Strategic Management Practices and Performance of Kenya Railways Corporation at the Headquarters, Nairobi City County, Kenya
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Date
2023
Authors
Kamwere, Bancy Muthoni
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
The Kenyan railway network managed by the Kenya Railways Corporation (KRC) has
been occasioned by inefficient operations which have led to delays and poor service
quality. Issues such as poor scheduling, high operational costs, insufficient revenue
generation, and inadequate improvements of the railway network and operations have also
been witnessed. The study’s general objective was to investigate the strategic management
practices and performance of Kenya railways corporation at the headquarters, Nairobi city
county, Kenya. The study's four specific objectives were to: investigate the impact of
strategic leadership, strategic alliance, strategic innovation, and resource allocation on
Kenya Railways Corporation performance. The research was grounded on game theory,
diffusion of innovation theory, contingency theory and resource-based view theory. Both
descriptive and inferential statistics, particularly regression analysis was done using SPSS,
and used to analyze and interpret the data. Thirty two (32) targeted employees from top
and middle management levels at Kenya Railways Corporation were identified as the target
population. 30 of these formed the sample size. The instrument for gathering primary data
was a structured questionnaire. Pilot testing involved 3 respondents, that is, 10% of the
random sample. Experts in transport from the Ministry of Roads and Transport were
engaged to help in testing the validity of the questionnaire, while reliability was tested
using Cronbach’s alpha. The study used a threshold of 0.7 as the standard of reliability. An
average coefficient of 0.977 was obtained and thus the data collection tool was reliable.
Research permits were obtained from NACOSTI for authorization to conduct the study.
Data was collected from the informants, and the response rate was 93.3%. Mean, standard
deviations, deviations, and frequencies were descriptive statistics applied to analyze the
primary data collected using statistical package of social sciences software. The study
findings indicated that strategic leadership, strategic alliance, strategic innovation, and
resource allocation had an effect on performance of the Kenya Railways Corporation.
Additionally, the regression results indicated a positive and significant effect of strategic
leadership (β = 0.502, p=0.000), strategic alliance (β = 0.477, p=0.005), strategic
innovation (β = 0.241, p=0.028) and resources allocation (β = 0.241, p=0.012) on
performance of Kenya Railways Corporation. The study recommended that strategic
leadership should be improved by training leaders on governance and ensuring ethics. Also,
it recommended that the organization should work to establish partnerships in business as
this would improve its performance. Another recommendation was that innovative
measures like improvement of existing infrastructure to suit the modern generation could
be considered. Lastly, the government was encouraged to ensure proper financing of the
projects by the Kenya Railways Corporation and improve its monitoring and evaluation
framework as this would help the organization’s performance.
Description
Research Project Report Submitted to the School of Business in Partial Fulfillment if the Requirements for the Award of Masters Degree in Business Administration (Strategic Management) at Kenyatta University, June 2023.
Keywords
Strategic Management Practices, Kenya Railways Corporation, Nairobi City County, Kenya