EFFECT OF STRATEGIC ORIENTATION ON ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY OF FLORICULTURE FARMS IN NAIVASHA SUB-COUNTY

Abstract

A firm’s strategy can have a major impact on its structure, its activities, its investment, its relation to the market and its business performance as it seeks to gain a competitive advantage in a very competitive environment. However, not all firms respond to changes in the environment in the same way. These responses to the operating environment can be categorized according to the strategic orientation of the organization. Strategic orientation is important in making an organization enhance performance and gain a competitive advantage in its operating environment. The floriculture farming and export industry is experiencing increasing competitive and legislative pressure, and the firms have had to react in some strategic fashion to cushion themselves from the new developments as well as increase their organizational efficiency as a means of competitive advantage. However, their strategic orientation to the new developments remains unknown, as previous studies have only focused on factors influencing strategy implementation and performance in flower firms in Kenya. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Strategic orientation on organizational efficiency in Floriculture Farms in Naivasha Sub-County. Specifically, the variables of the were to establish the effects of defensive orientation, aggressive orientation, proactive orientation and risk taking orientation in promoting the organizational efficiency of the floriculture firms in Naivasha Subcounty. The Resource Based View and the Open Systems Theory guided the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design and targeted 185 management members from 37 Floriculture Farms in Naivasha Sub-County. Purposive and random samplings were used to obtain a sample size of 112 respondents. Data was collected through questionnaires and data sheets. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were used to analyse the data. The findings reveal that Defensive Orientation although has a weak and positive association with efficiency does not statistically influence Floriculture firm efficiency. However, Aggressive (b=-.315), Proactive (b=.499) and Risk taking (b=1.234) have the greatest influence consecutively to Floriculture Firm efficiency. The Study recommended that Floriculture firms should adopt Defensive strategies if they can put in place resource management tools to support it. The study also recommended firms to adopt Aggressive strategies only if they have a sound risk strategy to cushion them from their agility. This study also recommends that Floriculture Firms should adopt both Risk taking and Proactive orientation to achieve high levels of efficiency. These findings will be useful to Managers of Flower Firms around the country by informing them of the risks and trade off of strategic configurations to environmental factors. They will also be able to steer their firms to success. The flower firm industry and the country will develop clear policies to guide these firms to cope with global competition and achieve economic and investment growth and development of the Country.