The Organisational Dividend of Training: Examining Institutional Growth Perceptions in African Higher Education

This study examines the relationship between training initiatives and institutional growth outcomes at the University for Development Studies (UDS). Drawing on Resource-Based View v(RBV) theory, the research investigates whether staff perceive training investments as contributing to organizational capabilities that drive institutional growth, competitiveness, and strategic goal achievement. Data were collected from 198 teaching and non-teaching staff at UDS using a cross-sectional survey design. Chi-square tests were used to examine associations between staff category and perceptions of training’s contribution to ten institutional growth indicators, including productivity, teamwork, service delivery, innovation, goal achievement, and reputation enhancement. Staff demonstrated strong consensus that training contributes to institutional growth outcomes, with mean ratings exceeding 3.95 on a 5-point scale across all dimensions. However, only one statistically significant staff category difference emerged: non-teaching staff more strongly associated training with organizational goal achievement. The absence of significant differences across nine other growth indicators suggests training’s organizational benefits are perceived uniformly regardless of professional category, contrasting sharply with documented differential individual-level returns. The findings extend RBV theory to higher education training contexts, demonstrating that training investments generate perceived organizational resource advantages that transcend professional category boundaries. While individual training returns vary by staff category, organizational growth benefits appear to operate through collective mechanisms producing shared perceptions across the institutional workforce. Universities can leverage training investments for organizational growth outcomes regardless of staff category composition. The universal organizational benefit perception suggests training effectively builds institution-wide capabilities even when individual performance returns vary. Resource allocation decisions should account for both differential individual returns and uniform organizational benefits. This study provides the first empirical examination of training-institutional growth relationships through an RBV lens in African higher education, distinguishing organizational-level from individual-level training outcomes and revealing divergent patterns of staff category effects across these analytical levels.