Leadership Alignment, Firm size and Sustainable Competitive Advantage among Deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in Kenya

Abstract

Sustainable competitive advantage has been a major topic of interest among managers of both commercial and non-commercial Organizations globally. As the operating environment becomes competitive, managers faced with dwindling performance for their Organisations are concerned not just with achieving competitive advantage but sustaining the same for long term benefit. This is achieved mostly through leadership alignment which is the fit between a firm’s strategy and its internal and external factors. The significance of Leadership alignment in a business context has been devoted to the fit between business competitive strategies and internal factors. Creating a sustainable competitive advantage is the most important goal of any Sacco’s and is the most important single attribute on which each Sacco’s must place its most focus. Strategic leadership is the leader’s ability to anticipate, envision, and maintain flexibility and to empower others to create strategic change as necessary. Strategic leadership is versatile and involves managing through subordinates, and helps organizations to cope with changes that seem to be increasing dramatically in today’s globalized business environment. Strategic leadership demands for the ability to integrate both the inside and outside business environment of the organization, and engage in multifaceted information processing.The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between Leadership Alignment on Sustainability of Competitive Advantage among Deposit taking Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies in Kenya and the moderating effect of firm size on this relationship. The study was anchored on dynamic capability approach. The study adopted a correlational research design where data was collected only once from the respondents by use of questionnaires from four senior managers in each of the one hundred and sixty four SACCOs involved in this study. Statistical package for social sciences (version 23) was used for data analyses. Multi linear regression was used to establish the relationship between the variables and data was presented through descriptive and inferential statistics and all ethical considerations were made. The study found that leadership alignment influences sustainable competitive advantage and also there was a moderate positive relationship between leadership alignment (R= 0.304) and sustainable competitive advantage of SACCOs in Kenya and that sustainable competitive advantage is achieved through leadership alignment. Moreover, firm size was found to influence this relationship. The study recommends that SACCOs in Kenya should strategically align their leadership well in order to sustain their competitive advantage and remain relevant in meeting the needs of their customers.