| dc.description.abstract | The research was undertaken to establish the roles corporate leaders play in strategic
change. The objectives included; to establish what corporate leaders perceive to be their
roles in strategic change, the extent to which they assume some crucial roles and the
extent to which the roles they assume are influenced by factors important to success in
strategic change.
Corporate leaders of target were all 48 CEO's of companies listed at the Nairobi Stick
exchange. However, one of the target respondents (Hutchings Biemer) was de-listed
during data collection and hence the population of interest changed to 47 companies. A
response rate of 47 % was achieved.
95% of the respondents were male CEOslMDs, with 64% of them having been CEO's in
their current firms for over 10 years. Over 55% of the respondents had overl0 years
experience in middle level management. This indicated a very well experienced group in
corporate management. With 73% of these firms having had carried out strategic changes
in the last 5 years, majority of these CEOs were thus present during the entire strategic
change exercises.
55% of the CEOs were hired into their current positions through appointment by the
leading shareholders and perceived themselves to be more of coaches and mentors (77%)
and steersmen/women who set direction (73%) with none perceiving themselves as fixers
who made everything alright.
The roles of looking beyond the current year for developments of interest, determining
the composition of change leaders and change drivers, coming up with organization
vision were perceived mainly to belong to the CEO and the board of directors with
minimal participation of top management team members. On the other hand, perceived
roles of CEO's and lMf's mainly included translating complex situations into simple,
meaningful explanations that others can grasp ,building and facilitating a culture that
embraces the change and coming up with alternative strategies. The Board of directors
perceived major role in strategic change was in coming up with the organizations vision
and deciding on the most appropriate strategy to follow.
In terms of the extent to which some roles were assumed, the most assumed role in
strategic change is that of the enterprise guardian. Other roles assumed to a very large
extent included that of being the organization's entrepreneur and Mobilizer and
captivator. Roles such as being disturbance handlers and talent advocate seem not to be
high in the list of the most important tasks for CEOs to assume. This observation
corresponds with CEOs perception on such roles as handling internal barriers and
institutionalizing the culture desired by the strategic change. These tasks were perceived
to belong mainly to TMTs, with CEOs and BOD assuming supportive roles.
The competence and experience of the TMT in strategic change seemed to be the most
determinant factor on the roles CEOs IMDs will assume in a strategic change. Other key
factors included the organization culture and the ownership structure. The power of the
CEO was far less a determinant as to he roles the CEO will assume, implying that in
strategic change, position power and authority by themselves should not be key variables
in assigning roles to change leaders! drivers in a strategic change exercise.
In comparing .the perceived and actual roles of corporate leaders in strategic change, it
emerged that departmental heads and other middle-level managers were not perceived to
play leading roles in the strategic change steps. There thus seems to be some "transition
conflict" within the corporate leaders, they seem not to have dropped the managerial roles
and embraced what they seem to perceive to represent to organizational stakeholders
(being coaches and Mentors in organizations). Thus, for organizations to build the
change competencies into their lower levels of management there is need for involvement
of middle level management staff to a larger extent especially in re-alignment strategic
change exercises. | en |
