Effect Of Operations Improvement Practices On Organizational Competitiveness In Telecomunication Industry In Kenya

Abstract

In the telecommunication industry, various persuasive measures such as operations improvement must be offered by companies to encourage and switch them from their service provider (Hrủzová, 1999). This study is therefore seeking to respond to the problems; what is the effect of operations improvement approaches on organizational competitiveness in the telecommunication industry in Kenya? The population of the study consisted a total of 314 firms operating in the Kenyan telecommunications Industry. The study established that there was significantly strong, positive relationship between quality based practices (correlation coefficient 0.563), employee based practices (correlation coefficient 0.631), technology based practices (correlation coefficient 0.671), process based practices (correlation coefficient 0.834), time based practices (correlation coefficient 0.843) and organizations‟ competitiveness. It was noted that the quality based practices, employee based practices, technology based practices, process based practices and time based practices explain 50.2% of the changes in the organizations‟ competitiveness were explained by operations improvement practices as represented by the R2. The study recommended further comparative research should also be done to compare the firms that have applied strategic planning in their operations and those that do not have them so as to bring further understanding of the importance of strategic planning practices in the Kenyan telecommunication industry