Determinants of strategies implementation adopted by infrastructure development projects in Kenya: a case of the Lamu Port-south Sudan-Ethiopia-transport Project (Lapsset)

Abstract

Due to the ever increasing competition in business environment or projects implementation in the 21st century, adopting sustainability strategies for success has been an integral part of success. Studies have indicated a number of competing factors like limited resources, limited time, competing human personnel, an influx of similar competing businesses or projects with superior products to the same customers have compelled firms to adopt strategies are aimed at placing them a live and giving them operational advantages against their competitors. This calls for an immediate probe in strategic management and strategy implementation in relation to organizations performance. The purpose of this study was to examine the determinants of strategies implementation adopted by Infrastructure Development Projects in Kenya: A Case of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport Project (LAPSSET). This study was guided by the following objectives: to examine the extent to which organizational culture influences strategy implementation by Infrastructure projects in Kenya; to examine the extent to which employees training influences effective implementation of strategies by Infrastructure projects in Kenya; to find out the extent to which leadership commitment influences effective implementation of strategy by Infrastructure projects in Kenya; to examine the extent to which financial resources influences effective implementation of strategy by Infrastructure projects in Kenya; and to examine the extent to which information technology influences strategy implementation by Infrastructure projects in Kenya; a case of the Lamu port-south Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport Project (LAPSSET). The study was, therefore, underpinned by these two theories i.e the Open Systems Theory and the Industrial Organization (IO) Economics theory. The research design was descriptive in nature. The 1140 employees attached to various departments made the target population of the study. This study used the Yamane (1967) and D. Israel (2009) formula to calculate the sample size. A well predesigned structured questionnaire containing both open and closed questions was used to collect the primary data. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Data was presented using Descriptive statistics comprising of frequency tables, percentages, means, standard deviation and tables to simplify and characterize data and to summarize the findings. Hypothesis was tested using the Chi-square method. The study achieved response rate of 67.56%. Male respondents dominated the study at 75.0% compared to the female who made 25.0%. From the results: the researcher concluded that organizational culture influences the implementation of the said strategies at any given organization; training of the organization’s employees in relation to various components of adopting to change increases the chances of said strategy survival; a higher percentage of the respondents agreed and strongly agreed with the idea that leadership commitment influences that implementation of strategies; Financial resources and information technology integration influence the implementation of various strategies significantly. Researcher concluded that organizational culture, employees training, leadership commitment, financial resources and information technology influence the implementation of various strategies.