Abstract

The study evaluated the effect of human capital development strategy on performance of manufacturing firms in Anambra State. The specific objectives were to: examine the relationship between managerial structure and profitability and evaluate the relationship between decision making and staff retention of manufacturing firms in Anambra State. The area of study was Anambra State, Nigeria. Four (4) manufacturing firms were selected. The study used the descriptive survey design. The primary sources of data were personal interview and administration of questionnaire. A population of 1110 and 285 staff of sample size was used using Freund and William formula. 244 staff returned the questionnaire and accurately filled. That gave 86 percent response rate. The validity of the instrument was tested using content analysis and the result was good. The reliability was tested using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). It gave a reliability co-efficient of 0.77 which was also good. Data was presented and analyzed using mean score (3.0 and above a greed while below 3.0 disagreed) and standard deviation using. The hypotheses were analyzed using Pearson Product Correlation coefficient (r) statistics. The findings indicated that managerial structure had positive relationship with the profitability (r=.500 < .985, p<.05) and decision making had positive relationship with the staff retention of manufacturing firms in Anambra State (r=.468 <.970, p<.05). The study concluded that human capital development strategy in terms of managerial structure and decision making had positive relationship with the profitability and staff retention of manufacturing firms in Anambra State. The study recommended that the management of manufacturing firms should put managerial structure into serious practice to assist give employees more clarity, help manage expectations, enable better decision-making and deliver value to a market.