Nyoike, Teresia N.2024-09-252024-09-252024-05https://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/28839A Research Project Submitted to the School of Business, Economics and Tourism in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of Master of Business Administration (Strategic Management Option) Kenyatta University, May 2024. Supervisor Hannah Orwa BulaAlthough the Kenyan Government has made large investments in university education to improve quality, accessibility, reliability, and relevance, the performance of its public universities has deteriorated, as seen by diminishing university education quality. The closing of 11 local campuses of two public universities, public universities' poor performance has substantially impacted their development and viability. Even though empirical literature has shown that strategic planning affects performance in various circumstances, most research studies contain scope limitations, conceptual gaps, methodological gaps, and contextual gaps. As a result, there is a paucity of specific empirical evidence regarding the effect of strategic planning on public universities’ effectiveness and performance, one of the research gaps that the current study filled. The study primarily strived to evaluate how strategic planning affects performance in Kenyan public universities, specifically by evaluating the effects of strategic direction, evaluating the effects of environmental analysis, evaluating the effects of resource planning, and examining the effects of monitoring plans. The foundation theories were the theory of performance, rational planning, strategic fit theory, and strategic choice theory. The research employed a descriptive study approach with the 168 top administration managers of selected Kenyan public universities as its target group. The representative sample comprised of 119 respondents, calculated by the Yamane formula. In this research, each sample size’s classification was ascertained using proportionate sampling, and the participants were chosen using systematic sampling. The information was gathered from primary sources through a questionnaire pre-tested for validity and reliability before being used. The research employed quantitative data analysis to provide descriptive statistics, while inferential analysis was used to generate correlation and regression statistics to forecast a research model. An analysis of the data was performed utilizing the SPSS software, specifically Version 24.0. The investigation found that at 5% significance level, strategic direction has a significantly positive and moderate effect on performance of universities in Nairobi City County (p< 0.22; r = 0.385; β=0.237,environmental analysis has a significant and positive effect on public universities in Nairobi City County(p< 0.047; r = 0.185; β = 0.155) ; resource planning had a significantly positive moderate effect on performance of Nairobi City County universities (p=0.14; β=0.269; r =0.386), and, monitoring plan has a significantly moderate positive effect on performance of Nairobi City County universities((p= 0.001; β = 0.586;r= 0.450). The study recommends for public universities in Nairobi City County to; review of strategic direction function so as to ensure that their policies provide for adequate opportunities for human resource development and those policies should always be actioned; sensitize their staff on the application of the basic environmental analysis tools; Balanced Scorecard framework Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats Analysis, Political, Economic, Social, Technical, Legal and Environment model enhance their resource planning through allocating sufficient finances for strategy implementation while also providing regular monitoring and auditing of the resources they allocate and; strengthen their monitoring plan through employing more efficient monitoring approach to encourage the implementation of strategic goals while taking into account when implementing monitoring plansenThesis