The empirical study objective was twofold; first to survey the degree to which university staff perceive on the use of talent management instituted a meaningful practice at universities of central region in Uganda; secondly it focused on testing the suitability of the dimension in terms of reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity; and measurement equivalence for both working experience, and gender of university staff. The sample covered 808 university staff from six universities in the Central Region of Uganda in the year 2016. Data collection was done using a self-reported 24-item questionnaire so as to determine how the university staff perceive the construct of talent management practices. The Survey tool was distributed by the researcher and researcher assistants to volunteers in the six universities that participated in this study. The outcomes of the study reinforced, illuminated and gave a deeper insight into the results of previous studies on the same subject which has been infused in the university business and strategy. The study furthermore found evidence of validity and reliability for a multidimensional construct of talent management practices. Also, the measurement for working experience proved variant whereas gender was invariant. The findings of the study will be help stakeholders to contrive informed suggestions towards decision making for developing and retaining university staff to towards university effective performance, and is a source of information and knowledge to future research in the same area.

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As it is stated that the economy of a country can never be greater than the education of its people, today parents and several organizations are investing a lot of money in education to better the future of their children and also meet the demands of the several generations to come. Through this process, the level of competition among higher education institutions is too high for them to survive and continuously attract parents, citizens and funders to meet demands of both institutional and community challenges. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to explore the concept of decision making, factors that determine the decision making process, the effectiveness of decision making and problem solving in higher education institutions deemed to be largely chaotic and complex. World over, government and states are investing in higher education to transform their communities in terms of knowledge, skills, culture and economic development.