Effect of Strategic Organisational Culture and Stake Holders Involvement on Strategy Implementation in the Administrative Police Service in Kenya

Abstract

In order for organizations to achieve their goals and objectives, it is necessary for them to adjust to their environment through strategy. It is therefore imperative for the Police service in Kenya to understand their resources and the forces that shape organizational competition. However it has been known that significant number of strategic initiatives fail during their implementation since it has been recognized as the biggest challenge for organizations.Kenya’s Vision 2030 lays emphasis on security as crucial pillars for economic growth implying the police play a crucial role in creating the conditions in which development can take place. The Administration Police Service in trying to better its service delivery has so far drawn up three strategic plan with 2013-2017 being the current plan under implementation. However, there has been little change in the structure, accountability and attitude of the police service to match these plans. Despite experiencing numerous attacks, 5% of people in Lamu County view the police as a threat to local security and 25% of residents rated the police performance as quite bad while previous reports indicate that the police were slow in responding to attacks in the county.  This study therefore sought to find out the determinants of an effective strategy implementation in Administration police service in Kenya. Specifically the study sought to determine the influence of management style, communication, organizational culture and stakeholder involvement on effective implementation of strategies. The findings of this study will seek to fill the existing information gap on the issues impeding the implementation of the strategies at Administration Police Service as an instrument of modernizing the Administration Police which has been shown to be making slow progress on intended reforms in the service. The study adopted a cross sectional descriptive design involving survey of senior officers and 212 junior police officers. The senior police officers including County/Sub-county Commanders and head of Divisions were purposively sampled to respond to key informant interviews while junior officers stratified into divisions were randomly selected to respond to self-administered questionnaires. Organizational culture in APS in Lamu County was fairly supportive of strategy implementation. There was above average involvement of staff despite low levels of continuous investment in employee skills. In addition, there were consistent actions in the APS although leaders did not ‘practice what they preach’. The APS also was averagely adaptable despite being somehow opaque in its operations. Officers were also not excited about the organizational vision in the APS.The stakeholders’ involvement was moderately high. Other government agencies were highly involved in strategic implementation by the APS while local community members, junior officers and commanders were moderately involved. Other government agencies took highest priority and attention in the APS and these agencies also had the highest power to influence APS. On the other hand junior officers were actively seeking attention for requests they submitted to the APS.

Keywords: Police, strategy implementation practices, strategy, strategic leadership, communication.