Factors Influencing the Selection of Human Resource Management as a Specialization area among Management Undergraduates of State Universities of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Human Resource Management (HRM) has been identified as the major business function within an organization that aid managing tasks and behaviors of employees. Many state universities in Sri Lanka are provide several specialization areas under the Business Administration degree program. Human Resource Management is also one of specialization area that business undergraduates selected. Accordingly, undergraduates are considering about different factors before selecting their specialization area and this study is conducted to identify those factors that affecting for the selection decision of Human Resource Management specialization. Three main factors were identified after referring to past literature namely Academic Factors, Social Factors and Personal Factors. Moreover, data for the study were gathered through distributing a standard questionnaire among 200 undergraduates in three state universities using simple random sampling technique. Further, statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used to analysis the collected data. Accordingly, the results revealed that there was a positive correlation between academic, personal factors and the selection decision of HRM specialization. Also, it revealed that social Factors have minor influence on the selection decision of HRM specialization compared to the personal and academic factors. Moreover, it indicated that there is a significant relationship between personal factors, academic factors, and selection decision of HRM specialization. Hence, this study will be helpful for universities, university students, lecturers, and many other parties for identify the most crucial factors that affect selecting HRM as specialization area. Further, the insights would also formulate adequate knowledge to the parties potentially entering to the industry as well.