THE RELEVANCE OF CRISIS PLANNING AND ORGANIZING IN REALISATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE: LESSONS FROM TELECOMMUNICATION COMPANIES IN KENYA
THE RELEVANCE OF CRISIS PLANNING AND ORGANIZING IN REALISATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE: LESSONS FROM TELECOMMUNICATION COMPANIES IN KENYA
Jotham Mukundi Gichuhi - Department of Leadership and Organizational Development, Pan Africa Christian University, Kenya
David Oginde, PhD - Department of Leadership and Organizational Development, Pan Africa Christian University, Kenya
Patrick Wambua, PhD - Department of Leadership and Organizational Development, Pan Africa Christian University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Telecommunication sector in Kenya has the potential to accelerate economic growth and alleviation of poverty through creation of job opportunities leading to improved living standards among the constituents. The sector has experienced phenomenal growth in the number of internet services subscriptions between the year 2010, and the year 2019, growing from 1,579, 387 in the year 2010, to 39,657,090 units, in 2019. This trajectory is projected to persist in the foreseeable future. The sector has however faced challenges arising from emergence of new technologies, inadequate resources, globalisation and liberalisation of the market. The sector could therefore be at risk of failure going to the global statistics of telecommunication failures. The study sought to examine the effect of crisis planning and organizing on organizational resilience of telecommunication companies in Kenya. Positivism research philosophy was used in the study where a mixed research design of quantitative descriptive approach and cross-sectional descriptive survey were used. The study was anchored on Transformational Leadership Theory targeting a population of 9,847 from registered telecommunication firms in Kenya from which a sample of 384 participants was drawn from the senior staff and support staff through a stratified sampling technique. Primary data was used which was collected using questionnaires. Data analysis was conducted via descriptive statistics such as mean score and standard deviation, correlation analysis, and regression analysis. This analysis was aided by the SPSS version 27. Hypotheses testing was based on regression analysis results. The predictive power of the model was tested using the coefficient of determination (R2), the fitness of the model was tested using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) while the significance of crisis planning and organizing in predicting organizational resilience was based on P-value in Student t-test. 0.05 significance level was considered in this study. The study found that there was an agreement among the respondents that crisis planning and organizing were emphasized among telecommunication companies in Kenya as a means of driving resilience. Crisis planning and organizing had a positive correlation with organizational resilience. Crisis planning and organizing were significant in predicting resilience. The study thus concluded that crisis planning and organizing using multi-disciplinary teams significantly affected organizational resilience in telecommunication companies in Kenya. The study makes several recommendations. First, employees should be thoroughly equipped with the requisite skills to deliver superior organizational performance through enhanced forecasting and planning for both anticipated and unknown threats. Second, the organizations should develop suitable recovery plans by incorporating learning and simulation practices that guarantee the achievement of envisioned benefits by the firms. Third, the companies must be able to handle the myriad manifestations of the unexpected, by enhancing their resilience capacities through the enhancement of problem-solving skills for survival.
