Strategic Planning and Performance of Parishes in the ACK Diocese of Nairobi
Keywords:
Strategic Planning, Leaders Involvement, Resource allocation, Parish structure, Strategic fit, PerformanceAbstract
The main objective of this study was to ascertain the extent to which the strategic planning had influenced the organizational performance of the ACK Nairobi Diocese at parish levels. These specific research objectives guided the study: to examine the ways in which the leaders are involved in strategic planning at the parish level; to identify how the resources allocated to achieve the parish goals as per the strategic plan; to evaluate the parish structure in relation to their strategic plans; and lastly to examine the strategic fit adopted by the parishes in their environments. This study may be significant in that, more often than not the parishes have tended to operate on the premises of faith in God without adequate planning, which assists in setting up and aligning budgets and structures that would enhance their service delivery and hence performance. The study was limited to 66 parishes of the ACK Diocese of Nairobi, within Nairobi County. The study assumptions were that: the ACK Parishes in Nairobi Diocese have aligned their operations to the overall diocesan plan; and that the Vicars of ACK Parishes in Nairobi Diocese gave an over view of the general status of strategic plan implementation in relation to performance. The research design was mixed method in nature, which endeavored to evaluate the extent to which the strategic planning has influenced the performance of the ACK Nairobi Diocese at parish levels. The population of interest was all the Parishes in Nairobi Diocese boiling down to their vicars, and top leadership at the parish level. A census method was adopted targeting all the 66 parishes in 11 Archdeaconries of Nairobi ACK Diocese. The main respondents were vicars of the parishes who incorporated the relevant offices in their parishes to answer the questionnaire. The selection of respondents in this study was largely purposive in that it targeted the Vicars and other two officers in the parish executive committee. The study adopted the use of stratified sampling which will involve stratified selection of respondents depending on their positions in the church parishes and are directly responsible for planning and are involved in leadership of the church. To be able to collect data required for this research, the questionnaire was used. A pilot was done to pre- test the data collection tool for reliability. The data was analyzed using social science software, (SPSS) and the findings were presented in form of frequency tables, pie charts and bar graphs. Findings revealed a positive and significant relationship between leader's involvement in strategy planning and parish Performance (B =.183, p=0.000), resources allocated towards strategy planning and parish Performance (B=.284, p=0.000), parish structure and parish Performance (B=.338, p=0.000), strategic fit and parish Performance (B=.120, p=0.015) and between parish culture and parish performance (B =.205 p=0.000).The study concluded that the five independent variables used in this study positively and significantly influenced that performance of the ACK parishes in the diocese of Nairobi. The study recommended based on the findings and conclusions that the managements of the ACK parishes in the dioceses of Nairobi should strive to put in place proper strategy plans so as to improve the performance of their dioceses.
Key Words: Strategic Planning, Leaders Involvement, Resource allocation, Parish structure, Strategic fit, Performance
References
ACK (2006). ACK Nairobi Diocese 2006- 2010 Strategic Plan.
ACK (2014). Diocese of Nairobi 10 Year Strategic Plan 2014 – 2023.
Barney, J .B & Ouchi, W.G. (1986). Organizational Economics.
Barney, J, (1991).Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, Vol. 17, Issue 1, p. 99-120
Bryson J. M (2011). Strategic Planning for Public and Non-Profit Organizations: Kindle Ed. A guide to strengthening and Organizations Achievement. San Francisco, U.S: Jossey- Bass Publication.
Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons.
Bryson, J. M., Edwards, L. H., & Van Slyke, D. M. (2018). Getting strategic about strategic planning research.
Feldman, S. (2019). Memory as a moral decision: The role of ethics in organizational culture.
Routledge.
Gachau, N. S. (2018). Strategic Fit Components and Influence on Organization Performance; Case of Retirement Benefits Authority in Kenya Pensions Sector.
Jensen,C.M. & Meckling, H.W (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behviour, agency costs and ownership structure.
Keegan, A., Ringhofer, C., & Huemann, M. (2018). Human resource management and project based organizing: Fertile ground, missed opportunities and prospects for closer connections. International Journal of Project Management, 36(1), 121-133.
KNBS (2009). Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (Population Census)
Lemarleni, J. E., Ochieng, I., Gakobo, T., & Mwaura, P. (2017). Effects of resource allocation on strategy implementation at Kenya Police Service in Nairobi County. International Academic Journal of Human Resource and Business Administration, 2(4), 1-26.
Luthans, F (1976). A General Contingency Theory of Management
Milgrom, P. & Roberts, J. (1994). Economics, Organization and Management.
Mu, J., Bao, Y., Sekhon, T., Qi, J., & Love, E. (2018). Outside-in marketing capability and firm performance. Industrial Marketing Management, 75, 37-54.
Musyoka, E (2011). Organizational Learning and Continuous Improvement among Cereal Milling Firms in Kenya. Un published Research Project Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for Award of the Degree of Master of Business Administration (MBA), School of Business, University of Nairobi.
Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2016). Principles of Organizational Behavior: Realities, and Challenges. South-Western-Cengage Learning.
Noreen (1988). The economics of ethics: A new perspective on agency theory. Vol.13, issue 4, 359-369.
Nwonu, H. E., Awurum, J. I., & Okoli, I. E. (2017) the International Journal Of Business & Management.
O’Regan, N., Sims, M. A., & Gallear, D. (2008). Leaders, loungers, and laggards: the strategic- planning environment-performance relationship re-visited in manufacturing SMEs, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 19(1), 6-21. doi 10.1108/17410380810843426.
O’Riordan, L., & Fairbrass, J. (2014). Managing CSR stakeholder engagement: A new conceptual framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 125(1), 121-145.
Paliwal, M. C., & Chouriya, D. (2018). A Comprehensive Review on Cost Optimization by Resource Allocation Using Primavera. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL ONLINE OF SCIENCE, 4(9), 5-5.
Payne, S. L., & Calton, J. M. (2017). Towards a managerial practice of stakeholder engagement: Developing multi-stakeholder learning dialogues. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 121-135). Routledge.
Pearce, J. A., II, Freeman, E. B., & Robinson, R. B. (2007). The tenuous link between formal strategic planning and financial performance. Academy of Management Review, 12(October): 658-675.
Podmore, C. (2005).Aspects of Anglican Identity. London Church House Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7151-5756-5.
Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
New York: Free Press.
Reeves, D. (2007). Making strategic planning work. Educational Leadership, 65(4):86.
Roelens, B., Steenacker, W., & Poels, G. (2019). Realizing strategic fit within the business architecture: the design of a process-goal alignment modeling and analysis technique. Software & Systems Modeling, 18(1), 631-662.
Steiner, G. A. (1979). Strategic Planning. New York: Free Press.
Steiss, A. W. (2019). Strategic management for public and nonprofit organizations. Routledge.
Suklev, B. & Debarliev, S. (2012). Strategic planning effectiveness comparative analysis of the Macedonian context, Economic and Business Review, 14(1), 63-93
Tamayo-Torres, I., Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L. J., Llorens-Montes, F. J., & Martínez-López, F. J. (2016). Organizational learning and innovation as sources of strategic fit. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 116(8), 1445-1467.
Tareq N. H., & Ahmad I. A. (2019). The Impact of Strategic Fit on the Marketing Performance of the Industrial Corporations in Jordan. International Journal of Business and Management, 14(2), 115-124.
Wendy, R (1997). The Relationship between Strategic Planning and Firm Performance Wishwa Prakashan.
Wolf, C., & Floyd, S. W. (2017). Strategic planning research: Toward a theory-driven agenda. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1754-1788.
