Management of strategic change in Kenya police

Abstract

Kenya Police has a national jurisdiction with 4000 police stations and posts and a staff compliment of about 42,000. It is the government’s principal security, law enforcement and criminal investigations agency. Change is inevitable and is the only constant thing. Kenya Police has undergone several changes since its inception. The objectives of this study were to determine how strategic change was managed and to establish the factors influencing strategic change management in the Kenya Police. This involved analysis of primary and secondary data collected through face to face interview with the researcher and reviews of the contents of relevant publications and reports. An interview guide modeled on known strategic management concepts consisting questions was used to collect data from eight senior police officers and analyzed using content analysis. The research concludes that Kenya Police successfully implemented the planned change in areas where the organization was in full control. However, objectives which required stakeholder support including resource mobilization, strengthening of institutional framework, advocacy and change of legislation either never took off or registered minimal success. Most significantly, the study found that Kenya Police is one organization which inevitably attracts an array of extremely powerful stakeholders. Unfortunately, the organization did not appreciate this and therefore failed to put in place an astute stakeholder management strategy consequent upon which the plan never achieved a hundred per cent success.