree that the current corporate reputation of UDS was good. The paper also found several approaches to enhancing the corporate image of the university. These include a well-design marketing strategy; designing market-oriented academic programmes, establish more lecture series, and support quality research publications. Other recommendations for improving the corporate identity of the University are discussed. Keywords: corporate identity, University, corporate reputation, survey, Ghan

Rural women and micro-credit schemes. Cases from the Lawra District of Ghana.

In an attempt to alleviate poverty and empower poor people, many NGOs and government line agencies have been providing credit and social services to rural women in the Lawra District of Ghana. The essence of these credit schemes is to help the rural poor, especially women, earn a decent living through their on-going income generating activities (IGA). The study emphasized that rural women play an important role in the provision of domestic welfare. Many women resort to multiple occupations in order to satisfy the welfare needs of their household members. While these women are engaged in several paid activities simultaneously, they still perform their unpaid and gendered domestic activities. It was realized that women have assumed certain household responsibilities, which were formerly men’s gender roles, such as providing money and other material resources for house keeping. These added responsibilities have afforded rural women a rare voice in household decision-making processes. A derived benefit of empowered women was that they spoke for their men folks; women advocated for jobs and credit schemes for men in their communities. The study concluded that micro-credit schemes help reduce rural poverty and empower women. Despite the enhanced and visible roles assumed by these women due to the credit schemes, there were serious operational lapses: the loans given to the women were inadequate to start and run any viable IGA, leading these social actors to refer to the loans as ‘chop money’ and not ‘business money’ (money sufficient to start with a viable business). Lack of formal education, time, improved technology and ready market for products, which often run down rural enterprises, still persisted and thereby reducing the women’s current productivity relative to their evident potentials. In the light of this, inter alia, the study made the following recommendation towards the empowerment of women: an appreciable increase in the loans, prioritizing girl-child education, developing and encouraging the use of appropriate technology, and engendering the loan scheme or helping rural women side-by-side their men folk