Change Management Practices and Performance of National Government Constituencies Development Funded Projects in Bomet County, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose ofchange managementis to implement strategies for effectingchange, controllingchangeand helping people to adapt tochange.Change managementis a systematic approach to dealing with the transition or transformation of an organization's goals, processes or technologies.The National government Constituency development fund to counties has made a great impact, with numerous projects coming up throughout the country. The initiation of the development projects at grassroots level have led to significant rise in wellbeing of citizens in the constituency and county at large. The general objective of this study wasto assess change management practices and how it relates to performance of national government CDF funded projects in Bomet County in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were;todetermine the influence of leadership on performance of the national development funded projects inBometCounty, to establish how stakeholder’s involvementinfluences the performance of the national development funded projects in Bomet County, to assess the influence of resources allocation on performance of the national development funded projects in Countyand to find out the extent to which monitoring and evaluation influences the performance of the national development funded projects inBomet County.The study wasanchored on Kotter’s8 step model and the theory of planned change. The study adopteda Census research design targeting all CDFC members and officials managing CDF projects in each of the five wards in Bomet County. The study utilized primary data. Primary data was collectedusing semi structured questionnaires. Datawasanalyzed using SPSS. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed in the study. Analyzed data was presented in percentages, frequencies, mean and standard deviation. From the findings, the researcher can conclude that, change management practices through leadership, stakeholders’ involvement, resources, and monitoring and evaluation has a significant and positive composite effect on performance of NG-CDF in County. Leadership aspects that contribute tothis performance includes leaders’ role model and championship capacity towards change management, ability to develop strategy, create mission, motivate people to achieve objectives, employees’ empowerment, and organizational culture change. The researcher therefore recommends that, NG-CDF leadership should observe change management practices by ensuring there is frequent stakeholders’ engagement, role model and championship capacity towards change management, ability to develop strategy, create mission, motivate people to achieve objectives, employees’ empowerment, andsound organizational culture change.