Human Capital and Performance Management in the Albanian Public Organizations

Abstract

Developing an effective, competent and forward-looking public service as well as strong but lean state institutions is one of the greatest challenges nations around the world face today. Researchers as well as governors have highlighted the central role of the human capital in the public services offer. Organization scientists have long considered human capital as a strategic asset that contributes to organizational effectiveness. Whereas the strategic importance of human capital has been widely studied in the case of for-profit organizations, measurement difficulties and the role of human capital in the public sector have received little attention. In a democratic, civil, postmodern society, one of the main tasks is the development of systems for managing the efficiency of human capital in the context of public administration, as a means of obtaining higher levels of labor productivity. Actually, it should be acknowledged that orienting the performance management system to support the attraction of new human potential in public administration at all levels can better achieve this efficiency in the utilization of human resources. In this context, a new approach to the human capital management process is being actualized, which includes employee engagement and key factors of employee engagement at every stage. Albania public administration organizations suffer a lack of flexibility in using the human capital management instruments in favor of a better individual and organizational performance because of the rigid legal framework under which it functions. On the other hand, the special character of the public administration organizations and the public services note the added value of the role of the public administrator. This study tends to bridge this gap on the literature on the importance of the human capital and its impact on the performance of the public organizations as well as to practically evaluate the influence of the human capital on the perceived performance of the Albanian public organizations.

Received: 05 May 2022 / Accepted: 17 May 2023 / Published: 20 May 2023