Effects of Leadership Roles and Management Information System on Strategic Planning Formulation

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have adopted strategic planning since 1980s (Fidler, 2002; Richards, O’Shea, & Connolly, 2004). According to Bryson (2004), the main purpose of strategic planning in HEIs is to help them to think, act, and learn strategically. One of important stages of strategic planning is formulation. Many HEIs still face a serious problem in formulation because it is a complicated process that is influenced by many variables (Bacig, 2002). Two important variables that influence strategic planning formulation in HEIs are leadership roles and use of management information system (Simerson, 2011). This study analyzed the effects of leadership roles and use of management information system on the accuracy of strategic planning formulation in HEIs. This study employed a survey design to obtain data. A self-constructed questionnaire of 72 items was used to solicit data. The instrument was both face and content validated and reliability determined using the Alpha reliability method. An Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.754 was obtained. The collected data were coded and analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson-Product Moment. The analysis shows that the leadership roles and use of management information system accounted for 13% in the accuracy of strategic planning formulation simultaneously. The study also revealed that department’s chair should join a program that focuses on higher education leadership and management. Therefore, it is recommended that president of university and deans should strategize means of helping to boost the roles of department’s chair and the use of management information system by having them to join such programs.