The Determinants of Strategy Implementation in Service Firms: A Case of United Nations Humanitarian Air Services Somalia

A Research Project Report Submitted to Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Masters in Business Administration (MBA)The purpose of this study was to determine the determinants of strategy implementation in service firms. The study was guided by the following research questions. Does Leadership affect strategy implementation? How do organizational resources impact strategy implementation? Is there a relationship between culture and strategy implementation? The study adopted a descriptive research design. In this study the total population comprised the 200 World Food Programme employees based in Nairobi and Somalia. A stratified random sampling was used to draw 30% of the 200 employees which translates into 60 employees to form the sample size. Primary data was collected using a questionnaire. The data analysis involved descriptive statistics [frequencies, percentages, means] while inferential statistics involved correlations and regression analysis to infer the findings to the entire population. The findings were presented in form of tables and figures. The first research question sought to identify the effects of leadership on strategy implementation. The study identified coming up with vision as the major role of leadership in strategy implementation followed by employee motivation and effective communication. The relationship between vision, motivation and communication displayed statistically significant positive correlation with strategy implementation. Vision had a moderate positive correlation with strategy implementation; motivation had a moderate positive correlation with strategy implementation, while adaptability to change did not have statistically significant relationship with strategy implementation. Further, the variables of vision, motivation and communication significantly correlate with one another in the model. The second research question sought to identify the role of organizational resources in strategy implementation. Human resources, financial resources, information systems and organizational structure were subjected to regression analysis with strategy implementation. The study showed that human resources, financial resources, information systems and organizational structure displayed statistically significant positive correlation with strategy implementation. Human resources had a moderate positive correlation with strategy implementation; financial resources had a weak positive correlation with strategy implementation; information system had a moderate positive correlation with strategy implementation, while organizational structure had a weak positive correlation with strategy implementation. Human resources, financial resources, information systems and organizational structure significantly correlate with one another in the model. Regression analysis showed that human resources contributed more to the success of strategy implementation followed by effective information systems, financial resources and finally effective organizational structure. The third research question sought to identify the effects of organizational culture on strategy implementation. The study showed that culture of stability, culture of risk taking and culture of results oriented displayed statistically significant positive correlation with strategy implementation. Stability culture had a moderate positive correlation with strategy implementation; risk taking culture had a weak positive correlation with strategy implementation while results oriented culture displayed a moderate positive correlation with strategy implementation. Further, the variables of stability, risk taking and result oriented cultures significantly correlate with one another in the model. The study showed that the culture of results oriented and stability contributed more to the success of strategy implementation followed by the culture of risk taking. The study recommends that the organization should put measures to ensure the potential of being visionary, staff motivation and effective communication are fully exploited. Further, it is imperative for the organization to establish a continuous human resource development to be able to anticipate and deal with the emerging issues in strategy implementation. The study also recommends that the organization needs to be more flexible in its management approach to promote innovativeness to effectively respond to the emerging issues in strategy implementation. Finally, studies in other related organizations would help develop a stronger empirical evidence of the effects of leadership, organizational resources and culture on strategy implementation