Factors Affecting Effectiveness Of Strategic Management: Research on Ceramic Business in Kenya

A Research Project Report Submitted to the Chandaria School of Business in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Masters in Business Administration (MBA)The general objective of the study was to determine factors affecting effectiveness of strategic management between Kenyan owned ceramic firms and Chinese owned ceramic enterprises in Kenya. To achieve this general objective the study was guided by the following specific objectives: to examine importance of strategic approaches, organizational cultures and core competence on effectiveness of strategic management between Kenyan owned ceramic firms and Chinese owned ceramic firms in Kenya respectively. This research was a descriptive study in nature. The descriptive study was appropriate in discovering and measuring the relationships among the variables. Further the study used a questionnaire to collect data from the respondents. The populations for the study were 170 Kenyan and Chinese managers and entrepreneurs who have engaged in ceramic business in Kenya. The sample size for this study was 33 Kenyan and Chinese managers in total 11 from Housemart and 22 from Tile & Carpet and SAJ. The study was carried out within Nairobi CBD especially along Mombasa Road where ceramic business is a thriving business. The data collected was analyzed by the use of inferential and descriptive statistics. The study findings had found that majority of study participants agreed with the statement that effectiveness of strategic management is of great importance to ceramic business in Kenya; minority of the respondents held neutral position against the statement might contribute to unawareness of strategic management effectiveness or inadequate educational experiences or lower managerial positions occupancy led to rare participation in strategic decisions making; a very few of the respondents disagreed with the statement. It is evident that most of the people engaged in ceramic business advocated positively that the effectiveness of strategic management is vital to ceramic business in Kenya. To be elaborated, the right strategic approaches will be adopted based on the various resources and core competences of the firms; every firm seeks their best strategic-matching. Through survey SAJ ranked at the highest on the RBV Model, Tile & Carpet on Balance Scorecard and Housemart got top two preferences on I/O Model and RBV Model. Moreover organizational cultures would be another factor to be taken into account based on the research results that most of the respondents strongly agreed that organizational cultures do have certain influences on the effectiveness of strategic management. Furthermore, core competence should be fundamental to maintain the competitive edges and sustain superior performance depending on the findings that every firm got their core competence to secure their unique market positions in business, SAJ – Long term Marketing and branding, Tile & Carpet – Niche, Housemart – Long term Marketing. The study concluded that strategic approaches, organizational cultures and core competences do have strong influences on the effectiveness of strategic management of ceramic firms in Kenya. Each factor can work independently toward effects of strategic management, or they can work together to determine the success of strategic management of ceramic business. No factor should be neglected or understated because each of them plays the distinctive roles determining the effectiveness of strategic management, the links between the factors and dependant variable are multi-correlated. The study recommended that the sample of research should be extended to ensure the accuracy of the findings, more attentions should be paid to the original nation culture of managers or entrepreneurs in Kenyan-owned and Chinese-owned ceramic business so as to reflect the complete cultural effects on the effectiveness of strategic management, broad scope of the core competence questionnaires should be set in order to attain whole-view competences research