Operational Level Strategies and Organizational Performance of Four-Star Hotels in Mombasa County, Kenya
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Date
2023
Authors
Thoya, Emmanuel Mweni
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Performance is the key indicator to access the growth, stability, and capacity of an organization in
any industry. Performance in the competitive hospitality industry is attributed to the never-ending
strategies put in place by the hotels to either maintain the competition advantage or penetrate the
industry. Further, the four-star hotels in Mombasa County are facing an unprecedented crisis due
to the international travel restrictions and advisories imposed by foreign countries to contain and
curtail the spread of COVID-19. The travel bans and restrictions reduced drastically foreign
tourists visiting Kenya and Mombasa to be specific. A number of hotels shut down while others
operating at severely reduced capacity with high reliability on the local tourists who are equally
affected by the advisories. To survive in the industry, four-star hotels in Mombasa County have
employed operational level strategies to mitigate the problem of organizational performance.
Performance of the four-star hotels in Mombasa County has declined steadily and the hotels that
adopted the operational level strategies have re invented their businesses. The imain iobjective iof
ithisiresearchiwasito iexamine ithe ieffect iofioperationalilevelistrategiesiorganizationaliperformance
iofifour-starihotelsiiniMombasa iCounty. iThe ispecific iobjectivesiofithisistudyiwere ito iexamine ithe
ieffect iofihumaniresource istrategies, icustomeriservice istrategies, iinformation iand icommunication
istrategies iand imarketing istrategies ion ithe iorganizational iperformance iof ifour-star ihotels iin ithe
iCounty. iThe istudyiwasiinformed iby iResourcesiBased iTheory, iBalance iScorecard, iSERVQUAL
iModel iand iCompetitive iAdvantage iTheory. iThe istudy ipopulation iwasi55 ioperational imanagers
ifromiallitheifiveifouristar-ratedihotels. iCensusitechnique iwasiusedisince itheitargetipopulationiwas
ismall. iThe iresearch iused iquestionnaire iwith iclosed-ended iquestionsito icollect idata. iValidity iand
ireliabilityiofitheistudyiwasideterminedithroughiaipilotistudy in Kilifi County. The iresearcheriused
iCronbach’s ialpha iformulae ito itest ireliability ithrough iinternal imeasure iof iconsistency. iThe
ireturned iquestionnaires iwere ianalyzed iusing iboth idescriptive iand iinferential istatisticsiby iuse iof
ithe iSPSSiversioni26. iThe istudyiadoptediregression iand icorrelationimodelsiofianalysis. iThe istudy
ifound ithat ithere iis ia imoderate ipositive iand isignificant irelationship ibetween ihuman iresource
istrategiesiandiorganizationaliperformance i(r=0.305;ip=0.026i<i0.05)iandiitsialterationiwouldialso
iaffectiorganizationaliperformancei(β=0.128;it=2.038;ip=0.045). iTheistudyialsoirevealedithatithere
iis ia istrong ipositive iand isignificant irelationship ibetween icustomer iservice istrategies iand
iorganizational iperformance i(r=0.668; ip=.005<0.01) iand iits iimprovement iwould iaffect
iorganizationaliperformancei(β=0.220;it=2.742;ip=0.005). iTheistudyifoundithatithereiisiaimoderate
ipositive irelationship ibetween iinformation iand icommunication istrategies iand iorganizational
iperformance i(r=0.404; ip i=0.003 i<0.01) iand iits iimprovement iwould iaffect iorgaisational
iperformance i(β=0.175; it=3.046; ip=0.004). iOn ithe ifinal ivariable, iit iwas idetermined ifurther
imarketing istrategies isignificantly iaffects iorganizational iperformance i(r=0.314; ip= i0.022<0.05)
ibutiitsiimprovementiinsignificantlyicontributesito organizational performance (β=0.127; t=1.264;
p=0.226). It was concluded that operational level strategies (human resource strategies, customer
service strategies, information and communication strategies and marketing strategies) affects
hotel performance and the improvement of each strategy would lead to improvement in
organizational performance. The study recommended that employees of the hotels can be retained,
if the management of the hotels can evaluate, design and measure employee engament practices.
The study further recommended that employees at lower cadre can be improved if working
conditions is improved. Finally, it can be suggested that managers of the hotels should adopt
customer care services and customer relations to enhance performance.
Description
A Research Project Submitted to the School of Business Economics and Tourism in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Award of Master of Business Administration Degree (Strategic Management) of Kenyatta University, March 2023.
Keywords
Operational Level Strategies, Organizational Performance, Four-Star Hotels, Mombasa County, Kenya