Impact of Human Resources Management Practices on Seaport Competitiveness: A Case of Nigerian Seaports

Despite numerous efforts at modernising Nigeria's seaports, they remain inefficient. Many studies have been conducted to find the root cause of the inefficiency and many solutions have been recommended based on findings. The findings have variously pointed to infrastructural decay, inadequacy, and lack of modern seaport technologies as root causes of inefficiency at the seaports. Surprisingly, however, the proffered solutions have all failed to solve the lingering inefficiency and poor performance of the seaports. This suggests that, apart from the challenges associated with poor infrastructure, efforts must be directed at other areas to identify and explain the persistent inefficiencies that have defied many solutions at the seaports. This study, therefore, focusses on identification of the key underlying issues by examining whether there is a relationship between seaport inefficiency and human resources management (HRM) practices of the seaports. Case study approach was adopted, and qualitative data was collected, using semi-structured interview protocol. A qualitative content analysis (QCA) was conducted along with an NVivo program analysis. A total of 34 respondents were interviewed from four categories of key seaport stakeholders comprising of 33 male and one (1) female. Among the respondents are 19 seaport managers (SM), three (3) seaport union executives (SUE), four (4) Customs Area Controllers (CAC) and eight (8) shippers/freight forwarders (SFF). Findings reveal that HRM practices of the seaports are not fully aligned with the business objectives of the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) mainly due to unfair recruitment and unfair promotion practices. The findings also indicate that the working condition of staff is average and, consequently, staff morale, loyalty, commitment, and productivity are also average. Technologically, findings show the level of technological implementation at the seaports is at best average, as only basic technologies are available for seaport operations. On Corporate Governance (CG), the study finds the appointment of the Board of Directors of the seaport is mainly political. The Board is, therefore, not fully independent because of external political influences. On the overall cost of clearance at the seaports, findings indicate that the official seaport charges at the seaports are reasonable and competitive, but illegal charges extorted from customers make overall clearance cost uncompetitive. Similarly, while the speed of clearing cargo has improved over the years, the level of customer service provided is average. Overall, the findings indicate that modern infrastructure/technology in themselves will not yield any major positive impact in terms of improve competitiveness for the Nigerian seaports without commensurate high-quality governance and human resources (HR) practices identified and addressed in this study.