Investing in human resource development: Empirical evidence from banking institutions of Malaysia and Nigeria

Human resource development in recent times surpasses other factors as a source of competitive advantage especially for corporate organizations challenged by globalization and advancements in technology. This fact has been widely upheld by investigations but little scholarly attention emphasizes the effect of organization’s investment in human resource development and the likely impact on its subsequent performance. In view of this gap, this paper aims to answer to the questions what is the relevance of investing in human resource development and how does investing in human resource development affect the performance of banks? Using the cross-country data from the banking institutions of Malaysia and Nigeria analyzed via the regression method. The results confirm that a significant and positive relationship exists between investment in human resources and banks performance for both economies hence increasing their investments in the development of their human resource was recommended. Keywords: human resource development, investment, banking, Malaysia, Nigeri