Strategic Planning Process, Strategy Implementation, Organizational Characteristics and Performance of Accredited Universities in Kenya

Abstract

The study sought to investigate if the strategic planning process has significant influence on the performance of accredited universities in Kenya. Beyond the strategic plan document, the intensity and formality with which the process of strategic planning is carried out, its extensiveness and inclusiveness, is a concern for organizations in the twenty first century. Possible mediating effect of strategy implementation and possible moderating effect of unique organization characteristics on this relationship was tested. Five specific objectives and corresponding hypothesis were formulated and tested. The study is anchored on institutional theory while contingency theory was picked as a supporting theory. Founded on positivist philosophical orientation, it adopted descriptive cross sectional survey design. Population of interest was all accredited universities in Kenya as at November 2016. Primary data were collected on strategic planning process and strategy implementation using structured questionnaire administered to Registrar Development and Planning/ officer acting in this capacity as per university structure. Secondary data were collected for university characteristics and performance as at 2016, from university strategic reports, the CUE (2016) report and performance ranking by MoET and global ranking. The instrument was reliable with values of between 0.539 and 0.937 on Cronbach alpha. A response rate of 61.5% was realized. Diagnostic tests on normality, linearity, multicolinearity and homoscedasticity confirmed suitability of the data set for further empirical analysis. The relationship between study variables were tested at a 95%, confidence level. The findings indicate a statistically significant direct relationship between strategic planning process and growth and with ranking. Testing for direct relationship between university characteristics and growth and with ranking; both are statistically significant. On test for moderation; between strategic planning process and growth; age, size, and ownership are statistically significant moderators: while on ranking of universities, they are not statistically significant moderators. On the test for mediation, strategy implementation is a statistically significant mediator between strategic planning process and performance. The study recommends that, in addition to the production of a strategic plan document, the rigor with which it is done in terms of formality and intensity is very critical to their growth and ranking performance with strategy implementation significantly mediating this relationship. The two performance indicators have different factors influencing them and this is a contribution to theory, that the fit between institutional variable and the cooperation within have a bearing on improved performance. The study encountered some limitation such as cross sectional design where change in strategic planning process over time was not captured and the study was for accredited universities only. Based on these limitations, the study recommends future studies to consider use of longitudinal research design to evaluate if the strategic planning process varies over time in the university and to can extend to other industries so as to test the consistency with current findings.