A Literature Review on the Effect of Strategic Orientation on Skilled Births in Public Health Facilities in Western Kenya

Abstract

Strategic orientation is the strategic direction a firm executes to create proper behaviours for continuous superior business performance, leading to a competitive edge. Porter's strategic orientation is a very useful tool in streamlining businesses in such cases. Public health facilities provide free maternal services, while faith-based and private health facilities charge fees for these services in Kenya. Therefore, public health facilities seem to face no competitors in providing free maternal services, thus promoting skilled births. However, an important research question is, does strategic orientation influence organisational performance in such health facilities? We used a narrative literature review by searching Google's search engine to find journal articles related to strategic orientation, competitive advantage, differentiation strategy, low-cost strategy, and focus strategy. We find that Porter's generic strategies are unsuitable in public health facilities as they have no competition in providing free maternal services. Strategic orientation variables: entrepreneurial orientation, learning orientation and technology orientation support performance, while market orientation and interaction orientation do not support performance. This feedback can be grounded in contingency theory, which stresses that decisions should be flexible in nature and present adaptations to current situations as they arise. We recommend that further studies be conducted to establish why Porter's strategic orientation does not support public health facilities' performance in terms of skilled births in Western Kenya.