Strategic Management Practices and Performance of Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative, Africa Regional Office, Nairobi

Abstract

Intense competition faces the current global market. The proliferation of NGO organizations in the recent past has placed these organizations in a competitive edge in terms of funding opportunities. The decline in performance has seen organizations take tougher measures of survival evidenced by mergers, closures, partnerships, acquisitions, and staff layoffs. The low impact at community level has negatively affected the achievement of strategic goals and this has painted a bad picture to the donors. NGOs have also not been left out from effects of the turbulent external environment demonstrated by political, environmental, social, technological, and economic factors. Recently, the effects of Covid-19 have interrupted operations of various organizations, and this has to a great extent disrupted the achievement of strategic goals. Due to these cutthroat dynamics, some NGOs have adopted strategies aimed at building very dynamic and viable competitive positions to achieve their strategic goals. It is however unexplored how these modest strategies adopted influence performance. This study endeavoured to fill this gap by determining how these strategic management practices influence performance of international NGOs in Kenya. A case study design was adopted for this research and the target population comprised of seven senior managers concerned with organization’s strategy at DNDI. Collection of primary data was conducted by use of an interview guide to gather valuable and high-quality data. A content analysis approach was used to analyse the qualitative information from the seven interviews. The findings show that the organization strongly adopts strategic management practices, and this has a positive impact on the performance of the organization.