Human Resource Management In The Strategic Development Of A Regional University

Abstract

The application of criteria and metrics suitable for the leading universities of the Russian Federation will inevitably lead to low marks since the organizational and financial conditions for the functioning of leading universities differ significantly from the conditions available to regional universities. At the same time, regional universities bear a high social burden and are the main scientific partners of regional production systems. From these positions, it seems expedient to institutionalize the special status of regional universities in the Russian education system and their priority role in ensuring the positive economic dynamics of the regions. The subject of the article is the competencies of the organization and the competencies of personnel in the context of strategic management. The results of the university's activities, due to the specifics of educational activities, are generated by human capital (human resources), which are directly related to the internal environment of the organization, that is, within the organizational structure of the educational organization. Despite the fact that the external environment has a significant impact on the internal environment, the externalization of the performance of any organization occurs only after these results are formed in the internal environment. The produced results are the most striking marker of the organization's competencies since, in the competency-based approach, it is the activity aspect that has priority. In educational organizations, the main resource involved in generating results is human resources, including in the context of their interaction with other resources in all their diversity.

Keywords: Competence-based approach, effectiveness of strategic management, human resources, human resource management, regional university, strategic process

Introduction

Changing the external environment, its considerable uncertainty, and high-speed transformations of the world order and organizational conditions of development suggest that it is the management of human resources in the strategic process of a modern university that becomes the defining element (Hiatt & Creasey, 2012). The management decision-making system within the framework of a regional university is generated and determined primarily in the field of human resources, so it initially acts as a result of intellectual activity, and only then as a technological product. Such technologies of the strategic process algorithm as goal setting, decomposition of strategic goals into tasks, their balancing among themselves, implementation management, and execution control require the involvement of significant amounts of human resources (Dzhulagov et al., 2020). The level of effectiveness of strategic human resource management in an educational organization of higher education requires, first of all, the presence of a concretized image of the future result of the strategic process. The image of the future result allows you to determine the measurable results of the tasks, which is the basis for the accurate determination of the list of necessary labor functions and their corresponding competencies, formed taking into account environmental factors. Based on the indicated lists, correlated with the deadlines, it becomes possible to determine the current and future needs of an educational organization of higher education in human resources. Thus, the system of strategic human resource management in educational organizations is understood as a special type of professional activity. It determines the level of competence of the organization in general and the level of competence of personnel in particular.

Problem Statement

The external environment for the functioning of any organization, including a regional university, is being transformed under the influence of megatrends. They determine the entire external environment and require consideration and reactivity at the level of internal organizational changes (Glushko, 2019).

The following trends can be identified:

  • increasing digitalization (use of artificial intelligence, robotization, analytics of large databases, predictive analytics);
  • the formation of a cellular network structure of an economic organization, the so-called "network society" (the presence of network and branch business transformations, a new organizational design of companies; a change in the management model of an organization) (Dolgova et al., 2021);
  • increasing the speed of economic transactions and the architecture of economic relations;
  • changes in the ratio of the volume of working time and leisure; on the one hand, there is an increase in the labor intensity and intensity of labor operations due to the high intellectualization of business processes, on the other hand, due to high robotization, the emergence of freelancing and the growth of virtual employment, an individual scale of the ratio of work and free time is formed (Ahammada et al., 2020; Al-Qaryouti et al., 2021);
  • cross-functionality of employees and their orientation to the interdisciplinarity of processions and qualifications;
  • flexible structures (absence of rigid organizational models and corresponding new organizational models for managing the organization's business processes).

By today, core resources are information, financial resources, and human resources. The latter is defined as basic, with consideration to the influence of the indicated megatrends and the corresponding changes (Orlandi, 2016). As a result, changing the range of core resources and converting them into competitive assets of the organization requires the modernization of the organizational model of the functioning of institutions based on the following principles:

  • providing multifactoriality in the management decision support system;
  • ensuring a new equilibrium point of balance of powers and responsibilities by delegating powers to the lower levels of the management hierarchy;
  • customer orientation (internal and external customers).

Research Questions

The study of human resource management in the strategic process of a regional university in this article is based on solving the following issues:

  • Consideration of the external environment as a determining component in making strategic decisions within the university.
  • Characteristics of the value model of strategic management of an educational organization.
  • The study of the strategic process of the university in the context of changing the paradigm of human resource management as a dominant competitive asset of an educational organization.

