| dc.description.abstract | Organizations‟ are open systems due to their dependency nature to their environment.
Organizations should constantly scan their environment for any changes and respond
accordingly or risk their existence. Strategic responses should create a fit between an
organization and its environment, for survival and attainment of sustainable competitive
advantage in a complex environment. KNCHR like any other organization in the public
sector in Kenya has faced its fair share of challenges due to changing environment. This
study addresses two main objectives that is, to identify changes in KNCHR‟s external
environment and secondly, establish the various strategic responses adopted by
KNCHR. A case study approach was used, where face to face interviews were
undertaken with eight respondents using an interview guide. The study found that
KNCHR had experienced key changes in its macro environment touching on political,
economic, socio-cultural, environmental and legal factors. This led to internal changes
which largely impacted on KNCHR‟s structure, systems and processes. One of the key
external changes is the new legislative frameworks such as the Constitution (2010) that
led to creation of Article 59 Commissions. This resulted to increased competition,
increased rivalry among the three commissions, funding constraints, high staff turnover
among others. Further, the study found that in response to these changes, KNCHR had to
adopt key strategic responses such as competitive, restructuring, organizational
leadership, culture change and information technologies to survive. In conclusion the
study established that an organization whether in public or private sector must constantly
adjust to its environment so as to create a strategic fit for survival. Further, that the
changes in the environment automatically affects the organizational structure,
leadership, decision making processes, culture as well as operations hence the need for
formulation of adequate strategic responses. The study recommends the need for
KNCHR to focus more on capitalising on the opportunities brought about by the new
legislative framework such as its constitutional guaranteed independence, devolution,
increased democratic space, and a comprehensive Bill of rights to increase its vibrancy
instead of getting distracted by boardroom wars with the other Commissions. This
study‟s limitations are that one, the study adopted a case study approach hence
generalization of this findings to all other government institutions is limited. Further, the
study drew its respondents from the top management level only that is not to mean the
rest of the staff do not influence KNCHR‟s strategic direction. The study recommends
for a similar study targeting the other two Article 59 Commissions to enable comparison
of findings in addition to the need for a comprehensive research on the issue of high
staff turnover at KNCHR. | en_US |
