Challenges of strategy implementation of public private partnership in infrastructure development at rift valley railways Kenya limited

Abstract

Strategic management involves the analysis of decisions and actions that an organization undertakes in-order to create and sustain competitive advantage. It provides overall direction to the organization; it involves specifying the organization’s objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve the set objectives, and allocating resources to implement the plans. Moreover, strategy implementation is the process that puts plans and strategies into action to reach goals. The strategic plan remains forgotten without implementation, the implementation makes the organizational plans happen. The strategy implementation is critical in the success of public private partnerships (PPP); public private partnerships exists when public sector agencies join up with private sector agencies and enter into a business relationship to attain a commonly shared goal that achieves objectives of the individual partners. Public private partnership strategy is fast gaining recognition across the globe. The strategy implementation stage in the strategic management process is considered the most complicated stage since it requires managers to convert plans into actions to enable the achievement of goals. Consequently, the objective of this study was to establish the challenges of strategy implementation at Rift Valley Railways Kenya Limited. The researcher adopted a case study research design. The study targeted five senior managers at Rift Valley Railways Kenya Limited. The research instrument was an interview guide administered in a face-to-face meeting with the study’s key respondents. Primary data was analyzed by content analysis technique. The study revealed that the challenges of strategy implementation of PPP in infrastructure development at Rift Valley Railways Kenya Limited were institutional challenges, insufficient staff capacities and complex institutional oversight and regulatory capacity. The study therefore suggests that further research should be carried out on the challenges of strategy implementation for other firms in Kenya; and that another research be carried out on the challenges of the formulation of PPP strategy by firms in Kenya.