Purpose of the Study

The article aims to identify the features of the implementation and implementation of a new paradigm of strategic human resource management while updating the competency-based approach. It allows you to remove the dichotomy of the organizational model of a regional university and the model of strategic management, in which human resource management becomes the defining area for the formation of sustainability and competitiveness of an educational organization, taking into account all the challenges of the external environment and a new model of university organizational design.

Research Methods

During the implementation of the study, the methodology of comparative analysis was used using system-structural and comparative methods, expert-analytical assessment, as well as the method of scientific abstraction, the logical approach, and the grouping method.

Findings

Today, the forced organizational transformation of universities should be provided with an appropriate mechanism for updating the human resource management system. This leads to the need to apply organizational design methods that ensure the functionality of the strategic management system (Figure 01).

Figure 1: Organizational design in the competence management of an educational organization [1]
Organizational design in the competence management of an educational organization [1]
See Full Size >

At the same time, the institutional and legal framework for the functioning of educational organizations and the strict regulation of the organization of educational activities do not allow a transition to more flexible organizational and managerial models. The latest changes in legislation expand the area of ​​responsibility of educational organizations in terms of fulfilling legal requirements for the educational process and ensuring the quality of education. At the same time, the actual level of expertise of scientific and pedagogical workers participating in the value chain, in practice, turns out to be much lower than the required level of competencies. The transition to process management, which implies a value-oriented management model, is significantly complicated by the impossibility of the actual (rather than formal) delegation of authority and responsibility to the lower levels of the management hierarchy.

Another specific feature of the functioning of modern educational organizations is the lack of widespread practice of assessing the competencies of an organization and its employees. The main reason for this phenomenon is the existing institutional and legal uncertainty. Modern requirements for scientific and pedagogical workers in the absence of a valid edition of the defining professional standard are determined using the Unified Qualification Handbook. The Unified Qualification Handbook defines the functionality of each position in sufficient detail but does not contain requirements for the organization of the activity aspect.

In practice, this leads to the fact that the level of competence of human resources is often determined formally in accordance with the qualification level and the position held, while the changed parameters of the external environment require an assessment of performance in the activity (competency) aspect. Under these conditions, the organization and conduct of procedures similar to an assessment face institutional and legal barriers and have very limited effectiveness. The reason for this is the lack of correlation of the images of future results with the existing functional areas, as well as the recommended contracting period with scientific and pedagogical workers for five years.

When the university changes the organizational model, it is necessary to ensure the continuity of the educational process. The problematization of high switching costs leads to an accentuation of modeling in the circuit of hybridization of theoretical and methodological concepts of management (Dolgova et al., 2021; Solopova et al., 2020). Thus, the concept of TQM (Total quality management) should be recognized as fundamental. In this case, the mechanism should be driven by modern change management concepts.

Change management, regardless of the conceptual approach, requires a strategic orientation of all internal processes. From these positions, the organization should have a value model of strategic management, which is focused on creating value for the client (external and internal) (Al-Qaryouti et al., 2021). The discrepancy between the functions and specific tasks of the personnel forms a dichotomy in the development of the organization, which drastically reduces its effectiveness.

There is a dichotomy between the organizational model and the management model. On the one hand, the functional model and value strategizing are focused on meeting the needs of the external environment, and, on the other hand, they involve completely different mechanisms for managing the institution's competencies. The functional approach, typical for large vertically integrated structures, is the dominant management model in regional universities. The implementation of a customer-oriented approach, in this case, is associated with an increase in overhead costs, which are much higher than the costs of creating value for customers (external and internal). This is attributable to the fact that the procedures for delegation (decomposition and cascading) and the reverse “assembly” of the result with a functional approach require significant management costs in the overall cost structure for creating a product (the costs of the management and administration process can take up to 80 %).

It has been found that the formation of a personnel reserve in any institution is the operational level of the implementation of the human resource management strategy. At the strategic level, it is advisable to make decisions regarding human resources, since the talent pool model is tied to the current staffing of any organization, and not to its future model (Tavbulatova et al., 2021). Simply put, the personnel reserve is formed based on the current needs of the institutions and existing job titles and their functionality, and the strategic human resource management system is focused on the future state of the organization. More important is the determination of the necessary labor functions that correspond to the new realities, and not the specific name of the positions.

