The Performance of Training Executive Agencies in Tanzania: Do Skills and Skill-based Organizational Strategies Matter?

The performance of training executive agencies in Tanzania is assessed in this study with a focus on the influence of skills and skill-based organizational strategies. The study was conducted in Tanzania, at the Headquarters of the selected Executive Agencies capitalized on the belief that the headquarters hold great deal of information about issues of central importance to the organization. The study used a partially mixed concurrent dominant status approach by combining both quantitative and qualitative aspects altogether within a single study for comprehensiveness. Given the nature of the study's objectives and scope, 263 academic staff from five selected training executive agencies were sampled to fill in the questionnaires where 238 (i.e. 91%) copies of the questionnaire were filled and returned. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected but more attention was placed to the quantitative facet. The study administered structured questionnaires and interview to examine five training EAs: Tanzania Public Service College (TPSC), Agency for Development of Education Management (ADEM), Tanzania Institute of Accountancy (TIA), Livestock Training Agency (LITA), and Fisheries Education and Training Agency (FETA). Regarding the sampling technique, the study adopted the multi-stage sampling design. In the first step, training EAs were divided into two strata (basing on establishment age). From the old aged stratum, three EAs were selected, and two from the newly aged stratum. In the second step, the academic staff from the training executive agencies was sampled purposefully. The cross-sectional explanatory analytical survey was used to collected data once without tracking data changes. While descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze data from the questionnaires, thematic analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data. Regarding the skills availability among the Tanzania’s training executive agencies, the findings showed that the majority of the employees possessed the necessary professional, project management, inventive, and interpersonal skills. Few employees possessed pedagogical, technological, and multicultural skills. The findings on the degree of performance of Tanzania's training executive agencies revealed unsatisfactory performance, and it was determined that these agencies had not significantly enhanced the delivery of public services. The findings also showed that training EAs underinvested in skill-based organizational strategies. Notably, when individual competence levels rise, executive agencies' performance is likely to increase. Furthermore, the findings showed that human resource strategies and partnerships were the most important factors in improving the Tanzania’s EAs performance.