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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 8, No. 4
Publication Date: April 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/assrj.84.9987.
Mutea, H. K., Senaji, T. A., & Rintari, N. G. (2021). Influence of Regulative Pressures on Strategy Implementation in Public Secondary
Schools in Selected Counties in Kenya. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(4). 309-326.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Influence of Regulative Pressures on Strategy Implementation in
Public Secondary Schools in Selected Counties in Kenya
Harun Kaumbuthu Mutea
Doctoral Candidate, Kenya Methodist University
Thomas Anyanje Senaji
The East African University
Nancy Gacheri Rintari
Kenya Methodist University
ABSTRACT
Preparation of strategic plans and their implementation in public secondary
schools is mandatory for all schools in Kenya. However, the implementation is a
challenge to the majority of the schools hence the need to investigate the factors
that influence it. Being a relatively new management practice in public secondary
schools, empirical studies in this area are limited. Drawing from the institutional
theory, we conducted a descriptive structured self-administered questionnaire
survey to determine the influence of regulative pressures on strategy
implementation in public secondary schools. We further, examined the moderating
effect of mimetic pressures on this relationship. We found that public secondary
schools experienced moderate regulative pressures from the government to
implement strategies and that through binary logistic regression model, regulative
pressure significantly predicted the probability of successful strategy
implementation (Wald = 13.682, df = 1, p < .001, exp (B) = 3.393). However, mimetic
pressures did not significantly moderate the relation between regulative pressure
and strategy implementation (Wald = .098, df = 1, p = .754 > .05, exp (B) =.737).
Theoretically the study contributes to the scarce empirical literature on strategy
implementation from the institutional theory perspective compared to strategy
formulation. Practically, the study draws attention of stakeholders to the less
investigated factors that influence strategy implementation namely: the regulative
pressures. These findings have implications for government to strengthen the
monitoring of public secondary schools to increase the likelihood of successful
strategy implementation in public secondary schools.
Key words: Strategy implementation, regulative pressures, mimetic pressures, secondary
schools, Kenya.
INTRODUCTION
The term strategy was first mentioned in organizational management from early 1960s but
became more pronounced in the mid-1970s. This development in the organizational activities
was mainly necessitated by the inefficiencies of the prevailing positions and perspectives then
and the uncertainties of the environmental conditions (Cerniauskienė, 2014). However it took
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 8, Issue 4, April-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
a long time for the strategic management paradigm to permeate other sectors from the private
enterprise domains. Strategic management was adopted in the public sectors in the second half
of 1980s at the time when the liberal market paradigm began to dominate all organizational
management thoughts (IIEP, 2010). From the middle of the 1980s there was an influx of private
sector principles and tools into the public sector in an attempt to enhance the efficiencies and
effectiveness of the public sector. The reform agenda was summarized as “New Public
Management” (NPM) or “New Steering Model” in Germany (Mcbain & Smith, 2010, p 1).
Following the emergence of NPM the traditional bureaucratic style of management started to
lose its appeal as Western countries such as the United States of America, Britain, Germany and
Australia, Canada and New Zealand abandoned it for NPM model (Rubakula, 2014). NPM was a
collection of emergent ideas and practices aimed at reforming the public sector that became
popular in the late 1980s. It involved the infusion of private sector styles of management such
as the introduction of performance contracting practices and adoption of overt standards and
performance measurements. It was aimed at curbing the chronic failures characteristic of the
traditional bureaucratic management style that was found to be too hierarchical, slow in
response to issues and inefficient in general (Alexander, 2014).
From the Western countries NPM diffused to other parts of the world mainly through the
influence of Breton Woods institutions namely World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund, and the European commission. By the end of the twentieth century many developing
countries had adopted the model mainly due to pressure from the donor community that had
put structural economic adjustment programmes as a condition for aid. In the 1990s most of
the African countries adopted the NPM model of administration hoping to improve efficiency
and effectiveness in the public sector. As the majority of the Sub- Saharan countries such as
Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Kenya were passing through economic difficulties in the mid
-1980s, the World Bank intervened by recommending the introduction of structural adjustment
programmes (SAP) that according to it had to go together with the NPM model of
administration (Rubakula, 2014).
