The impact of human capital management on operational performance at the gambia national water and

THE IMPACT OF HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT ON OPERATIONAL 
PERFORMANCE AT THE GAMBIA NATIONAL WATER AND
ELECTRICITY COMPANY (NAWEC)  
By 
Rachel Grace Nicol-Keita
(BA Economics and International Development Studies)
©2013 Department of Managerial Science 
A Thesis submitted to the Department of Managerial Science, Kwame Nkrumah 
University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the 
degree of
MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (HRM OPTION) 
School of Business, KNUST 
College of Art and Social Sciences 
June, 2013 

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DECLARATION 
‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work towards the Master of Business 
Administration (Human Resource Management Option) and that, to the best of my 
knowledge, it contains no material previously published by another person nor material 
which has been accepted for the award of any other degree of the University, except 
where due acknowledgement has been made in the text’.
…………………………….
.……………………… 
…..…………… 
Rachel Grace Nicol Keita
Signature 
Date
(Student) 
Certified by: 
…………………………….
………………………. 
……………… 
J K Turkson
Signature 
Date 
(Supervisor)
Certified by: 
……………………………
………………………. 
……………… 
J. K. Turkson
Signature 
Date 
(Head of Department) 
 

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ABSTRACT 
Despite the success of Human Capital Management (HCM) in research, it is not 
reflected in many Human Resource divisions of companies. Employees are the human 
capitals who contribute to the success and development of a company to a great extent. 
Thus, these days, companies do not see them only as factors of production from the 
classical perspective, but have started to value them as stakeholders and partners with 
whom long-term goals are achieved together. This study, therefore, sought to explore 
and understand the relationship between a selected bundle of Human Resource practices 
in the National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC) that make up Human Capital 
and its usefulness on the operational performance of the Company. The type of research 
design for this study is exploratory and it relied on secondary information such as 
reviewing available literature and primary data. The researcher applied qualitative 
approach and used semi-structured interview which was personally conducted “face-to-
face”. Elicited responses from both the questionnaires and the interviews point to the 
fact that HR practices such as employment security, selective hiring, self-managed 
teams, high compensation contingent on performance, training and information sharing 
when correctly managed would generate the desired results in terms of operational 
performance. After conducting research, acquiring empirical findings, and making 
analysis of data, the researcher suggests that there is a link between HCM and job 
performance. The study is of a great importance because being aware of the influence 
of certain HR practices, managers can better realize how these practices contribute to 
the performance of their employees, and find ways to improve them in order to increase 
workers’ job performance and productivity.

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