Strategic change management practices and quality services by rural electrification authority in Kenya

Abstract

Businesses have recognized the worth in delivering value adding services to their consumers. Customer needs keep on changing, hence organisations need to reinvent themselves to continuously serve those needs and cope with environmental challenges. Kenya’s public sector institutions are expected by the public to offer quality services to meet their evolving wants. This study was set out to determine how management of strategic change practices influenced quality services at Rural Electrification Authority in Kenya. A case study research design was implemented to allow a comprehensive investigation of this relationship. Raw information was collated from the interviewees and analysis was executed using content. It was found that change management practices applied by the institution involved adoption and implementation of ICT infrastructure, a taskforce to oversee change implementation, regular training and capacity development programmes, policy formulation and setting, aligning change to strategic goals and targets, adequate support by the top management team, participative communication and decision making, provision of organisational resources and motivation and reward. These change practices were implemented purposely to achieve success in change implementation. Implementation of strategic change practices was found to influence quality services. The organisation was able to address customer grievances on the basis of priority and this led to enhanced value for products and services rendered by the institution. The Study Recommends that it would be imperative for the government to increase its allocation for parastatal budgets to support the employees and top executive in execution of strategy and thus provide an environment conducive for increased efficiency and success in strategic change implementation. Another recommendation is Customized training and development programmes should be offered in a periodical basis to equip employees with adequate skills and knowledge in their specialized areas. This will prepare them to cope with the changing environmental needs and participate effectively in change implementation. Also a task force should be put in place to monitor and evaluate the process of strategic change implementation. This will be achieved through regular review of employees’ performance to ensure that they meet set goals and targets. Finally Kenya government should make more efforts towards investing in information communication technology. Hence improve efficiency in execution of organisational functions that will result into improved value addition for public services. Time and cost were critical limitations that affected project completion. This forced the researcher to do a case study of Rural Electrification Authority therefore; the results achieved in this study cannot be applied to generalize all the parastatal bodies in Kenya. The study suggests that in future, researchers to carry out comparative studies in other parastatals in Kenya that match in terms of organisational structure and other intervention areas using related variables. Findings from such institutions can be compared in establishing similarities and differences and a more dependable conclusion can be made. Further, an identical research should be executed in a period of ten years to compare findings. It is expected that most parastatal bodies will have advanced in terms of infrastructural development and information communication technology.