| dc.description.abstract | Strategic planning is effective in envisioning a desired future and translating this vision
into broadly defined goals or objectives and a series of steps to attain them. Strategic
planning is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations,
ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals,
establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and adjust the
organization’s direction in response to changing environment. The strategic planning
process assists organizations to match their capabilities and resources to a dynamic
environment. Universities are operating in a very dynamic environment which creates
new opportunities and challenges. Institutions that address the opportunities and
challenges survive and prosper in the foreseeable future. The University of Nairobi has
adopted strategic planning to successfully align itself to the ever changing environment.
This study therefore sought to establish the influence of strategic planning on the
performance of the University of Nairobi. The study used a case study design, which
involved an in-depth investigation of strategic planning and performance of University of
Nairobi. Primary data which was collected by use of an interview guide was used to meet
the objective of the study. The respondents were College Principals, Deans and Directors.
Since the data collected was qualitative in nature, thematic content analysis was used in
the data analysis. From the results, the study established that the University of Nairobi
has a strategic plan, which is reviewed every five years. The study also found that
strategic planning helps the University of Nairobi to improve its performance. In
addition, the plans and budgets in the strategic plan are used as the basis for the annual
performance contracts. The use of a strategic plan has helped the University of Nairobi to
improve on its competitiveness both locally and globally and hence it has been in a
position to establish strategic partnerships and sign Memoranda of Understanding
(MoUs) with other reputable Universities all over the world. The study therefore
recommends that the management should thus take keen interest in each of the aspects of
strategic planning in order to ensure that the accumulative and multiple effects are
enhanced and harnessed in the entire strategic planning practice. The study also
recommends that the University of Nairobi should ensure the inclusion of all stakeholders
in the strategic plan. Stakeholders should include the teaching staff, non-teaching staff
and the students’ body. The main limitations of the study was that some target
respondents failed to give the required information as the information they offered could
be used against them and results of this study were thus not generalizable because the
University of Nairobi cannot be considered to be a representation of all the 22 public
universities in Kenya. The study also used qualitative data. In qualitative research
research quality is heavily dependent on the individual skills of the researcher and more
easily influenced by the researcher's personal biases and idiosyncrasies. In addition, Data
collection and analysis is often time consuming. The study suggests further studies on the
influence of strategic planning on the performance of the public universities in Kenya.
Further, the study suggests further studies on the strategic plan comparison in both public
and private universities in Kenya. The study also suggests further studies on the
challenges facing the implementation of the strategic plan in public and private
universities in Kenya. | en_US |
