CONTRIBUTION OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PATHS AND PRACTICES TO PUBLIC RESEARCH UNIVERSITY’S PERFORMANCE IN ETHIOPIA: BRIDGING POLICY-PRACTICE GAPS

Abstract

The study informs institutional policy makers and practitioners the impacts of realistic strategic management paths and practices on university performance.

Purpose: the main purpose of the study was to bridge the policy-practice gaps through connecting strategic management practices to university performance (TLP, RDP & CSP).

Methodology: The study employed a sequential explanatory mixed design. The data were collected from primary sources using self-constructed and pilot tested surveys and unstructured interview. The secondary sources of data were policy documents. Three public research universities were selected from 8 universities using simple random sampling technique. The researchers collected data from 234 respondents selected using purposive sampling technique and simple random sampling techniques. The data were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistics (percentage, Pearson moment product correlation and regression). The qualitative data were thematically organized and narrated.

Results: The findings showed that there were weak and moderate positive correlation between the strategic management practices and university performance ranged from 0.306 to 0.442. The direction of correlation showed that as the strengths of strategic management practices increase, the strengths of university performance also increases. While IEA & SIF practice, contribute much, the practices of VID, EEA, and SIM &SEV variables contributed less to UP. However, the combination of all strategic management practices explained a moderately strong variance (R² = 0.623). The predictive variables accounted for 62.3%, indicating that the other variables accounts for 37.8% to university performance.

Recommendations: The researchers suggested that public research universities should excel in research development, teaching and learning Excellency and need-based community services to bridge policy-practice gaps.