The development and formation of competencies is a process that is directly related to change management. Project management, regardless of methods, is focused on the formation of technical solutions and a specific result. But project management loses its effectiveness with a low level of involvement of human resources in this process. An analysis of practice shows that a positive effect of scale and synergy is manifested if all employees are involved in business processes (Hiatt & Creasey, 2012). Modern project management technologies are becoming more flexible, as they take into account the high variability in the level of involvement of various participants, which varies depending on the task.

The competencies of the institution are determined by the competence of the staff and the current organizational model. The organizational model directly affects the mechanism for transforming the competencies of personnel into the competencies of the institution. This is true both for the core competencies of the organization and for the “competencies of the future”, which we terminologically refer to as “core competencies”. The strategic management mechanism of a regional university should provide for the possibility of "reassembling" human resources, considering their capabilities, limitations, and potential. This "reassembly" requires a detailed assessment of the available human resources, not in themselves, but the context of the university's strategic development priorities, the specifics of its activities, and organizational model features. In this case, investments in the development of human resources will be justified, since this approach prevents the negative effect of “development for the sake of development”.

Key performance indicators for core competencies (Key Performance Indicators, KPI) and development indicators for key competencies (Development Indicators, DI), which can then be procedurally fixed within the framework of effective contracts, can become markers that allow for ongoing monitoring. Thus, the correct determination of development priorities in the algorithm of the strategic process of a regional university requires a detailed examination of the external environment, taking into account the specifics of the activities of an educational organization. As a consequence, specific images of future results with their inherent quantitative (measurable) metrics should be formed. Ensuring the effectiveness of the university's strategic process algorithm involves competency-based organizational modeling at the university to implement an effective model of human resource management in the strategic management system.

In practice, a modern human resource management system should be able to provide the following functionality:

1) research and assessment of the state of human resources in an educational institution;

2) determining the need for personnel in the long term (3–5 years), taking into account the correlation of the current state of human resources and their predicted deficits, determined by correlating the current model of competencies in an educational organization with a promising model;

3) building the base of human resources parameterized according to several criteria that are significant for the strategic development of an educational organization;

4) emerging of competency models for each cluster of the personnel reserve;

5) formulation of transparent requirements for candidates for the human capital reserve to select employees from the internal and external reserve;

6) creation of a personnel pool for the prompt replacement of the necessary positions (distribution of labor functions within flexible project groups) in an educational organization;

7) formation of a personnel reserve, providing a "strategic personnel reserve" (taking into account 3–5 years).

To implement the designated functionality in an educational organization, it is necessary to implicate the subsystem of strategic human resource management into the strategic management system not only functionally but also formalized. Organizational management and public legitimization of new subdivisions presuppose their institutional and legal consolidation.

The technical and technological aspects of the realization of this approach require the possibility of implementing an analytical function, as well as elements of predictive analytics. So, for an educational organization, this can be implemented based on available data sources, for example, on the basis of data in automated systems for recording personnel, recording student population, planning extracurricular activities of faculty, accounting, analyzing, and evaluating the results of assigned tasks by administrative staff. It is necessary to hold in conjunction with the strategic guidelines for the development of the educational organization and the available budget for the development of the reserve of human resources (Korotkovskaya, 2018).

However, it is impractical to uniquely identify and take into account the reserve of human resources. The main goal is to provide the possibility of modeling and formation of specific functional abilities for a given time. The experience of large organized structures in the corporate sector of the economy testifies to the effectiveness of using the “personnel accelerator” model, which implies the individualization of the trajectory of professional growth and development for each participant in the program (Korotkovskaya, 2018). It is easy to imply such an approach in an educational organization since its competence in itself is already the basis for the digitalization of a significant proportion of procedures for the development of human resources (Korotkovskaya, 2018).

Conclusion

The general framework of the management of an educational institution is determined by the algorithm of the strategic process adopted in this organization. This algorithm is designed to ensure transparency of both the management system itself and the management decision support system at each stage. The methodological correctness of the algorithm of the strategic process, especially in the phase of preparation of managerial decisions, is the major segment that ensures the implementation of risk-based and proactive approaches (Khuriev & Tavbulatova, 2020). The correct definition of goals and the subsequent optimal allocation of resources reduces the number of adjustments at the stage of implementing the strategy, which means it minimizes force majeure costs and resource shortages in future periods.

