Strategy Implementation and Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Kenya

Strategy Implementation is the second stage in strategic management process and also most important. The other stages are strategy formulation and strategy evaluation & control which come first and third respectively. However the importance, strategy implementation remains the difficult stage than strategy formulation itself. Past studies have documented that between 60-80% of organizations all over the world seriously struggle or fail to implement their strategic plans. This study explored the influence of strategy implementation and the performance of small and medium manufacturing firms in Kenya. The impetus is that, if the CEO's are aware of the major drivers influencing strategy implementation and performance of the SMEs, they will then pay close attention to these drivers during the implementation process. This study, guided by the philosophy of logical positivism, applied the mixed research design to explore the influence of five key drivers of strategy implementation namely; leadership styles, structure, human resource, technology and awareness of strategic direction of the manufacturing SME firms.