An assessment of Change Management Strategies on Organizational Performance in Public Offices in Kenya: a case of Teachers Service Commission

Abstract

Organizations are adopting change management strategy anticipating that this will lead to an increase in performance and subsequent achievement of organizational goals. Similar trends have been observed in TSC that sought to employ strategic change management as means of enhancing programs effectiveness. Evaluation for public offices and the civil service reveal that some public institutions are exhibiting poor performance. The purpose of the study is to establish the effects of change management strategies on performance of Teachers Service Commission, Kenya. The study was guided by the following specific objectives; to establish the effect of empirical rational strategy on organizational performance at the Teacher Service Commission; to assess the effect of normative re-educative strategy on organizational performance at the Teacher Service Commission; to determine the effect of power-coercive strategy on organizational performance at the Teacher Service Commission and to determine the effect of environmental adaptive strategy on organizational performance at the Teacher Service Commission. The study was also guided by Kurt Lewin’s Change Model theory; Individual Perspective Theory; System Theory and Evolutionary Theory. The study adopted a descriptive research design because descriptive study gives a description of the features of the population of study and provides answers to what, where, who, when, and how questions. The population comprised of 198 top, middle and lower level management employees at the TSC headquarters and the sample size was therefore 67 respondents. Data collected was analysed through descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis. Content analysis was also used to analyse primary data that was collected. The finding indicted indicated that in their organization incentives had an influence on the employees, those TSC employees adopted new changes through communication, empirical-rational strategy enhanced communication in their organization, TSC employees had innovative thinking and their organization explained to the employees the need for adopting new values, the organization had improved on the service delivery, employees were also identified that they always did what they were ordered to do by their supervisor, employees work in teams when there is any change and employees are flexible when it comes to adopting change. The study concluded that in their organization incentives had an influence on the employees, those TSC employees adopted new changes through communication, empirical-rational strategy enhanced communication in their organization, TSC employees had innovative thinking and their organization explained to the employees the need for adopting new value, The study recommends that the organization should formulate policies and strategies that make the employees’ working condition favourable as they directly have an impact on the performance of the organization and any changes should be flexible and look at employees’ preferences. The study therefore suggests that furthers studies should be carried out on other determinants that affect organization performance.