PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY IN UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of performance management on operational efficiency in universities in Kenya which are facing more stringent accountability requirements by internal and external stakeholders, increased competition, and sharp decreases in funding over the recent past. Stakeholders, on the other hand, have higher outcome expectations. This has led to having to do more with less. One of the ways in which universities have employed to be more operationally efficient is performance management. Institutional theory anchored the study. Performance management was operationalized using Kinicki et al. (2013) performance management behavior questionnaire. The study adopted the positivist philosophy with a cross-sectional descriptive census design. A census was done on the population of 72 universities. The unit of analysis was the university. Primary data was collected through a questionnaire. The respondents for the study were the registrar administration, academic or equivalent. Operational efficiency was derived using 2016/2017-2019/2020 secondary data to employ data envelopment analysis (DEA) inputoriented Charnes Cooper Rhodes (CCR) model. Simple linear regression tested the influence of performance management on operational efficiency, confirming a positive correlation of 0.571. Performance management measures that need more attention are performance monitoring and linking rewards to performance. Goal setting, communication and performance expectations measures were well executed. DEA shows that technical efficiency declined over the 4-year period. The least technically efficient university was performing at a low of 38.87% which is quite low. The results show, in 2016/17, 41 universities were too large, 11 were too small and 20 were of optimal size. By contrast, in 2019/2020, there was a drop in those that were too large to 30 while those that were too small were 20. The study recommends greater attention to operational efficiency for relevance and survival of the universities. The county of location influences operational efficiency while the size of the university appears to have no effect.

Key Words: Data envelopment analysis, Decision making unit, Operational efficiency, Performance management, Performance management behavior questionnaire, Universities