Influence of Organizational Resources on the Performance of Public Universities in Kenya

Abstract

Public universities in Kenya are under both moral and legal obligations to perform three important functions, which are providing excellent teaching, research, and community outreach. These functions are important because if they are well performed, the country will realise its vision for 2030. However, the performance of public universities in Kenya is still far below expectations based on both global and regional comparisons. The study, therefore, is intended to determine if the performance problem in the universities can be solved by the organisational resources; hence, the objective of the study is “to determine the influence of organisational resources on the performance of public universities in Kenya.” A mixed approach consisting of both quantitative and qualitative research designs was used. The quantitative data was obtained using a questionnaire, while the qualitative data was obtained through interviews. The collected data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. From the analysis, it was found that organisational resources had positive statistical significance for the performance of public universities in Kenya (β = 0.504; t = 5.936; p<0.05). The study, therefore, concluded that effective human, financial, and physical resources definitely lead to positive improvements in the performance of public universities in Kenya. It was therefore recommended that the government of Kenya should plough more resources into the universities as a way of improving their performance.