Determinants of Strategic Choice among Universities in Kenya

Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, , language: English, abstract: Universities are considered fundamental segment of the education sector that has been sensitive to external and internal environmental changes. It is evident that the universities in Kenya are operating in a different environment than they did since their inception and face the challenge of choosing which strategy to adopt to cope with this fast paced scenario. The choices made therefore will determine their success or failure. The objective of this study was to identify the determinants of strategic choice among universities in Kenya. This study was guided by contingency and resource dependency theories and reviewed past studies on the topic to identify a knowledge gap. The study employed a cross-sectional survey research design. The target population was the 71 universities in Kenya according to the Commission for University Education. To avoid one person bias, the university registrars and heads of department were identified as the key respondents. The study used primary data which was collected using a structured questionnaire that was either hand delivered or sent online to respondents. A pilot study to pretest and validate the questionnaire was done using 7 universities which represented 10% of the 71 universities in Kenya. The Cronbach's Alpha Co-efficient was computed for the Likert questions which were deemed reliable because they scored reliability coefficient above 0.7. The content validity was tested through expert opinion. The quantitative data collected was cleaned, coded and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) Software Version 20. The results were summarized into percentages and tables. The findings of the study indicate that only organization culture and vision and mission are statistically significant to strategic choice. It also pointed out that resource allocation, organization culture, competitive environment and vision and mission have an explanatory power in explaining strategic choice. The findings also revealed that universities in Kenya adopt a clan culture. In light of the findings the study recommends that universities in Kenya should have and follow defined procedures for strategic choice process and employees within these institutions should be involved in the process to create a sense of purpose.