Strategic Management Practices and Service Delivery in the County Government of Bungoma, Kenya

Abstract

Strategic management practices involve the art and science of formulating, implementing, and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives. The main purpose of this research study was to assess the effect of strategic management practices on service delivery in County Government of Bungoma, Kenya. Four specific objectives form the study and these were: to examine the effect of strategic planning on service delivery in the county government of Bungoma, to explore the influence of strategic training and development on service delivery in the County Government of Bungoma; to determine the effect of performance contract appraisal on service delivery in the County Government of Bungoma; and finally to establish the effect of strategic recruitment and selection processes on service delivery in the County Government of Bungoma. Descriptive and correlation research designs were adopted for the study. The target population consisted of 65 respondents from the 5 top management team (the County Executive Committee Members, the Chief Officers, directors and/or the Senior Officers and Administrators in the departments) from all the thirteen (13) departments in County Government of Bungoma as at June 2017. All the targeted 65 respondents in the 13 departments in the county government of Bungoma were sampled, thus forming a census study. The questionnaire and interview schedules were used as the data collection instruments. Data analysis and interpretation was based on descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics mainly multi-linear regressions and factor analysis using SPSS version 22. The study findings revealed that the influence of strategic management practices (strategic planning, strategic recruitment and placement, strategic, Performance contract appraisal) with the exception of strategic training and development on service delivery was significant (t = 3.166; p < 0.05). The study hypotheses on strategic planning, strategic recruitment and selection and performance contract appraisal not influencing service delivery were rejected while the hypothesis on strategic training and development not having influence on service delivery was accepted. Performance contract appraisal was the most critical parameter of strategic management practices that enhanced service delivery. It was noted that a unit increase in service delivery would require 0.037 unit increases in strategic planning, 0.218 unit increases in strategic recruitment and placement, 0.007 unit increases in strategic training and development and 0.426 unit increases in performance contact appraisal. The study recommends that county governments should link planning to budget for them to be able to effectively implement their programs and projects. Departmental strategic planning processes should be all inclusive and participatory to enable holistic capture of views from all stakeholders. All salaries of staff working in the county government of Bungoma should be rationalized and aligned to the tasks carried out by an employees to face out the current issues in remuneration. Training should be based on specific tasks and roles as opposed to general trainings which rarely yield much. Lastly, adequate resources should be allocated towards performance contracts to enable the employees to implement their performance contracts.