dc.description.abstract | This research was designed to establish the strategy development processes among family owned
businesses in Mombasa County and to identify the factors influencing strategy
development process among the businesses. To achieve these objectives, the study adopted a
cross-sectional design and targeted 60 family-owned businesses within Mombasa which were
randomly selected. All of the 60 firms were served with questionnaires. Responses were
received from 34 businesses which were considered adequate for analysis. The study
established that more than 50% of the studied firms adopted most of the strategy development
processes. 71% of the firms had vision and mission statements and 88% of the firms
undertake situational analysis. It was established that all businesses set objectives and craft
strategies to achieve these objectives. It was also established that 80% of the firms develop
their vision, mission, objectives and strategies into a strategic plan and 93% develop action
plans to ensure that the strategies developed get implemented efficiently and effectively.
Finally, all firms (100%) indicated that they evaluate their strategy and develop controls to
ensure that their strategy is on track. In all these practices, the study revealed that senior
managers, heads of departments and directors participate in strategy development to different
degrees and the outputs are communicated to all organizational members through various
modes. It was also established that various factors influence strategy development processes
of the studied firms to different levels. The factors that were rated as having great influence
include economic factors, leadership factors and political factors. Those factors with a
generally moderate effect include technological factors, legal factors, social factors and the
least is cultural factors. The results of the study largely concurred with strategy development
processes although not all family-owned businesses have adopted strategy development
processes. The study recommends that for policy and practice, businesses whether large or
small, profit oriented or not should wholly embrace the concept of strategy development in
order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage and improvement in performance. | en_US |