Influence of Corporate Planning on Implementation of Tactical Decisions in the County Government of Nakuru, Kenya

Abstract

The strategy-making process, which entails carrying out strategic decisions, includes tactical decision-making. In county governments, the execution of tactical decisions is susceptible to unanticipated occurrences such escalating developmental needs, shifting limitations, and erratic resource flows. The Department of Trade had allocated USD 674,000 worth of projects. However, none of them was actually carried out, according to the Auditor General's report for the financial year 2017–2018 for Nakuru County. Only two of the 47 counties in the report received an unqualified report. Failure is quite likely when decisions are not made and actions are not taken to manage the counties successfully and professionally. Since devolution began, it has come to light that many counties in Kenya perform poorly in terms of providing services despite rising pressure to do better. The goal of this study was to determine how corporate planning affects how well tactical decisions are implemented in the Kenyan County Government of Nakuru. The study adopted the descriptive research design whereby senior officers from the 10 Nakuru County government departments, heads of the 11 sub-counties, and the 55 ward managers made up the target population, which totaled 116 people, of whom 89 served as the study sample. The correlation analysis results revealed that there was a positive and a strong significant association between corporate planning and the implementation of tactical decisions (r=0.725, p=0.000<0.05). The hypothesis test results show that corporate planning statistically influences the implementation of tactical decisions (β = 0.647, ρ = 0.000< 0.05). The results imply that product diversification improves financial performance.

The study recommends that commercial banks involved in mergers and acquisitions since 2010 in Kenya make only minor adjustments to their existing operations as the current diversification measures have been successful.