Growth Strategies and Performance of Faith Based Universities in Kenya: A Case of Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA)
Keywords:
Partnership, Product, Development, Proactive, Marketing, Diversification, Strategy, Growth, Performance.Abstract
Faith based universities in Kenya faces challenges of enrolling students and acquiring qualified teaching staff due to the coming up of many institutions of higher learning as well as the competition from companies and senior public positions which remunerate highly and offer better terms of service inconsideration to what the universities offer. The purpose of this study was to establish the effect of growth strategies on the performance of faith based universities in Kenya: A case of Catholic University of Eastern Africa. The study was anchored on Resource Based View Theory of Partnership, theory of new product development social cognitive theory and diversification theory. This study adopted a mixed methods research design in which both quantitative and qualitative approaches were combined. The study targeted top level, middle level and lower level staffs of CUEA categorized into 1 VC, 3 DVCs, 4 deans, 190 university teaching staffs, 10 administrative staffs and 117 support staffs made up of 108 cleaners and 9 supervisors. Simple random sampling technique was used to obtain a sample of 30% of the university teaching staffs, while purposive sampling approach was used to obtain sample for VC, DVC and deans. The qualitative data collected using questionnaire was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study used a multiple regression model to show the relationship between the study variables. The findings revealed that partnership strategy had a positive and significant effect on the performance (ß =.327, p=.012<.05), product development strategy had a positive and significant effect on the performance (ß =.227, p=.045<.05), product proactive marketing strategy had a positive but insignificant effect on the performance (ß =.211, p=.123>.05), while diversification strategy had a positive and significant effect on the performance (ß =.283, p=.020<.05). Based on the findings, the study concluded that growth strategies adopted had positive and significant effect on the performance of the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, except for the variable on proactive marketing strategy that did not affect the performance significantly. The study thus recommended that the Catholic university of Eastern Africa should consider fully implementing growth strategies such as partnership, product development, proactive marketing and diversification strategies as ways of enhancing their performance.
Keywords: Partnership, Product, Development, Proactive, Marketing, Diversification, Strategy, Growth, Performance.
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