Effect of Strategic Planning On Performance of Non- Governmental Organizations in Samburu County, Kenya

Abstract

Effective strategic planning, guided by a clear strategic direction, plays a vital role in helping organizations identify and prioritize their goals and objectives, ultimately leading to improved performance. However, the relationship between strategic planning and performance is not always straightforward, and previous studies have yielded mixed outcomes. The specific objectives were to establish the effect of strategic scanning, strategy formulation, strategic goal setting, and action planning on performance of NGOs in Samburu County, Kenya. The study was guided by resource based-view, institutional and stakeholder theories. Resource-based view theory guided strategic scanning and strategy formulation variables. Institutional goal theory guided goal setting variable while stakeholder theory guided action planning theory. The research adopted a descriptive research design, encompassing all 31 NGOs within the county. Employees within these NGOs were actively involved in the study. The target population was 262 employees within these organizations. A sample size of 158 employees were selected using stratified random sampling, calculated with Yamane's formula. The researchers employed structured questionnaires to gather insights from these employees. Before the main data collection, a pre-testing phase carefully selected a pilot sample of 16 employees from three NGOs in Isiolo County to ensure the questionnaire's clarity and relevance. To assess reliability, the researcher examined the consistency of the responses to the questions through Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha. Content, criterion and construct validities was also examined. For data analysis, SPSS software version 25 was used and various analysis such as descriptive and inferential statistics were done. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and mean were analyzed. Pearson Correlation analysis was used to test the hypothesis and in determining the relationship between variables, a multiple regression model was used. The study found out that strategic formulation had the highest influence whereas strategic goal setting had the lowest influence on performance. The conclusions were that strategic scanning was that majority of NGOs wasted a lot of resources on strategies that they would have benchmarked with their competitors. On strategy formulation, there were inefficiencies related to communication barriers and breakdown between the management and the junior employees. On strategic goal setting, there was an increase information leakage within departments and to external stakeholders of the NGOs. On action planning, it was not effectively done due to low availability of resources and increased competing strategies. The recommendation on strategic scanning is that NGOs management should liaise with operations staff for information on what their competitors were doing in regards to strategic plans implementation. The recommendation on strategy formulation is that the senior management should develop communication policies that dictate the timelines of communication, the audience of information and the repercussions of withholding critical information suitable for operations. The recommendation on strategic goal setting is that the management should set up policies that discourage information seepage such as suspensions, demotions and job termination to anyone found guilty of leaking institutional strategies. The recommendation on action planning is that the management should develop a variety of fund-raising campaigns which will allow new donors into the organizations.