Strategy Development Process Among Family Businesses in Mombasa County, Kenya

Abstract

This research was designed to establish the strategy development processes among family owned businesses in Mombasa County and to identify the factors influencing strategy development process among the businesses. To achieve these objectives, the study adopted a cross-sectional design and targeted 60 family-owned businesses within Mombasa which were randomly selected. All of the 60 firms were served with questionnaires. Responses were received from 34 businesses which were considered adequate for analysis. The study established that more than 50% of the studied firms adopted most of the strategy development processes. 71% of the firms had vision and mission statements and 88% of the firms undertake situational analysis. It was established that all businesses set objectives and craft strategies to achieve these objectives. It was also established that 80% of the firms develop their vision, mission, objectives and strategies into a strategic plan and 93% develop action plans to ensure that the strategies developed get implemented efficiently and effectively. Finally, all firms (100%) indicated that they evaluate their strategy and develop controls to ensure that their strategy is on track. In all these practices, the study revealed that senior managers, heads of departments and directors participate in strategy development to different degrees and the outputs are communicated to all organizational members through various modes. It was also established that various factors influence strategy development processes of the studied firms to different levels. The factors that were rated as having great influence include economic factors, leadership factors and political factors. Those factors with a generally moderate effect include technological factors, legal factors, social factors and the least is cultural factors. The results of the study largely concurred with strategy development processes although not all family-owned businesses have adopted strategy development processes. The study recommends that for policy and practice, businesses whether large or small, profit oriented or not should wholly embrace the concept of strategy development in order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage and improvement in performance.