| dc.description.abstract | Organizations do not operate in a vacuum, but within an environment, which impacts on
the business, by posing opportunities or threats to the organization as it endeavors to
achieve its objectives. To be successful, organizations develop strategy in order to set
direction, define or clarify the organization goals, provide consistency or guidance and
focus effort in response to the environment .Great strategies may be developed, but they
only become useful when effectively implemented. Organizational culture plays a critical
role in enabling entrenching of strategic management practices in an organization. For
strategy to succeed, the organizational culture needs to be highly considered and aligned
to the strategic management practices. The study intended to further contribute with the
understanding of strategic management practices in organizations and how they are
influenced by culture. It used case study methodology, focusing on CENTUM, an
investment company based in Kenya. Case study was used in order to get an in-depth
understanding of the organization. Primarily data was obtained through face to face
interviews contacted on employees at different management levels. An interview guide
was circulated in advance to prepare the interviewees and help them get required facts in
goodtime. Secondary data was also collected from the existing documentation of the
company. Qualitative content analysis was undertaken on the data obtained bearing in
mind the research objectives to draw relevant conclusions. The study established that
strategic management practices are well embedded in CENTUM. Businesses should
conduct thorough situational analysis and need to understand the environment they are
operating and set appropriate strategies to remain successful. Long term strategies should
be broken into shorter term operational plans and responsibility for execution assigned to
specific employees. Performance should be regularly tracked and timely corrective
actions taken. Appropriate resourcing and structure should be put in place to support
strategy. The study concluded that having a well embedded strategic management
practices in an organization helps it remain focused in achieving intended long term
goals. However, no matter how good the strategy process, culture is a critical element for
consideration. Culture has strong influence on strategy. Ensuring that as many employees
believe and own the goals of the organization through involvement and communication
as well as linking rewards to strategy helps to get buy in. Organizations leaders should
endeavor to ensure that the appropriate culture exists to support strategy and if gaps are
indentified, appropriate culture change program should be promptly initiated. While the
study revealed a lot, it also faced some limitations. It was based on a single entity and it is
possible that the organizational cultural influence on strategic management practices from
other organizations may have led to broader or different findings. Not all expected
management interviewees were available for the interview in the agreed scheduled times
for the field work because of their busy office engagements and others did not completely
make it for the interviews. The study has implications on policy, theory and practice. It
provides good bases for formulating policies on strategic management practices and
organizational culture and how it impacts on employees. It strongly reinforces the theory
that for strategy to be successfully implemented, other organizational elements like
structure and culture must be aligned. As a practice, organizational leaders need to ensure
that their businesses have a well formulate strategy which is supported by an appropriate
culture in order for the implementation to succeed. | en_US |
