The Mediating Role of Strategy Execution on the Relationship Between TMT Characteristics and Organizational Performance in a Regulatory Setting in Kenya

Abstract

There is consensus among strategic management scholars and practitioners that strategic management as a practice has a vital role in organizational performance. It has also been argued that the strategic management process can be divided into four broad stages namely, strategy formulation, strategy execution, strategy monitoring and strategy evaluation. Some strategic management scholars have asserted that the strategy execution process can make a sound strategic decision ineffective or a debatable strategic choice successful. The specific objective of the study was to establish the mediating effect of strategy execution on the relationship between top management team characteristics and organizational performance of independent regulatory agencies in Kenya. The study embraced descriptive cross-sectional research design. The target population of the study was all the twenty-three independent regulatory agencies currently existing in Kenya. The study adopted a census survey of all the top management team members in all the twenty-three independent regulatory agencies in order to capture the required information due to the uniqueness of each independent regulatory agency and the distinct roles played by each top management team member in their organizations. Structured questionnaire administered through drop and pick later method was used to gather primary data from the respondents. Descriptive statistics of the respondents was summarized into percentages, frequencies, means and standard deviations for interpretation. The mediation effect was tested using the Baron and Kenny model. The findings of the study showed that strategy execution partially mediates the relationship between TMT characteristics and Organizational Performance of the independent regulatory agencies in Kenya. The study recommends that independent regulatory agencies need to develop a reward system for their TMTs who excel in executing their organizational strategies so that they can be motivated, and to provide an opportunity for the managers to compete amongst themselves in order to achieve superior organizational performance. Lastly, the study recommends that the independent regulatory agencies should have stable funding mechanism to enable them execute their identified strategies in order to achieve and sustain superior organizational performance.