Human Resource Management Policy in Universities:

An Analysis of Survey Data for National University Corporations

Abstract

For colleges or universities, academic and administrative staffs are the most crucial resources for their activities. In a context of decreasing younger population in Japan, higher education institutions are now required to innovate on a new human resource management system for promoting teaching and research keeping their fiscal stability. National universities incorporated in 2004 are also facing this challenging issue in a budget cut from the government. This paper examines the responses in national universities to the government policy using a hybrid model of contingency theory and resource based view. We investigate how each national university has developed its human resource strategy in controlling employment and personnel costs. The empirical results from a survey, published financial reporting and statistics, show that the strategy and management policy for human resources differ by type of university and the level of holding internal resources.