Corporate Governance Practices, Organizational Factors And Service Delivery Of County Owned Water Organizations In Western Kenya

ABSTRACT

Corporate governance practices enable organizations to achieve their objectives

through better decision making, effective use of scarce resources and good service

delivery. County owned water organizations in Western Kenya may have good

governance practices but the extent to which they are implemented influence service

delivery. The main objective of the study was to find out the influence of corporate

governance practices, organizational factors and service delivery among county owned

water organizations in Western Kenya. In order to achieve this purpose, it was

hypothesized that internal auditing, transparency and accountability, ethical

framework and CSR, have no statistical significant effect on service delivery. It was

also hypothesized that organizational factors have no moderating effect on the

relationship between independent and dependent variables. The study was guided by

Stakeholder Theory as postulated by Freeman and employed both descriptive and

correlational survey designs. Study area included Amatsi, Nzoia and Kakamega water

and sanitation companies and data was obtained from directors, managers and

employees working in the organizations, and customers, who gave additional

information on service delivery. Yamane formula was used to determine sample size

for respondents and sampling done by stratified, simple random sampling method.

Data was collected using self-administered semi structured and structured

questionnaires and interview guides. Reliability, validity, normality and

multicolinearity, were tested using Cronbach’s alpha, pilot study, Shapiro Wilk and

variance inflation factor respectively. Data analysis was done using descriptive

statistics of frequencies and percentages, and inferential statistics which included

Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient that was used to find out the association between

corporate governance practices and service delivery, Simple Linear Regression was

used to analyze the first four objectives. Multiple Regression was tested for statistical

significant effect between corporate governance practices and service delivery.

Hierarchical Regression Analysis was used to find out the moderating effect of

organizational factors on the relationship between corporate governance practices and

service delivery and interview data was analyzed qualitatively. Data is presented in

form of tables and charts and the findings of Pearson correlation coefficients indicated

that there existed associations between individual and combined corporate governance

practices and service delivery among county owned water organizations in Western

Kenya. Transparency and accountability had the highest influence on service delivery,

followed by CSR and internal auditing while ethical framework had the least. Results

of Simple and Multiple Regression Analysis indicated transparency and

accountability, and CSR had statistical significant effect on service delivery.

Hierarchical Regression Analysis findings showed that organizational size and culture

moderated the relationship between independent and dependent variables however,

collective organizational factors did not moderate the relationship. The study

recommended adoption of corporate governance practices by organizations in order to

ensure that there is improved service delivery. It is hoped that the findings will benefit

stakeholders in Kenya such as county and national government, customers, donors,

researchers among others.