Assessing the effect of strategic planning on organisational performance in Ghanaian public universities
Abstract
Strategic planning consists of a set of underlying processes that are intended to create or manipulate a situation to create a more favourable outcome for a company. This is quite different from traditional tactical planning that is more defensive based and depends on the move of competition to drive the company. This study sought to assess the effect of strategic planning on organisational performance in selected Ghanaian public universities. The study adopted a quantitative research design. Purposive and convenience sampling technique were used to select the senior administrators and other staff respectively. Structured questionnaire was administered to 200 respondents. Data was analysed with the aid of SPSS. The study discovered that strategic management had been adopted, to a greater extent, by all the participating institutions selected for the study. The study further found that organizational performances of the public universities selected for the study are averagely encouraging. All the institutions studied maintained that performance saw steady increase. In particular performance of the universities were seen in the following area: Investment in Research & Development, International collaborations, Introduction of new programmes, Technology adoption, Growth in student enrollment, Community services, Online and distance programmes and Student internship programmes. The study revealed that there is a strong positive and significant relationship between strategic management practices and the performance of the selected universities. This study also found out that strategic management practices and organizational performance have strong association between them. The study finally revealed that strategic management had been adopted to a greater extent by all the participating institutions selected for the study. It is therefore recommended that due diligence should be followed to ensure that the goals and objectives of such strategies are followed to the later.
Description
A thesis submitted to the School of Business, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Executive Masters Of Business Administration (MBA) in Strategic Management And Consultancy.