A Dissertation in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the
Degree of Master of Science in Human Resource Management (Msc HRM) of the
Mzumbe University
This study sought to investigate “the roles of supervisors in the implementation of the
Open Performance Review and Appraisal System (OPRAS) in Public organisations; a
case of Serengeti National Park. The study was confined into four specific objectives
which were: to examine the awareness of employees in the implementation of OPRAS,
to examine the opinions of employees on the implementation of OPRAS, to identify
factors affecting the support of supervisors in the implementation of OPRAS, and to
suggest possible measures to mitigate challenges facing supervisor support in the
implementation of OPRAS in Serengeti National Park. A case study research design was
adopted and a total sample of 66 was consulted. The stratified purposive sampling and
coincidence sampling techniques were used to select respondents. Interviews,
questionnaires and documentary review were employed as tools of data collection.
Qualitative data were analysed by content analysis while the quantitative data were
analysed by SPSS programme. The data were presented in tables.
The study findings revealed that employees at Serengeti National Park are not totally
aware on the implementation of OPRAS. They only understand the concept of OPRAS
but in practice it is not fully implemented. Again the study findings revealed that opinion
of employees is that the status of implementation of OPRAS is good. Furthermore, the
study findings revealed that factors affecting the support of supervisors are low level of
understanding OPRAS process, problems in setting objectives, lack of commitment and
insufficient use of OPRAS for HRM decisions. Finally, study findings revealed that
solution to improve OPRAS implementation is the provision of training and evaluation
feedback, constant communication and computerisation of the OPRAS system. The
study recommended that Serengeti National Park management should train its
employees together with computerisation of the OPRAS system in order to ease
communication, and be able to quick access of appraisal reports for Human Resource
decisions. Lastly, the custodians of public organisations should put more emphasis on
auditing the aspects of the roles of supervisors in OPRAS implementation.