Social and educational background of a Kenyan manager: a survey of selected pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Nairobi

Abstract

This investigation sought to establish the social and education backgrounds of managers and find out how these backgrounds influence the entry and advancement of management career by a Kenyan manager. The social backgrounds of a Kenyan manager were mainly determined by the occupation of parents, as well as place of birth, (rural or urban). The education backgrounds were according to types of schools and colleges attended, highest level of education attained, professional and additional qualification attained as well as mode of study. The career patterns of managers were studied to determine their first full time occupation, method of entry into present job, length of time in present job, age when joining management, inter-firm mobility and cross functional job changes (intra-firm mobility). The review of related literature was done to support the research objectives and research questions and identify gaps related to the research topic. Studies carried out in Kenya, Europe, North America and Asia was reviewed. The research instrument that was used to collect the required data was a questionnaire. This contained both open ended and closed ended questions so as to enable in-depth data to be captured. The questionnaires were responded to by managers in selected companies in the Pharmaceutical manufacturing companies within Nairobi. The collected data was subjected to both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Correlation coefficients were used to analyze the data with the help of statistical packages for social science (SPSS).The analyzed data was presented by use of tables, percentages, mean, and frequencies. Conclusions and recommendations were be made based on the analysis results of this study. From the findings of the study it was established that academic qualifications have a high correlation with entry and advancement of a management career. Further it was revealed most managers had pa rents from middle class backgrounds. This study would therefore recommend that managers be recruited mainly based on educational considerations rather than social factors such as age, family background or type of institutions attended.