STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION PRACTICES AND PERFORMANCE OF MAKUENI COUNTY, KENYA

Mbabu Morris Mwiti

Master of Business Administration (Strategic Management Option), Kenyatta University

Ms. Janet Muthimi

Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Kenyatta University.

CITATION: Mwiti, M.M & Janet, M. (2019). Strategy Implementation Practices and Performance of Makueni County, Kenya: International journal of strategic management. Vol. 8 (6) pp 12 –19.

ABSTRACT

Adoption of strategic management practices has gained relevance among the county governments in Kenya. Counties are embracing strategic management practices even though they have been experiencing a number of obstacles due to a weak governance system in place. Most county government lack good governance systems to enable them operate strategically and also independently and this has affected their performance. The study was carried out with the main objective of finding out the effect of strategic management practices on the performance of Makueni County in Kenya. The specific objectives were to establish how; strategic formulation, strategic implementation, strategic evaluation and strategic control impacts performance of Makueni County. There has been poor budget implementation in these counties; in addition to corruption and wastage of resources. Makueni County is faced with high poverty levels and has failed to meet its revenue targets. This implies poor strategic management practices by the county government. Stakeholder management theory, resource based theory and the new public management theories were used to anchor this study. A descriptive research design was adopted in this particular study with questionnaires as the main data collection instrument. The researcher sought opinion of experts on the constructs of the independent variable and how they relate with county performance to test the validity of the research instrument. A pilot study was administered prior to the study to test the reliability of the research instrument used. Permission to collect data from the county government of Makueni was sought from relevant authorities. Data was analyzed using SPSS. The county of Makueni will gain from this study since it will be able to review its plans for better decision making. The study found out that the county government of Makueni does not involve its employees nor does it hire consultants to aid in the process of strategic formulation. The study recommends refresher courses for Makueni staff so as to improve the quality of work they carry out. Revenue collection should be automated to help Makueni County meet its revenue targets.