The extent of stakeholder involvement in strategy formulation and implementation in the National Social Security Fund

Abstract

Every organization has stakeholders who influence strategy process and consequently determine the organization’s purposes that result in formal expectation in terms of its achievement. The extents to which organization stakeholders are interested in or are able to influence an organization’s purposes vary and their different powers and interests underscore these various variations. In N.S.S.F’s departments, the values and the expectations of different stakeholder groups play an important role in the strategy process. It is on this premise that this study was designed to determine the extent to which multi-stakeholders are involved in strategy process and establish factors influencing the extent of the involvement of these various stakeholders. The study used interview guide which was used to get face to face responses from the respondents so as to get in-depth information from them. The study targeted departmental heads, all based at HQs. From the research findings, it was revealed that most of the departments practise strategic planning and carry out stakeholder analysis to determine the various stakeholder interests. The study established that most of the departments involve their stakeholders in strategy formulation and implementation and that various factors influence the extent to which these multi-stakeholders are involved. The results indicated that stakeholders are allowed to contribute their own ideas, assess, review the ideas and had joint decision-making during all stages of the programme. It was also observed that a considerable proportion of respondents in some departments do not involve their main stakeholders in strategy process to considerable extent. Further, it was evident from the study that a wide range of factors come into play to influence the extents of the involvement in the processes. The research findings showed that all factors that were presented to interviewees do influence the extent of stakeholders’ involvements in strategy process. It was, however apparent that even though all factors presented to respondents influence the extent of stakeholders involvement to a greater extent, not all departments indicated this fact, implying that not all factors have same influence on the extent of stakeholder involvement in all the organization’s departments. Generally, it was concluded that differences in the departments’ activities and stakeholder groups’ characteristics and power have much bearing on the factors that influence the extent of their involvement in the strategy process.