EFFECTS OF COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES ON PERFORMANCE OF MIDDLE LEVEL COLLEGES IN THIKA SUB COUNTY
Gituku Gladys Wangari - Master of Business Administration (Strategic Management), Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Dr. Assumptah Kagiri - Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology, Kenya
ABSTRACT
The study was aimed to establish the effects of competitive strategies on performance of middle level colleges in Thika Sub-County. The study had the following objectives; to determine the effects of pricing strategies on performance of middle level colleges; to establish how market focus affect performance of middle level colleges; to determine the effect of collaborations between middle level colleges and other institutions on their performance and to determine the effects of technology on performance of middle level colleges. This study employed descriptive research design. Stratified simple random sampling technique was used to select the study respondents. The sample size for the research comprised of 92 top level managers and 200 middle level managers within 36 colleges spread out evenly within Thika Sub-county. The researcher was able to obtain 258 fully filled questionnaires from the participants; Data was collected through use of scheduled interviews and questionnaires which were distributed to the top and middle level managers of different middle level colleges respectively. The return rate of questionnaires was 88%. Data collected from the field was cleaned, organized, coded using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to facilitate answering the research objectives. Quantitative data was analyzed statistically through use of descriptive statistics such as frequency distributions and percentages while qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis. Multiple regression analysis was done to establish the relationship between the competitive strategies and performance of middle-level colleges in Thika Sub-county. In addition the study revealed that market focus strategies contribute 56.3% to college performance, pricing strategies contributes 46.6% to performance, collaborations contribute 26.7% and adoption of technology contributes 32.8% to performance of colleges. Hence there is a positive association between market focus, pricing strategies, collaborations, adoption of technology which affect performance of middle-level colleges in Thika Sub-County. Lastly, the researcher recommends that middle level colleges should invest in advanced technologies and ensure that their employees’ skills are continually updated through training, they do promotion through the internet, they ensure that their students can access online portal for registration, they dispatch student results online and they offer virtual learning as a competitive advantage. In conclusion, the study also recommends that middle level colleges should embrace collaborations with other supplementary institutions and forming linkages so that they can extend the learning base for their students and ensure that they are able to benchmark their services so that they can improve the quality of their services.
