Stakeholder Participation In Strategy Formulation And Implementation In Child Development Organizations In Kilifi County Of Kenya

Abstract

Stakeholder participation is a key element to an organizations success that needs to be embraced by organizations. Every group or individual who is affected or affects an organization is a stakeholder and needs to be given an opportunity to participate in the affairs of the organization. This study was carried out to determine the extent of stakeholder participation in strategy formulation and implementation in child development organizations in Kilifi County. Existing literature was studied to provide more insight on the importance of strategies and also the various kinds of stakeholders and how to deal with them in the process of strategy formulation and implementation. Questionnaires were developed to collect primary data with an interview guide utilized to gather data from key informants to support data collected from senior managers of child development organizations working in Kilifi County. The data was edited, coded and analyzed to arrive at findings and conclusion of the study. The study utilized descriptive survey to carry out the research. A population of 15 out of 16 organizations was studied. The researcher found that the child development organizations carried out stakeholder participation in strategy formulation and implementation to a fair extent though strategy implementation took more involvement of stakeholders than strategy formulation. The organizations also faced time and cost constraints to involve stakeholders to participate fully in strategy formulation. The researcher further found that the primary beneficiaries had low understanding of the organizations’ missions and expected outcomes. The researcher concluded that it is of great importance for the organizations to involve stakeholders right from strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation. The researcher highlighted time, respondents’ busy schedules and biasness of stakeholders as major limitations of the study. The researcher recommended that the policy makers or in practice organizations need to set aside more funds and time to train the stakeholders on their missions and expected outcomes so that there will be more ownership and easy achievement of the organizations’ intended outcomes.