| dc.description.abstract | Co-operative College of Kenya(COCK), just like any other organization whether in public or
private sector is affected by its environment. This is because every organization has to interact
with the environment for survival. It becomes crucial for organizations to prepare by formulating
appropriate strategies. This will enable them exploit opportunities presented by the environment
and eliminate or minimize the changes that affect their performance.
The niche that the Co-operative College of Kenya has carved for itself over time is threatened by
the recent developments at the local and international level. The general business environment
has become more volatile, unpredictable and very competitive. For over thirty years the COCK
has provided cooperative training as a monopoly. However over time this has changed since
these services are now being provided within the context of competition, increased pace of
change within the cooperative movement as well as challenges in the local and international
environment. The globalization and liberalization of world economies since the 1990’s has also
resulted in high environmental volatility coming in unpredictable ways. Environmental changes
such as technological innovations and changing consumer tastes and preferences have affected
many organizations. The Government of Kenya economic recovery strategy for wealth and
employment creation (2003-2007) policy shifted focus to the private sector at the expense of
public institutions. The Co-operative College of Kenya was no exception hence for the college to
survive it had to discard the business as usual approach and keep scanning the environment to be
able to come up with strategies that would help them respond to the environment and hence gain
competitive advantage This study was carried out using a case study design and followed two objectives: first to
establish the changes in the external environment, secondly, to determine how the co-operative
college of Kenya has responded to the changes in the external environment. The study was
conducted by carrying out in-depth interview with the top management of the College. A
personal interview guide was designed for the purpose of the interview and content analysis
method was used for analysis of the data collected | en |