The strategic process involves ensuring the implementation of the necessary changes in the organization, designed to keep it competitive in those niches and segments that are earmarked for the organization. The current policy in education is aimed at increasing the competitiveness of Russian educational organizations and improving the quality of education (Sholina et al., 2021). The quality of the educational product and the quality of educational services is defined by the level of development of the core competencies of educational institutions (Khuriev & Tavbulatova, 2020). The rate of competence of an organization is determined by the quality of human resources, in the framework of the competence-based approach, understood as the competence of personnel. The issue of measuring the core competencies of universities remains debatable since the competence manifests itself exclusively in the set of results of the activities of an educational organization, which can be defined broadly.

References

  • Ahammada, M. F., Glaistera, K. W., & Gomes, E. (2020). Strategic agility and human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 30(1), 100700. https://farapaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Fardapaper-Strategic-agility-and-human-resource-management.pdf

  • Al-Qaryouti, T., Al-Ahliyya, & Irtima, H. J. (2021). The impact of human resources development strategies re-framing on competitive intelligence: the mediating role of visionary leadership (a field study on al-hourani group). Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal, 27(2). https://www.abacademies.org/articles/the-impact-of-human-resources-development-strategies-reframing-on-competitive-intelligence-the-mediating-role-of-visionary-leaders-10524.html

  • Dolgova, E. G., Kazimirova, I. S., Kuznetsova, Yu. A., & Nikolaeva, E. A. (2021). To the question of the development of global (transnational) universities in the projection of the prospects and risks of higher education in the Russian Federation. Economic sciences, 195, 49–52.

  • Dzhulagov, S. M. M., Muslimov, I. Z., Temirsultanov, R. A., & Tavbulatova, Z. K. (2020). Development of strategic management in the field of education. In the collection: Business and education in the digital economy. Materials of the All-Russian scientific-practical conference with international participation (pp. 114–119). https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=44619160

  • Glushko, I. V. (2019). The problem of the quality of higher education in the assessments of employers as consumers of educational services. Scientific and methodical electronic journal Concept, 9, 13–23. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/problema-kachestva-vysshego-obrazovaniya-v-otsenkah-rabotodatelei-kak-potrebitelei-obrazovatelnyh-uslug

  • Hiatt, J. M., & Creasey, T. (2012). Change Management: The People Side of Change Paperback. Prosci Learning Center Publications.

  • Khuriev, R. V., & Tavbulatova, Z. K. (2020). Risk-oriented model of state accreditation of educational activities in the education management system. Actual problems of social, humanitarian, and economic knowledge. Collection of scientific papers based on materials of the III All-Russian Scientific Conference “School of Young Scientists” (pp. 232–238). Saratov.

  • Korotkovskaya, E. S. (2018). Corporate accelerators as a tool of “open innovations”. Bulletin of the Saratov University. New series. Series Economics. Control. Right, 18(1), 56–63. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/korporativnye-akseleratory-kak-instrument-otkrytyh-innovatsiy

  • Orlandi, L. B. (2016). Organizational capabilities in the digital era: Reframing strategic orientation. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 1(3), 156–161. DOI:

  • Sholina, I. I., Zhilin, A. S., Mironova, V. A., & Reprintseva, N. E. (2021). Optimization of models for ensuring the quality of education of the higher engineering school of the Ural Federal University. Modern science-intensive technologies, 1, 142–146. https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=44697520

  • Solopova, N. A., Meshcheryakova, T. S., & Shchepkina, N. N. (2020). Key issues of applying European tools for quality management of higher education in the formation of professional competencies among students of a technical university. Eurasian Union of Scientists, 2-2(71), 23–26.

  • Tavbulatova, Z., Magamadov, M., & Djulagov, S. M. (2021). Features of innovation and project activities in entrepreneurship in the face of transformational challenges. Proceedings AIP Conference, Ser. “I International Conference: Applied Science and Engineering (ASE-I – 2021)” (p. 050003). DOI: 10.1063/5.0075791

Copyright information

About this article

Publication Date

23 December 2022

eBook ISBN

978-1-80296-128-7

Publisher

European Publisher

Volume

129

Print ISBN (optional)

-

Edition Number

1st Edition

Pages

1-1335

Subjects

Cite this article as:

Tavbulatova, Z. K., Chaplaev, H. G., & Solumov, R. R. (2022). Human Resource Management In The Strategic Development Of A Regional University. In D. K. Bataev, S. A. Gapurov, A. D. Osmaev, V. K. Akaev, L. M. Idigova, M. R. Ovhadov, A. R. Salgiriev, & M. M. Betilmerzaeva (Eds.), Knowledge, Man and Civilization- ISCKMC 2022, vol 129. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 1117-1125). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2022.12.143