SUSTAINABLE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN MULTINATIONAL FIRMS IN KENYA

Abstract

Stakeholders play a crucial role in shaping sustainable HRM practices in organizations. These HRM practices include policies and procedures for managing an organization’s workforce (Armstrong & Taylor, 2023). Despite the recognized benefits, there are notable gaps in literature regarding the implementation of sustainable HRM practices in the multinational firms, particularly in developing countries. In Kenya, the agricultural sector still remains the backbone of the Kenyan economy despite its share to GDP declining over the years to 21.3% (Central Bank of Kenya, 2024). With such a small portion of the total national budget, there emerges a local investment insufficiency that is escalated by weak agricultural production factors and lack of advancement in farming techniques. To deal with this, the government encourages foreign investors, through the inflow of multinational companies and foreign direct investments, to fill in the insufficiency in local production. However, the question to address is whether the MNC embrace sustainable human resource management practices in search for their economic goals. To contribute to the understanding of the relationship between sustainability and human resource management practices, this study conducted a survey on employee development and employee engagement and analyzed their impact on sustainability of human resource management practices in multinational firms. The study collected primary data through open ended questionnaires which were administered to 96 employees of Kazuki Limited, out of which 60 questionnaires were filled and returned. The development of the questions in the questionnaire to measure employee engagement and employee development was based on a study by (Stankeviciuses & Savanevičiene, 2018). In addition, the study adopted a measurement scale by (Yu et al., 2021) to measure sustainable human resource management practices. The correlation analysis results established that the sustainability of HR practices of multinationals operating in Kenya’s Agricultural Sector was positive and significant with the employee development at 0.591. Thus, employee development was found to have a positive and significant impact on the sustainability of human resource practices in multinational firms. The study contributes to the debate on stakeholder’s value as well as acts as a policy guide for multinational firms. The study recommends that multinationals operating in Kenya’s Agricultural Sector prioritizes employee development by integrating it in their sustainable goals.