The Effects of Social Media Marketing on Church Growth: A Case of PCEA Evergreen Church, Nairobi Kenya

E-commerce is an essential strategy for contemporary organizations since a significant percentage of the population relies on online information. Social media is a popular unconventional e-commerce approach used by organizations to achieve predictable goals using very low budgets. Churches, like every other organization, take advantage of the benefits presented by social media to fuel growth through innovation, relationships. The researcher narrows down the investigation to Nairobi and focuses on the PCEA Evergreen Church along Kiambu Road. The parish provided 88 respondents obtained through multistage sampling method. The researcher used a cross-sectional, descriptive approach. Socio-demographics, brand visibility, and customer satisfaction are the independent variables used to correlate the link between social media and church growth. IBM SPSS® version 24 and Microsoft Excel were the analysis instruments whereby each respondent had a church growth index that was linked to their feedback. Findings indicate that social media marketing influences church growth since it revolutionizes communication, it provides a platform for the church members to speak out, it promotes a learning environment, and enhances the collaboration of members and fastens the achievement of church objectives. Conclusively, the adoption of social media marketing is an indisputable path towards the growth of church and recommendations exploit all elements that may trigger growth and help keep the young people in church. Keywords- Social Media, Marketing, Church Growth, Technology, Communication DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-6-1

THE ROLE OF ANCHOR TENANT IN DRIVING TRAFFIC IN A SHOPPING MALL: THE CASE OF NAKUMATT EXIT FROM THREE SHOPPING MALLS IN NAIROBI

The current study investigates the role of an anchor tenant in driving traffic in a shopping mall. As the main tenant in a shopping mall, anchor tenants are expected to attract both human and vehicular traffic into a shopping mall. The traffic to the anchor tenant is expected to spill over to the non-anchor tenants and thus benefit them. This expectation is sometimes not met especially when an anchor tenant is posting sub-optimal performance or when they exit the mall. The background of this study was based on the malls in Nairobi who had Nakumatt Supermarkets chain as the anchor tenant. Nakumatt was the largest chain of supermarket with about 64 outlets in East Africa at its highest level at the beginning of 2017. However, due to a myriad of management challenges, the chain was forced to close most of its stores to a low of about 5 operational stores in mid-2018. As a result, and based on the findings, this affected the shopping malls as traffic reduced by almost 50% in some malls. The effects were felt in terms of reduced business activities in the mall, reduced occupancy levels, lower rental rates and general decline of mall financial performance. It is recommended that shopping malls should consider having more than one anchor tenant to mitigate against the effects of sub-optimal performance or exit of the anchor tenant. Keywords: Anchor Tenant, shopping mall, shopping centres, Nakumatt, Keny

CONSUMER ANIMOSITY: DOES IT EXIST IN AFRICA?

Globalization has been hailed by some as the panacea of world’s economic, social and political problems. However, the same has had its own challenges and has come to be a topic of major study. One area that has generated interest is the effects of globalization on marketing and specifically consumer behavior. In different parts of the world, consumers have responded differently to products from different countries based on their perceptions about the country of origin. One of the highly debated aspect of consumer behaviour is consumer animosity. Consumer animosity is defined as an individuals’ negative feelings and attitudes toward a specific foreign country that are often developed by various triggers, such as traumatic historical events, economic disputes or even as a result of basic differences in cultural norms and values. This paper addresses consumer animosity and focuses of whether African consumers have animosity tendencies towards products from other countries. It forms a basis for preparation of an empirical study to validate the consumer animosity construct among African consumers and contribute to the ongoing debate of animosity highly studied in USA, Asia and Europe but little in Africa.

Role of Organizational and Personal Factors on Work Stress Among the Managers of State Owned Enterprises in Kenya

The current stagnation of both the public and private enterprise sectors in Kenya’s economy, suggests among other things that, Kenyan managers/leaders may not be performing to their full managerial and leadership potential.  This observation engenders the need for further investigations.  Managerial work stress is a major organizational problem that has not been adequately addressed neither by organizations nor researchers despite concerted attempts. This paper sought to examine how work stress may be impacted by organizational and personal factors in Kenya commercial State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). To achieve this, the paper examined how the organizational and personal factors affect work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya. Primary data was collected using questionnaires administered to 175 senior managers of SOEs in Kenya. Using random sampling, the paper collected data from 162 managers representing a response rate of 93 percent. The paper found out that organizational factors significantly influenced work stress while organizational structure and climate were major sources of stress. The paper recommended that organization structures and work environment should be streamlined so as to reduce work stress among top managers of commercial SOEs in Kenya. Keywords: State-owned enterprises, work stress, personal factors, organizational factors

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE RELIABILITY, VALIDITY AND DIMENSIONALITY OF WEB BASED LIBRARY SERVICE QUALITY SCALE IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY

This study focusses on assessing the reliability, validity and dimensionality of a Web basedLibrary service quality scale. It also investigates the perception of the library users towardsthe Web based services provided by the private university library. This research used thesurvey method for collecting data from users of the library. The Web based library servicequality was measured by using a scale developed by Kiran and Diljit in 2012, originally with25 items. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed and 447 completed questionnaireswere used in the final analysis. Cronbach’s Alpha values of each construct confirmed that agood reliability existed with the data. Principle component analysis was employed todetermine the important factors of the scale. Out of the 25 items, only 21 were found tosatisfy requirements for testing reliability and validity. As a result, a modified scale wasadopted for further analysis. Four Web based library service quality components wereidentified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The four included: accessquality, delivery quality, functional quality and responsiveness quality. A structural equationmodel was developed showing the relationships between the four components and web basedlibrary service quality and all the four were significant.Keywords: Web-based Library Service Quality; Scale Validation; Developing Country

RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF A LIBQUAL SCALE: A CASE OF A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY IN KENYA

This study focusses on assessing the reliability, validity and dimensionality of LibQUALscale in a private university in Kenya, a developing country. It also investigates theperception of the library users towards the services provided. This research used thesurvey method for collecting data from users of the Library. Library service quality wasmeasured by using 22 items taken directly from the 2004 version of the LibQUAL scale.Altogether, 361 questionnaires were distributed and 254 completed questionnaires wereused in the final analysis. Cronbach’s Alpha values of each construct confirmed that agood reliability exists with the data. Principle component analysis was employed todetermine the important factors of LibQUAL scale. Out of the 22 factors, only 16 werefound to satisfy requirements for testing reliability and validity. As a result, a modifiedLibQUAL was adopted for further analysis. Three service quality components wereidentified through the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis as in line with otherstudies. The three were: affect of service, information control and library as a place. Astructural equation model was developed showing the relationships between the threecomponents and library service quality and all the three were significant

The Influence of Employee Empowerment on Competitive Advantage in Hospitals within Nairobi, Kenya

Background: The study examined the influence of implementation of employee empowerment on competitive advantage in hospitals within Nairobi. The study looked at the following aspects of employee empowerment; competence, teamwork, motivation, reward and recognition. Employee empowerment is derived from the Total Quality Management (TQM) principles bringing forth competitive advantage that results from high customer satisfaction levels, employee satisfaction and operations efficiency.Methods: A descriptive correlational research design that applied positivism philosophy. Data was collected from both private and public hospitals within Nairobi targeting patients who were admitted in these hospitals for more than three days during the study period and senior employees of the respective hospitals. There were 308 participants, 154 hospital employees and 154 patients from 31 hospitals within Nairobi. After institutional and individual consent was obtained, participants filled a self-administered questionnaire. The collected data was coded into SPSS Version 23 software and the analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics.Results: The findings illustrated that employee empowerment significantly predicted competitive advantage. High responsiveness and good attitude, being reliable, empathy and assuring the patients of their state best enhance patients’ and employee satisfaction.Conclusion: This brings out the importance of realigning the staff inputs towards improving patient experiences, as well as considering employees’ performance as individual instead of considering them as teams

ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITIES AND STRATEGY EXECUTION: A PERSPECTIVE FROM CEOS IN KENYA’S SACCO SECTOR.

The main purpose of this study was to discover the CEO’s perspective on the organizationalcapabilities and strategy execution linkage in Deposit Taking SACCOs in Kenya. This is onthe backdrop that building organizational capabilities can help deal with the strategyexecution challenge that many organizations face. The study evaluatedhow organizationalcapabilities relate to strategy execution. The study was qualitative and involved individual indepthinterviews with 15 CEOs selected from the 164 licensed SACCOs. The study found outthat organizational capabilities influenced strategy execution. The study concludes thatbuilding capabilities in leadership, innovation, collaboration and organizationalrestructuring supports strategy execution. This study offers significant insights and presentsscholars and practitioners in strategic management, policy makers, and the leadership inSACCOs with valuable recommendations. The main recommendation revolves around theneed for SACCOs to be more intentional about building organizational capabilities that drivestrategy execution.Key Words: Strategy, Execution, Organizational Capabilities, SACCO

Challenges Facing African Business Excellence Models: A Case Study of Company of the Year Awards (COYA)

Business Excellence Models (BEM) are frameworks developed to guide organizations into best practices that lead to sustained high performance. These models are internationally recognized as both providing a framework to assist the adoption of business excellence principles, and an effective way of measuring how thoroughly this adoption has been incorporated. There are several BEMs adopted by different countries. North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Australia have over the years implemented National BEMs. However, in Africa, various countries have established National and industry/sector based BEMs with minimal success. This is an exploratory study focusing on reviewing existing literature on the BEMs and identifying challenges that the African BEMs have faced. The paper also provides some practical recommendations that can be adopted to ensure success of the BEMs

Guango Dairy Yoghurt: From Cow to Cup

A case study done on Guango Dairy Yoghurt, by Dr. Peter N Kiriri, Associate Professor of Marketing at Chandaria School of Business, in USIU- Africa.After a tiring day, Mr. Leonard Kigathi the General Manager of Guango Dairy decided to take a refreshing walk to have a feel of farm fresh air. As usual he took a stroll to the Guango Farm overlooking Guango River. Here, the sounds of the singing birds bidding bye to the day and the sounds of the water flowing down Guango falls gave a soothing feeling to Leonard. This provided a perfect time for him to reflect on the days happening as he planned for the next day going forward. However, the nice orchestra by the birds and the waters was interrupted by the sounds of cows in the shed and the noise from the yoghurt factory. This took Leonard back to the days’ dilemma in a meeting he had with the Chairman of Guango Dairy Mr. Joseph Kigathi Senior. The fact that Guango Dairy had grown by leaps and bounds and had an installed yoghurt production capacity of 5000 Litres which was only 50% utilized. The Chairman had ended the meeting with the statement that now occupied his mind. “Leonard, we cannot afford to have idle capacity, we have invested in state of the art facilities yet we cannot utilize them to optimum capacity. You need to get out there and grow this business to the next level now that you have the required skills and time. It is now or never” the Chairman had lamented