Functional Strategies and Organizational Performance of Banks in Nakuru City County, Kenya

Abstract

Achievement of organizational performance is an issue to organizations and depends mostly on how organizations adapt to the business environment. Currently, the business environment is characterized by high turbulence in organizational performance. It is challenging to managers in the banking industry. Further, the pace of growth of most commercial banks in Nakuru City County, Kenya has been on the decline and as such, the growth in profits has been on the decline. Consequently, functional level strategies play a pivotal role as banks aim at customer retention, increased profits, increased sale volumes, efficiency and increased market share. This study mainly determined the effect of functional strategies on the organizational performance of commercial banks in Nakuru County, Kenya. The research specifically established the effect of operational, marketing, finance and human resource management strategies on organizational performance. This research used resource based view, marketing mix model, human capital and control theories. The study used descriptive research design. A census approach was used targeting 41 branch managers, 41 operational managers, 41 marketing managers, 41 chief accounting officers and 41 human resource managers in Nakuru County and 205 respondents were sampled. Questionnaires with close-ended questions were used to collect primary data. Content validity was determined through consultations and discussions with the experts, academicians and the supervisor. A Cronbach Alpha method was used to determine reliability and data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences software. Data presentation was by frequency distribution tables and charts. Respondents agreed that operational, marketing, finance and human resource management strategies affected the organizational performance of commercial banks. The correlation between the operational and marketing strategies was negative and insignificant. The correlation between operational and finance strategies was positive and insignificant. The correlation between operational and human resource management strategies was negative and significant. The relationship between organizational performance of commercial banks and operational, marketing, finance strategies was positive and statistically insignificant while the relationship was negative and significant between organizational performance and human resource management strategy. The study recommends enhancing the operational strategies, marketing strategies and finance strategies which positively affect the commercial banks’ organizational performance in Nakuru County, Kenya.