Influence of Strategy Implementation on Organizational Effectiveness of Non-Governmental Organizations in Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to analyze the influence of strategy implementation on organizational effectiveness in non-governmental organizations in Kenya. This research rests on six research questions stated as follows: What is the influence of leadership style on the organizational effectiveness of NGOs in Kenya? What is the influence of organizational structure on the organizational effectiveness of NGOs in Kenya? What is the influence of organizational resources on the organizational effectiveness of NGOs in Kenya? What is the influence of organizational culture on the organizational effectiveness of NGOs in Kenya? What is the influence of the combination of leadership style, structure, resources, and culture on the organizational effectiveness of NGOs in Kenya? Lastly, what is the influence of the intervening variable, donor policy, on strategy implementation and organizational effectiveness of NGOs in Kenya? The research philosophy used in this research was positivism, as this research heavily relied mainly on quantitative data and because it was to observe a social reality, organizational effectiveness. Explanatory and descriptive research design espoused. This research is explained as exploratory, for it examined organizational effectiveness to get new insights, assess phenomena in a new perspective and explain how a change in the independent variables affects the dependent variable. This study used a field-based survey strategy, correlational in research approach and cross-sectional in time consideration. The population was NGO project managers of NGOs registered with Kenya‟s NGO Co-ordination Board in 2016. Simple random sampling technique was used to draw out a sample size of project managers from the total population. A questionnaire that had both open and close ended questions was used for data collection. Data analysis was executed using inferential and descriptive statistics. The descriptive data included standard deviation, mean and percentages, whereas inferential analysis included Pearson Correlation, Linear Regression, and ANOVA. On the first research question findings indicate leadership style causes a significant positive influence on organization effectiveness. On the second research question, findings indicate organization structure causes a significant positive influence on organization effectiveness. On the third research question, findings indicate organization resources causes a significant positive influence on organization effectiveness. On the fourth research question, findings indicate culture causes a significant positive influence on organization effectiveness. On the fifth research question, the combination of all the independent variables significantly influences organizational effectiveness. Regarding the six research question, the study reveals that donor policies have no significant intervening influence between strategy implementation and organizational effectiveness; the coefficient analysis confirms that donor policies do not significantly intervene between strategy implementation and organizational effectiveness. The conclusion was as follows. The leaders and manager must provide distinct, specific instructions and be concerned about their employees to attain organizational goals. Authority sharing influenced the achievement of organizational goals and centralization of power ensured stakeholder satisfaction. The study also concludes that two parameters of organizational effectiveness, goals attainment and stakeholder‟s satisfaction are not significantly influenced by staff empowerment, fund raising efforts and how funds are allocated. A unique finding was that reward policy did not support goals attainment according to this study. Power distance between employees and management was not a significant cultural factor that affects NGOs in Kenya. In addition, when leadership style, structure, resources and organization culture are combined, they have a positive and significant relationship to organizational effectiveness of NGOs in Kenya. The donor policies; disability policies, gender policies, women empowerment, environmental compliance, and donor regulations enhance organization effectiveness. However, the five constructs of donor policies combined are not an intervening variable between strategy implementation and organizational effectiveness. Further research is recommended to determine the effect of the national political environment on the organizational effectiveness of NGOs, especially those in the civil-society sector. The recommendation to develop an NGO organizational effectiveness ranking metric to provide classification of NGOs into categories based on how effective they are in achieving their mission and strategy.