HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY AND PERFORMANCE OF MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN AKWA IBOM STATE

Abstract

The study evaluated the Human capital development strategy and performance of manufacturing in Akwa Ibom state. The specific objectives were to: examine the relationship between managerial structure and profitability and evaluate the relationship between decision making and staff retention of manufacturing in Akwa Ibom state. The area of study was Uyo, Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria. Four (4) manufacturing firms were selected. The study used the survey approach. The primary sources were personal interview and the administration of questionnaire. A population of 1110 and 285 staff of sample size was used using Freund and William formula.  244 staff returned the questionnaire and accurately filled. That gave 86 percent response rate. The validity of the instrument was tested using content analysis and the result was good. The reliability was tested using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). It gave a reliability co-efficient of 0.77 which was also good. Data was presented and analyzed by mean score (3.0 and above a greed while below 3.0 disagreed) and standard deviation using Sprint Likert Scale. The hypotheses were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient (r) statistics tool.  The findings indicated that managerial structure had positive relationship with the profitability (r=..500 < .985, p<.05)  and decision making had positive relationship with the staff retention of manufacturing firms in Akwa Ibom state (r=.468 <.970, p<.05). The study concluded that Managerial structure and decision making had positive relationship with the profitability and staff retention of manufacturing firm in Akwa Ibom state.  The study recommended among others that the management of the organizations should put managerial structure into serious practice to assist give employees more clarity, help manage expectations, enable better decision-making and deliver value to a market.