Human Resource Management, Organizational Performance, and Publicness: The Case of Korean Higher Educational Institutions

This study investigates the relationship between human resource management and organizational performance using a dataset of 155 universities in Korea. It also examines the moderating effect of publicness measured by ownership (whether it is a public or private university) on the relationship of human resource management and performance. The results show that there is a positive relationship between the efforts of top managers to improve human resource management and one of the two research performance indicators examined in this study. Also, the moderating effects of publicness on the relationship between human resource management and performance are clearly shown in the analysis of both research performance indicators, which means that human resource management in public universities is more conducive to research performance than in private universities. The findings of the present study imply a linear linkage between human resource management and organizational performance and the moderating role of publicness in the management-performance linkage.