Cooperative Movement Strategies And Performance Of Mhasibu Saving And Credit Cooperative Society Limited, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Although Cooperatives societies have geared their efforts towards offering financial services to the vulnerable groups, youth and women, their impact on the economic activities potential is still unexhausted. The concept of cooperative movement and business performance is ignored by Sacco’s largely posing a threat to their existence or thrift growth. The main challenge the SACCO face currently is strategy and strategic management to compete with other dominant players in the financial services sector like banks, MFIs and development organizations. SACCOs should embrace modern strategies to support cooperative movement in Africa. The firms should focus on the true cooperative identity such that it’s a distinct mutualism association with a democratic practice in its management. This should be through education, information, dissemination and training of cooperative members and Training and capacity development of professional staff to enhance their technical and operational skills.The main objective of the study was to determine the effect of cooperative movement strategies on the performance of Mhasibu SACCO Society Limited. The study specific objectives included establishing the effect of strategy supervision, technical skills, member’s participation and corporate governance on the performance of Mhasibu SACCO. The study was anchored on the following theories which include; the Resource-Based theory, the dynamic capabilities theory as well as the game theory. The study will use descriptive research design. The target population was34 staff of Mhasibu SACCO headquarters from the administration, finance, human resource and credit departments. Since the population is small, a census was adopted. The study used both qualitative and quantitative data. Data was collected using semi-structure questionnaires. The questionnaires were administered using drop and pick later method. The collected data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency distribution as well as percentages and were presented using percentages, tables, charts and graphs.It was concluded that to a moderate but significant extent strategy supervision was embraced at Mhasibu SACCO through workable implementation criteria, monitoring, evaluation and regular feedback, organizational learning and continuous improvement, involving stakeholders in decision making and timely and regular communication which had a positive effect on the performance of the SACCO.The study concluded that to a significant extent the SACCO staff had necessary knowledge and skills, expertise, experience, invests in capacity building and modern technology and orients new members on strategy.It was concluded that to a significant extent the SACCO had a high membership enrolment who always contributed to their savings, were involved in decision making, had voting powers to the BOM, were involved in membership drive and were constantly and regularly communicated to. The study concluded that to a moderate extent the SACCO embraced diligent corporate governance through a well constituted board with necessary knowledge and skills, expertise and experience and balanced in terms of gender.The study recommends that the SACCO need to enhance strategy supervision by involving all members of staff and stakeholders in through an effective monitoring, evaluation, feedback and communication framework and mechanism. The study recommends that the SACCO management needs to enhance their skills and expertise through use of modern technology in strategy implementation, implementation and improvement. The study recommends further that for the SACCO membership to grow, members need to be sufficiently involved in strategic decision making and membership enrolment. It was finally recommended that the SACCO board need to be constituted of qualified, balanced, experienced and diverse members who can bring on board new ideas, skills and strategies to enable the SACCO perform. Managers of SACCO and other SACCOs in Kenya benefit widely from the study, as it helps them to assess the cooperative movement.