Strategic Change Management and Organizational Performance: Case Study of Safaricom Public Limited Company
Abstract
Despite the recognized significance of strategic change management, nearly 70 percent of organizational change initiatives fail to achieve their intended outcomes globally. Safaricom PLC exemplifies this challenge, experiencing declining revenue growth from +12.4 percent in 2021 to +4.3 percent in 2023 and reduced M-Pesa profitability from 18 percent to 9.5 percent. This study investigates the influence of key strategic change management practices on Safaricom PLC's organizational performance. The research examined stakeholder engagement, employee training and development, and business process reengineering as determinants of performance outcomes. The study was anchored in Lewin's Three-Step Model, Kotter's Eight-Step Model, and Prosci's ADKAR framework. A descriptive research design with quantitative analysis was employed, targeting 250 middle-level managers from five Safaricom branches in Nairobi's Central Business District. Through stratified random sampling, 153 respondents completed structured online questionnaires, achieving a 92.8% response rate. Data analysis used SPSS Version 25 for descriptive and inferential statistics including Pearson's correlation and linear regression. Results revealed statistically significant positive relationships between all practices and organizational performance: stakeholder engagement (r = .331, p < 0.001), employee training (r = .257, p < 0.001), and business process reengineering (r = .264, p < 0.001). These practices collectively explained nearly two-thirds of performance variance. The study concludes that strategic change management is indispensable for telecommunications sector performance, recommending investment in structured stakeholder communication, comprehensive training programs, and continuous process innovation culture.
Keywords: Strategic Change, Organizational Performance, Stakeholder Engagement, Employee Training, Business Process.
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