Response strategies adopted by public universities in Kenya to environmental and managerial challenges
View/ Open
Date
2013-09Author
Mathooko, Francis M
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The environment in which organizations operate is continuously changing, thereby
posing challenges to organizations, and higher education institutions are no exception.
The objective of this study was to understand how public universities in Kenya respond
to environmental and managerial challenges and the factors that influence the choice of
the response strategies. The study design was descriptive and utilized a cross-sectional
survey of all the public universities in Kenya by administering a structured
questionnaire to the top management team by mail and drop-and-pick-later methods.
Additional primary data were collected through observations and interviews. Secondary
data were collected from published works and, universities and government documents
in public domain in order to corroborate the data collected from the primary sources.
Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) was used to generate data that were
analyzed using descriptive statistics. Content and logical analyses techniques were also
used for data analysis. Positive responses were received from 63 respondents out of 91,
yielding a 69.4% response rate. Of the respondents, 76% had basic training in the
sciences and only 3% in business; 79% had no professional training in management and
only 8% each had training at postgraduate diploma and postgraduate degree levels. The
universities faced managerial challenges to a greater extent than they faced
environmental challenges. The control function of management, and competitive and
economic macro-economic factors posed the highest challenge. A significant difference
(p<0.05) in the managerial and environmental challenges existed between new and old
universities, and rural and urban universities. There was significant difference (p<0.05)
and no significant difference (p<0.05) among the three categories of public universities
(old, new and university colleges) in managerial and environmental challenges,
respectively. The public universities adopted Porter’s generic competitive strategy
model, of cost leadership, differentiation and focus to counter the challenges
experienced, and in particular cost leadership and differentiation. The extent of
adoption of differentiation strategy was significantly different (p<0.05) between the old
and new universities and not among the three categories of public universities. Grand
strategies adopted were diversification in related business, expansion and strategic
alliances. The major operational strategies adopted included, management leadership in
the formulation of response strategies, distributed leadership, benchmarking, and
mounting of evening and weekend programmes. Some of the operational strategies
adopted by some universities were, however, unethical and may compromise quality.
Porter’s five competitive forces (PFCF) framework influenced the choice of response
strategies adopted by the universities, particularly threat from new entrants, especially
local private universities. The influence of the choice of the response strategies by
PFCF framework was independent of the time the university was established and its
status. Pressure from stakeholders, changes in government funding, reforms in the
higher education sub-sector and location of the university also influenced the choice of
response strategies. The results indicate that public universities in Kenya experience a
multitude of environmental and managerial challenges and have adopted response
strategies to cope with the challenges. The response strategies adopted and the factors
influencing their choice are more or less similar to those applied by corporate
organizations among them, grand strategies, Porter’s generic competitive strategy and
PFCF framework. The results further indicate that the current public universities in
Kenya are dependent on the environment in which they operate and, therefore, the
study contributes to the environment-dependence theory of organizations.
Citation
Master Of Business Administration (MBA) Degree, School Of Business, University Of Nairobi, 2013Publisher
University of Nairobi, School of business