| dc.description.abstract | Organizations that do not respond to the changing environment demand or do not
adapt to keep pace with the change; and even in some situations fail to anticipate
change, are likely to suffer and become irrelevant. Whereas structure is the
communication and realignment of the internal capabilities that include processes and
relationships, strategy is a plan, direction, a guide or a course of action into the future
and as a pattern, that is, consistency in behavior overtime (Mintzberg, 1994). The two
– strategy and structure must work together to give the organization a competitive
edge over its competitors. There is no perfect or ideal organizational design or
universally applicable rule for matching strategy and structure and that, all the basic
organizational forms have got their strengths and weaknesses. The best organizational
structure is that which best fits the situation at the moment. A good match between the
structure and strategy is key to building a capable organization. A mismatch between
strategy and structure creates strategic problem (Aosa, 1992). Whereas there has been
many studies in the area of structure and strategy relationship, structure and strategy is
specific to an organization at any particular time due to the unique nature of the
organization and its resources as well as the environment in which it operates. This
led to the study objective which was to establish structure and strategy relationship in
small and medium-size restaurants in the Central Business District in Nairobi-Kenya.
Similar studies have been carried out on structure and strategy relationship. Koyio
(1999) and Mwangi (2003) whose studies were on manufacturing industries in private
sector in Kenya concluded that strategy and structure were reciprocal. The study used
cross-sectional survey and the samples were determined through purposive sampling.
Data was collected using questionnaires which were administered face to face to the
managers and owners of the restaurants. Data was then analyzed using SPSS and
descriptive statistics, frequency tables and percentages were obtained and presented.
84.2 % of the respondents had strategy with 78.9% having changed their strategies
over the last five years. 89.5% of the restaurants had organization structures with
36.8% having undergone structural changes over the last five years. The changes were
as a result of changes in strategy, management actions, and government regulations as
well as changes in customer demand and preferences. The study found out that there
was a relationship between open systems theory in which the theory was based to the
practices of the restaurants in response to their surrounding environments. 78.9% of
the respondents agreed that changes in strategy were followed by changes in structure
while 21.1% said their choice of strategy was influenced by the organizations
structure. The study findings indicated that there was a relationship between structure
and strategy and that structure followed strategy. The study had its own limitations of
financial and time constraints as well as some respondents who were not willing to
give all the information as this touched on very sensitive areas of the organization –
structure and strategy and therefore the researcher recommends that the study be done
in other counties and other districts of Nairobi County as well as in five star hotels to
find out the relationship between structure and strategy. | en_US |
