Factors Affecting Strategic Management

Introduction

In the 21st century, Strategic management continues to positively impact organisational performance (Hitt, Hoskisson, and Ireland, 2011). The core phases of strategic management are; formulation, implementation and evaluation of strategies. The importance of precise formulation and effective implementation of strategy to successful business cannot be emphasised enough (Golsorkhi, Rouleau, Seidl, and Vaara, 2010). Bell, Dean, and Gottschalk (2010) assert that, strategy implementation is the most complicated and time-consuming part of strategic management, while strategy formulation is primarily an academic and creative act involving scrutiny and fusion.

Thus, making it important to study the reasons for average performance by organisations when it comes to successful strategy implementation. Essentially an in-house administrative activity, strategic management entails a process of converting the formulated strategies into viable operations that will yield the organization's targeted results or outputs.Successful strategy implementation is a challenge.

Previous studies have indicated the percentage of organisational strategies that fail, with some authors estimating a rate of failure between 50 and 90 percent in the largest public and private corporations in the USA and Canada.

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(Gail, 2013). This means whereas organisations develop strategies, they are not executed, or if executed, it was with poor results. According to Wangiru (2011) successful strategy implementation is distinguished by: completion of planned activities within the stipulated time; realisation of the performance envisioned; and appropriateness of methodologies and outcomes within the organisation. It is also consistent with the intended and emergent strategy approaches.This chapter presents the background to the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, objectives, research questions, research hypotheses, and scope of the study, significance of the study and definition of key terms.

Problem Statement

The Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) is established by the Uganda Registration Services Bureau Act 1998, Cap. 210 of the Laws of Uganda with the mandate of handling miscellaneous registrations and collection of related non tax revenue under various laws. URSB formulated its first Strategic Investment Plan (SIP I) for the period 2012/13 " 2016/17 with four pillars; Vision, Mission, Core Values and Strategic Objectives.In the final year of implementation of the SIP I an evaluation exercise was undertaken to: Re iterate what the URSB SIP I (FY2012/13-FY2016/17) intended to achieve, take stock of what the SIP actually achieved and to ascertain the causes of the variance between the planned and achieved results. The overall performance of the SIP I, on an average percentage scale was 66%, indicating that there was variance between what was planned and what was achieved. Some of these unachieved plans formed the foundation of the SIP II running from FY 2017/2018 to FY 2019/2020.

Factors like obstructive organization structure and culture, lack of shared values, resistance to change, insufficient staff training, scarce resources, poor monitoring and control methodologies, uncontrollable factors organisation's environment, nature of leadership style, poor risk assessment and management, enthusiasts of strategic decisions exiting the organization during implementation, lack of management support and lack of staff involvement and above all poor communication have contributed failure of successful strategy implementation in any organization (Marginson, 2012; Lares-Mankki, 2014; Koske, 2013).

The authors agree that although these factors affect strategy implementation, each factor's impact is different and does not carry the same influence. Scholars like Golsorkhi, D., Rouleau, L., Seidl, D., and Vaara, E. (2010) affirm that there is consistent and overall poor implementation of strategic plans in the public sector, resulting into poor service delivery to the citizens and the non-realisation of the specified results or outcomes. It is apparent that there is a significant gap between strategy development and strategy execution. This means that what is planned is usually not executedUnless the factors impacting strategy implementation negatively are identified and minimized, it will be difficult for Uganda Registration Services Bureau to realize its goals and therefore will continue to underperform and continuously fail to attain set goals.

Research Objectives

The study will be guided by the following specific objectives: To establish whether change management affects implementation of strategy in URSB. To determine whether Organisational culture affects strategy implementation in URSB. To establish whether leadership affects strategy implementation in URSB.Research QuestionsThe research seeks to answer the following questions; To what extent is change management a significant factor in strategy implementation in URSB? How does organizational culture facilitate strategy implementation in URSB? What is the effect of leadership on strategy implementation in URSB?

Research Propositions

1. Change management initiatives contribute to effective strategy implementation and organisational performance
2. Organizational culture contributes to successful strategy implementation.
3. Organisational leadership positively impacts on strategy implementation and corporate performance

Scope of the Study

The context of the study is public sector corporations in Uganda and is based on a single case of URSB. Conceptually, it will look at how change management affects implementation of strategy, whether Organisational culture affects strategy implementation and how leadership affects strategy implementation.A five year period will be considered FY 2012/13 to FY 2016/17 the period of the SIP I as it did not realise the planned results or outputs.Significance of the StudyIt is believed that findings of this study will be of great benefit to policymakers, management of URSB and future scholars who would like to advance their knowledge to the study area. For policymakers, findings from the study will enable them come up with better and appropriate policies in strategy implementation as the public sector strategies are aligned to the National Development plans. To management of URSB, may assist them in understanding the factors affecting strategy implementation and how to alleviate these hurdles. For scholars, findings from the study will inform the body of knowledge for further reference by other scholars and also help other academic researchers who might undertake the same topic in their future studies.