Abstract:
One of Kenya's long-term strategic goals is to enhance Kenyans' overall well-being and
indicators by moving the focus from curative to preventative treatment and improving
health-care services. Over time, the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) has
developed strategic plans to guarantee increased service efficiency. However, it remains
unclear whether NHIF has been effectively implementing these plans owing to its
reported unsatisfactory performance. This purpose of the study was to investigate the
influence of managerial factors on implementation strategic plans at NHIF, Kenya. The
specific objectives were to: examine the influence of leadership styles; assess the
influence of resource allocation; evaluate the influence of managerial skills, and analyze
the influence of staff motivation on implementation of strategic plans at NHIF, Kenya.
The study was underpinned by the following theories; path-goal theory, dynamic
capability theory, contingency management theory and expectancy theory of motivation.
The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population was 178
employees which comprised senior management, middle-level management, and
technical staff from the three NHIF branches located in Nairobi metropolis namely;
Nairobi region, Industrial area, and Westlands. A sample size was 124 respondents was
determined using the Yamane formula. Stratified sampling technique was used for
selecting participants in the study. The research instrument was a structured questionnaire
which was administered using drop and pick method. Data analyses involved both
descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics included means, frequency and
standard deviation while inferential analysis involved multiple regression analyses.
Research hypotheses were tested using student p-value approach at 95% level of
confidence. The findings of the study indicated that leadership styles, resource allocation,
managerial skills and staff motivation had a positive and statistical significant influence
on implementation of strategic plans at NHIF, Kenya. Hence, the study concluded that
implementation of strategic plans at NHIF, Kenya was influenced by leadership styles,
resource allocation, managerial skills and staff motivation at various degrees across the
different management levels. The study recommends that NHIF should focus on
enhancing its leadership practices, allocate adequate resources, invest continuous
managerial skills enhancement and adopt a working environment that fosters staff
motivation in order to ensured successful implementation of strategic plans. The findings
of the study are expected to; serve as a theoretical foundation for scholars, researchers
and academicians undertaking studies in the area, formulation of relevant policies to
enhance strategy implementation in public organizations and assist management at NHIF
to focus on the key success factors for implementation of strategic plans.
