Human resource development practices in select shipping multinational corporations in Nigeria

Background of the study

Human resource development is a process of developing and/or unleashing expertise through organization development (OD) and personnel training and development for the purpose of improving performance (Swanson, 2001). HRD is based on the beliefs that organizations are human-made entities that rely on human expertise in order to establish and achieve their goals and that HRD professionals are advocates of individual and group, work processes and organizational integrity. Several models of HRD specify a range of practices which, if pursued, are likely to contribute to human capital accumulation on which organization may build its competitive advantages (DeGeus, 1997; Currie, 1998; Willis, 1997). These models basically advocate that investment in HRD by organizations contribute to organizational and individual performances such as high performance (Sandberg, 2000), high quality of individual

and organizational problem solving (Schroder, 1989), higher organizational commitment (lies et al, 1990), and enhanced organizational retention (Robertson et al, 1991). Ahmad and Raida (2003) examined the association between training and organizational commitment among white collar workers in Malaysia and they reported that the availability and support for training, training environment etc. positively contributed to overall commitment scores.