DO OPERATIONAL PROCESSES MODERATE RELATIONSHIP OF ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY AND PERFOMANCE OF CHARTERED UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA?

Abstract

University education in Kenya faced weighty challenges in the 80s and 90s due to high demand
with less capacity. These continued to the 90s and the solutions provided in the 20s created
capacity that was left idle when measures taken to secure examinations at secondary school in
2016 saw a sudden reduction in number of students. The rapid changes were attributed to agility
phenomenon and the study sought to investigate whether operational processes moderated the
relationship between organizational agility and performance of chartered Universities in Kenya.
Efficient operational processes are one of the ways that universities can gain competitive
advantage. Specific objectives were to establish the relationship between organizational agility
and performance of chartered universities in Kenya and whether operational processes
moderated the relationship. Hypotheses were formulated for public and private universities
because of difference in ownership and management; H11: There is no significant relationship
between organizational agility and performance of chartered universities in Kenya, H12: There is
no significant relationship between organizational agility and performance of chartered private
universities in Kenya. H21 : Operational processes do not moderate the relationship between
organizational agility and performance of chartered public universities. H22: Operational
processes do not moderate the relationship between organizational agility and performance of
chartered private universities in Kenya. The study adopted positivism view and the unit of
analysis was all the 30 chartered public and 18 private universities. Data was collected from all
Deans (271) of schools/faculties by use of a structured questionnaire where 192 from 41(85.4%)
universities were responded to and returned. Means and one sample t-test were used for
descriptive analysis and linear regression for prediction of the relationships. Results indicated
that government drivers of agility affected public universities and not private ones while market
drivers affected all universities. Private universities had superior enablers and responded better to drivers of agility. Public and private universities established operational processes except that
employees were more empowered do their jobs in private universities and they also had
integrated much of the processes compared to public universities. On performance constructs
private universities responded faster to staff and students issues, technology was staff and
student centered and they trained the staff more frequently compared to public. Regarding
relationship of the variables organization agility explained 30.6 percent of performance of
public universities but did not have any significant influence on performance of private
universities. The model for public universities was PUB = 28.115 + .255OA. A joint effect of
organizational agility and operation processes accounted for 47.2 percent and on addition of
interaction term, the model explained 57.3 percent of performance and the model was PUB =
172.429 + 4.458O*OP. Moderation test was not performed for private universities because the
model for agility on performance was insignificant. It was concluded that organizational agility
did not affect private universities significantly because they were well prepared while the
increased number of students affected performance of public universities.
Key Words: Organizational agility, drivers, enablers, responses, Operational Processes.