Causes Of Academic Staff Turnover And Their Effect On Performance Of Selected Universities In Kenya

Abstract

For universities to run successfully in the current world of business, the higher learning institutions are mandated to adhere to the importance of having intellectual capital strategies in their institution planning that happen to be the academic staff. The purpose of this study was to establish causes of academic staff turnover and their effect on performance of selected universities in Nairobi. The target population was 2857 Academic Staff which comprised of 1,600 from University of Nairobi; 49 from KCA University; 1,000 from Kenyatta University and 208 from Strathmore University. The sample size for this study was 10% of the population that is, 286 which was representative enough to generalize the characteristics observed. Questionnaires were the data collection technique used. Content validity was tested by seeking for expert opinion on the contents of the questionnaire. Construct and face validity were tested through a pilot study by administering 10 academic staff from United States International University and a value of 0.731 was noted which proved the reliability of the data in this study. Data was analysed by using Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences. Descriptive statistics; measures of central tendency (means), percentages and frequency distribution; and inferential statistic techniques; correlation analysis, Analysis of variances, Chi-square and Multiple Regression were used to generate the data. Results from the study show that the four variables are significant in explaining the performance of the selected universities at 95% confidence level. The results of the regression summary show that the fitted model y = 3.679 + 0.117 X 1 + 0.100 X2 + - 0.091X 3 + 0.083X 4 is significant improvement of the previous models at 95% confidence level while the coefficient of determination is 76.43% which explain the change on university performance. Correlation coefficient was statistically significant on the number of students supervised being manageable at 0.003, opportunities for academic staff advancement was statistically significant on at 0.009, statistically significant on caring about the academic staff welfare at 0.002 but there was a statistic insignificance when it comes to the availability of teaching resources at 0.29. When other variables ware held constant, an additional opportunity for staff advancement increases the performance of university by 0.1, a unit increase in the number of academic staff not sponsored for training and development reduces the performance of university by 0.091, a unit increase in the measure of academic staff teaching resources increases the performance of university by 0.083 and a unit increase in the number of students supervised increases the performance of the university by 0.117. Suggestion is given that further research may be carried out on causes of academic staff turnover and their effect on performance of selected universities in Nairobi and to point out predictor variables not indicated in this study.