The Structural Adjustment programmes were implemented in Kenya in mid 1980s with the
assistance of the World Bank with the aim of turning around the economy into the growth and
development path (Mbithe & Mwabu, 2016). It is averred that strategic planning was made a
fundamental requirement in public sector institutions through reforms occasioned by NPM
management model. The aim was to inculcate a management culture that ensured that public
institutions were run strategically to enhance efficiency and accountability (Demirkaya, 2015).
Strategic Management in Secondary Schools
Strategic management was pioneered in Kenya’s public education sector in the year 2012 when
the Decentralized Education Management Activity (DEMA), an initiative of the Ministry of
Education in collaboration with USAID embarked on a capacity development among education
managers at the sub-county and school level to enable them prepare and implement strategic
plans (Kevogo, 2015). Further, the ‘Kenya vision 2030’ aims at providing globally competitive
quality education, training and research to her citizens for national development and enhanced
wellbeing. In connection to this, it became a requirement from the Ministry of Education that
all secondary schools in Kenya formulate strategic plans covering 3 -5 years and annual action
plans consistent with strategic plan. However as Itegi (2016) found out, majority of the schools
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Mutea, H. K., Senaji, T. A., & Rintari, N. G. (2021). Influence of Regulative Pressures on Strategy Implementation in Public Secondary Schools in
Selected Counties in Kenya. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(4). 309-326.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.84.9987
prepared strategic plans to comply with the policy requirements of the ministry but were not
effectively implementing them.
These efforts notwithstanding, education at the secondary school level face unique
management challenges attributable to poor implementation of plans. Lack of emphasis on
proper strategic planning and implementation could have negative implications for schools in
the current competitive environment. Strategic planning is viewed as a tool that creates
conducive conditions for stakeholders to contribute more to the school’s strategic objectives
which result in long term sustainability and improvement in quality education. It is viewed as
a tool for establishing institutional framework to enhance involvement and cooperation among
all relevant stakeholders at the local, national and international levels. It is a process through
which agencies come up with objectives to be achieved within a given period of time. Strategic
planning helps the management to predict future conditions and realities, internal and external
that may impact on their projections.
The strategic management approach brings forth work plans, objectives, tasks, procedures,
responsibilities and timelines for activities; it enables the organization management to
determine priorities and operations necessary to achieve the organization’s vision. About 70%
of secondary schools in Kenya were observed to have formulated strategic plans which cover
about three to five years. However, many head teachers had not implemented the plans (Itegi,
2016). Based the foregoing, it is clear that formulation of strategic plans is the easier part of the
strategic management process. The main difficulties lie in the implementation aspect of the
process. Muriuki and Stanley (2017), avers strategy implementation is the most challenging
phase of the strategic management process.
The public secondary schools in Kenya are managed by the Ministry of Education through
delegation to various agencies such as the School Boards of Management (BoMs) and County
Education Boards (CEBs). On the other hand teachers are managed by the Teachers’ Service
Commission which is government’s independent constitutional commission. This implies that
salience of regulative pressures cannot be ignored. It is against this background that this study
sought to investigate the influence of regulative pressures on strategy implementation in public
secondary schools in Kenya.
THEORY AND HYPOTHESES
Regulative pressures
Regulative pressures emanates from those who have legal authority and power over the
organization. Due to the formal nature of these regulative forces they are distinguished from
other institutional forces by the explicitness with which they are expressed. They are mainly
manifested in form of laws, rules, regulations, directives, policies and sanctions. The regulative
pillar is characterized by its coercive enforcement mechanism (Sutton, MacKenny & Namatovu,
2015). Thus a firm basically experiences regulative pressures wielded by entities which it relies
on for its existence (Kauppi, 2013).
Coercive pressures in school setting mainly originate from the government laws and
regulations (Masocha &Fatoki, 2018) concerning issues such as use of government funds,
student admission criteria and staffing and management of teachers. Furthermore coercive
forces include explicit regulative constraints such as rules, appraisals and code of regulations