Strategic Positioning and Organizational Performance of Center for International Forestry Research and World Agro-Forestry in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

The vision of the CIFOR-ICRAF is to ensure the sustainable availability of food and nutritional benefits in the world using lands, trees, and other renewable resources. CIFOR- ICRAF works in partnership with private companies, civil society, academia, and governments in delivering solutions to five major global challenges: extreme inequality, unsustainable supply and value chains, unsustainable food systems, the climate crisis, and biodiversity loss and deforestation. However, various factors have hindered this vision thereby limiting their performance. The study sought to ascertain how strategic positioning affects organizational performance of CIFOR-ICRAF in Nairobi, Kenya and specifically determine the influence of strategic leadership, mergers, and market positioning strategy on their organizational performance. The study was hinged on positioning theory, stakeholder’s theory, and resource- based theory. Descriptive research study was utilized by the study and the target population was 300 staff of CIFOR-ICRAF. The target population was sampled using stratified sampling technique whereby the CIFOR-ICRAF six main themes formed the strata and a sample of 5 staff from each stratum formed the sample size of 30 respondents. The study mainly utilized primary data gathered through structured questionnaire to collect qualitative data and secondary data mainly from the CIFOR-ICRAF reports to establish growth rate. The questionnaire was subject to pilot study, content and construct validity test and Cronbach-Alpha internal consistency reliability test. Descriptive statistics and inferential analysis (multiple regression analysis) evaluated the data. Tables and graphs displayed the study results. The study found that strategic leadership, mergers, and market positioning had a positive significant effect on the organizational performance of CIFOR-ICRAF in Kenya. The study concludes that that in strategic leadership, the leader expresses a vision for a business or organization, or its branches, and encourages more people to join them to bring the vision to light. Mergers enable organizations to secure more resources and increase their scale of operations and organizations undergo a merger to benefit their shareholders. Positioning in marketing allows organizations to influence how others view the product or services. The study recommends that the organization strategic leadership should be a forward-thinking, an effective communicator, and have the will to challenge the status quo. For successful merger, organizations should create an integration plan early in the process. Ensure that both sides are on the same page about how the combined entity will work going forward. The organization should establish its current position in the market by looking into who forms its current customer base and identifying the target market the organization wish to address.