Strategic Change Management Practices Adopted by Machakos County Government for Service Delivery

Abstract

Change has become inevitable in today’s life for individual and institutions making it both pervasive and persistent. Therefore, the success of most institutions will depend on how well the change management process is implemented. The purpose of this study was to identify the strategic change management practices adopted by Machakos County Government to improve on its service delivery. The study sort to establish how the devolved systems of government have been able to implement strategic change management practices for service delivery. The changes in the devolved unit are mainly caused by political changes and constantly changing governance structures due to changes in management which arises after every general election. This research study adopted a case study design which was considered appropriate since it entails a cautious and comprehensive observation of social elements and also offers a broad understanding of those social elements or phenomenon under study. The primary data was gathered using a comprehensive interview guide. The study interviewed fifteen top and middle level management officials who are tasked with creating policies to govern change and also implementing change. The analysis of the data collected used content analysis approach since its nature was qualitative. The study concluded that Machakos County Government indeed uses strategic change management practices such as result based management practices, transformation of departmental image, citizen and employee participation in service delivery, internal and external stakeholders involvement, migration into digital era, improved financial and non-financial facilitation, intergovernmental relations and allocating refined roles. The study also concluded that strategic change management in Machakos County Government has led to improved service delivery. Strategic change management has strengthened and transformed the image of Machakos County Government, consequently improving internal and external strategic change management practices. Further, the study concluded that the key challenges facing Machakos County Government to be departmental cultural issues, inadequate resources both financial and non-financial, failure to communicate or give timely feedback to stakeholders, lack of a well formulated structures, high staff turnover, failure to equip the staff with relevant knowledge to adapt to strategic change and frequent transfers. Lack of involvement of all staff in the implementation of practices adopted for strategic change management has led to long bureaucratic processes which have led to inefficient service delivery and rise in corruption. The study recommends continuous restructuring, improvement in rewarding of staff, better resource mobilization and enhanced monitoring and evaluation process so as to implement and reinforce strategic change management practices in Machakos County.