Navigating the maritime school's management of human resources: A Prospective of school leaders

Abstract

This descriptive-qualitative study explored how school leaders within a maritime school navigated the complexities of managing human resources to provide insights into their perspectives and practices in this specialized educational context. The study was guided by social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, and human relations theories. Moreover, naturalistic inquiry research design was employed as the methodology. The data used in this study consisted of interview transcripts. Six (6) informants were purposively selected and interviewed. Following Saldana's (2016) coding manual for qualitative researchers, the data gathered underwent two coding cycles to derive the study's findings. According to the study's findings, the maritime school leaders perceived their role as crucial in managing human resources. They serve as supervisors, monitors, and auditors of their subordinates' different tasks and responsibilities. While performing their functions, maritime school leaders identified several challenges that hinder them in performing their roles and responsibilities. These challenges include conflicts arising from personality differences, issues in faculty compliance with document submission, limited resources and personnel scarcity, and volatility of the maritime industry. To address the different challenges that maritime school leaders faced, they employed several approaches for effective leadership. Some informants emphasized that as effective leaders in the maritime school, they are flexible in their leadership approaches, empower their subordinates, and believe that professional expertise is needed. In promoting organizational effectiveness and employee well-being, maritime school leaders employ strategies to create a positive work environment. It includes encouraging open dialogue to create an environment, creating personal connections with the faculty and staff, conducting regular meetings, and making their subordinates feel welcome. It was suggested that maritime school leaders take a look into utilizing the Competency-Based HR Model in improving their management of human resources.