A Survey of Human Resource Management Practices in Botswana's Mining Sector: An African Perspective, 2010–2024

This article examines the implementation of formal human resource management (HRM) practices within Botswana’s mining sector, addressing a significant gap in context-specific analyses of African extractive industries. While existing literature extensively documents the global diffusion of standardised HRM frameworks, critical scholarship highlights their frequent misalignment with local socio-cultural contexts. In Africa, this has spurred discourse on indigenous management paradigms, such as *Botho* (ubuntu), which emphasise communality and relational ethics. However, empirical research on the integration of such principles within the high-stakes, multinational environment of mining remains scarce. This study therefore investigates the extent to which formal HRM systems in Botswana’s mines incorporate indigenous values and assesses the perceived efficacy of this hybridisation. Employing a quantitative, cross-sectional design, data were collected via a structured questionnaire from a stratified random sample of 150 HR and senior line managers across eight major operations. Findings confirm the widespread adoption of compliance-driven HRM frameworks, particularly in performance and safety management. A persistent policy-implementation gap is noted, often mediated by local managerial discretion. More critically, the research identifies only a superficial engagement with *Botho* principles within core HRM processes, indicating a missed opportunity for deeper contextualisation. The study concludes that strategic localisation, moving beyond procedural transfer to meaningful integration of indigenous paradigms, is crucial for developing more legitimate and sustainable HRM models within Botswana’s and analogous African extractive industries.