Determinants of Strategic Plan Implementation at Co-Operative Bank of Kenya

Abstract

The intense competition facing the banking sector has placed greater pressure on them to seek ways to achieve a sustained competitive advantage. In order to remain relevant in the market, commercial banks have to continually review their strategic plans and formulate new competitive strategies to suit emerging trends in the market. Well thought strategic planning and effective implementation can be used as a tool for achieving banking industry goals, it is therefore important to critically examine the determining factors of good plan implementation. The main aim of this study was to establish the determinants of strategic plan implementation in the Banking Sector, a case of Co-operative Bank of Kenya. The study sought to examine the influence of transformational leadership, stakeholder involvement and resource allocation on strategic plan implementation at Co-operative bank of Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population of the study was 210 management employees working in the Co-operative bank head office branch.  Stratified and simple random sampling was used to select 50% of the management staff. This study relied on primary data. The study collected primary data by use of questionnaires that comprised of open and closed ended questionnaires. SPSS was used to produce frequencies, descriptive and inferential statistics which was used to derive conclusions and generalizations regarding the population. The study findings indicated that the bank had put into place mechanisms to ensure that strategy plan implementation was a success by having transformational leaders, involving all the stakeholders and ensuring the resources allocated are efficient for the process. The study concluded that transformational leadership, stakeholder involvement and resource allocation were statistically significant in explaining strategic plan implementation. The study recommends that the leadership of any organization should always stay visionary as this would help in steering the organization to attaining both its short and long-term goals. The bank should ensure that their policy manual is maintained and updated regularly, the institution also need to have in place policies to help guide the firm to overcome dynamic changes in the sector.

Keywords: Strategic Plan Implementation, Leadership, Stakeholder Involvement, Co-operative Bank

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-32-07

Publication date: November 30^th 2019