Strategic planning is a very crucial phenomenon in all organisations. It is the tool that determines the destiny of the firm. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of financial resource strategic planning on firm performance, to determine influence of human capital strategic planning on firm performance, to analyze the influence of material resource strategic planning on firm performance and to determine influence of information resource strategic planning on firm performance in agriculture research based institutions of Kenya. Although there had been previous international studies in this field, no literature is evident on status of the same in agriculture based research institutions in Kenya. The study comprised of former 4 major agricultural based research institutes of Kenya, namely: Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Coffee Research Foundation (CRF), Tea Research Foundation (TRF), and Kenya Sugar Research Foundation (KeSREF). The institutions had 2922 employees in the year 2015. The study employed descriptive research design. The sample size was 352 having been arrived at using Yamane’s (1967) formula. Results and conclusion of the study were that financial resources strategic planning, human capital strategic planning, material resource strategic planning and information resource strategic planning influence a firm’s performance in a great way.

Globalization affects local and international firms in many ways. Studies have shown that factors in the internal as well as external environments of firms influence the rate to which globalization will affect them. On the local scene however, no known studies have been done on the response of Kenyan manufacturing firms to counter globalization. In addition, since the concept of globalization is multidimensional and its influence is varied in nature, this study aimed at investigating how manufacturing firms in Kenya have responded to probable pressure from the forces of globalization in order to sharpen their competitiveness. Cross sectional survey design was adopted for the study. The population for the study was the 735 manufacturing firms in Kenya. The target population of the study was CEOs/MDs and their deputies from 545 manufacturing companies in Nairobi and Athi River. Stratified sampling technique was used to categorize the targeted manufacturing firms into sectors where purposive sampling technique was used to sample the respondents for the study. A total of 100 firms from the 14 sectors were targeted by the study out of which 80 responded giving a response rate of 80%. Questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Regression and correlation analysis was done to test the relationship between the study variables. On the relationship between competition and globalization in manufacturing firms in Kenya, the study found that 60% of the respondents indicated to a large extent exploring other markets is a competitive strategy of responding to globalization, 55% of the respondents indicated that to a large extent increasing the range of products produced is a competitive strategy of responding to globalization, 40% of the respondents indicated that to a very large extent innovations are competitive strategies of responding to globalization. The findings from the correlation analysis showed that globalization has a positive relation with competition with a Pearson's Correlation Coefficient of 0.558 and 0.021 level of coefficient. The null hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between globalization and competition was therefore rejected. The study concluded that manufacturing firms in Kenya have adopted competition as response strategies to globalization. The study recommended that manufacturing firms should reduce the direct cost such as energy while improving the market share.

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The mandate of the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) is to enable all Kenyans to access quality and affordable services. Consequently, NHIF accredited hospitals are positioned to facilitate the fulfilment of the said mandate, necessitating identification of competitive strategies employed by the hospitals for them to remain competitive. This study aimed at establishing the role of focus strategy on the performance of NHIF accredited hospitals within Kenya. A mixed research design was adopted based on non-experimental, descriptive and causal approaches taking into account both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The population of study comprised NHIF accredited hospitals with a bed capacity of 100 and above which stood at 150 hospitals as at July 2016. A sample of 109 hospitals was selected through stratified and convenient sampling techniques. Data was collected using semi structured questionnaires and interviewing schedules and administered to hospital administrators and CEO’s respectively of the sampled hospitals. Quantitative data collected from the questionnaires was analysed by the help of SPSS while the qualitative data from the CEOs was analysed using thematic content analysis. The results of the study revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the focus study and performance of hospitals based on the regression coefficient estimate found to be β= 0.646, P value of the coefficient estimate of the focus study which is less than 0.05 level of significance. The quantitative result was further validated by the CEOs responses that indicated that they focus on niche market that remained unexploited.

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