DECISION MAKING ON HUMAN RESOURCE CAPACITY IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Human resource capacity has become a critical issue in human resource management (HRM) at public universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) as a result of governments' decisions influenced by recession. The quality of decision making in HRM is key to organizational success, especially in higher education (HE) systems where legal requirements and administrative rules often lead to the inflexibility and rigidity, and the budget for hiring or promoting employers is restricted. Key factors that make decision making on human resources in HE difficult are: complexity, interdependence and decision making at multiple levels in the hierarchy (national, university, faculty, department/division, personal level). The criteria by which it is possible to describe alternatives for making decisions on human resource capacity in HE have both qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Based on these characteristics of decision making in HRM in higher education, we have used the multicriteria decision making method called the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for developing a model which ranks the candidate for a job position or promotion. Using the AHP for decision making on HR enables problem structuring, multiple criteria decision making, group decision making and comparison of qualitative and quantitative criteria by using the same scale. Decision making on human resources in higher education is extremely difficult, on one hand, due to the high competition between competent teaching staff with doctoral degree, and on the other hand a limited number of academic positions, especially when two or more candidates are applying for the same job position in their promotion process. Due to a large number of candidates who meet the minimum legal requirements for the same job position, there is a need for developing a model with additional candidate ranking criteria. This paper presents the AHP model for decision making on the best candidate for the job position at HEIs. The model is developed based on the results of qualitative analysis, interviews with managers at HEIs and group decision making. The criteria weights are calculated based on the judgments of managers and professors at HEIs. The developed AHP model can be adopted and used for decision making on specific problems in human resource management in education.