Investigation into organisational performance using strategic planning and resources: a study of listed companies in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study sought to investigate the link or relationship between strategic planning, resources configuration and organisational performance in a developing country context (Zimbabwe). Most of the research done in this area is based on the developed countries context. The study undertook to contribute fmiher to the debate on strategic management, the conception that strong organisational performance is a predictor of strategic planning capability of the top managers of corporations and how they have capably configured the companies' resources. The researcher gathered data from 58 companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, located in Harare and Bulawayo, by means of a questionnaire and an interview protocol. The major finding of this research was the feedback loop established between organisational performance, strategic planning and resources configuration capability by top managers. The top managers of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed companies view the financial performance of their companies as a predictor of their strategic planning and company resources configuration capability. It was found that variation in the mean organisational performance accounted for 37.5% of the variation in the mean strategic planning capability. It was also found that variation in the mean organisational performance accounted for 36.0% of the variation in the mean strategic resources configuration capability. Furthermore, variation in the mean formal strategic planning accounted for 37.5% of the variation in the mean financial ratio growth. Variation in the mean strategic resources configuration accounted for 37.6% of the variation in the mean financial ratio growth. Furthermore, variation in the mean formal strategic planning accounted for 31.4% of the variation in the mean company adaptability to the external environment, while variation in the mean strategic resources configuration accounted for 37.6% of the variation in the mean company adaptability to external environment. Furthermore, variation in the mean formal strategic planning accounted for 19.7% of the variation in the mean retention ability, while variation in the mean strategic resources configuration accounted for 37.6% of the variation in the mean retention ability. Strategic resources configurations accounted for the higher variation in the means of all the variables of the phenomenon under study with an average of 37.0%, affirming the researcher's proposition that strategic resources are critical components of strategic management that cannot be relegated to the peripheries of management practices as they are portrayed in past studies and literature on strategic management. The study propounded, among its findings, a research theory which was extrapolated from the data collected using the two data-collecting instruments mentioned earlier on.