Strategic Management Practices and Organizational Performance in Kenyan Manufacturing: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9) and Decent Work (SDG 8)

Kenyan manufacturing firms face competitive, cost and regulatory pressures that make strategic management a continuing capability, but manufacturing-specific evidence linking its component practices to performance is limited, a gap relevant to industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG 9) and to decent work and economic growth (SDG 8). The study examines relationships among environmental scanning, strategic planning, strategy implementation, strategic control and organizational performance in Kenyan organisations and specifies a structural equation modeling framework for future testing. The study employs a structured narrative synthesis of 24 sources, comprising four Kenyan empirical studies, ten theoretical sources on strategy and capability, four methodological sources and six sources on stakeholder and communication theory, organised around the Resource-Based View, Dynamic Capabilities Theory and the four-stage strategic management process. The results show that the four Kenyan studies, of a state department, a seed manufacturer, family-owned manufacturers and maize millers, report positive associations between strategic management practices and performance; that environmental scanning and strategy implementation are the most consistently evidenced practices, each addressed by two of the four studies; and that none of the four studies operationalises strategic control as a distinct construct or decomposes firm and subsector effects. Of five hypotheses, three have Kenyan empirical support, one has theoretical support only and one has no direct test. The findings of this study suggest that the four-practice model is plausible but untested at sector level, and that a subsector-stratified partial least squares study with respondent separation and objective performance data would address the measurement gaps identified. JEL Classification Codes: L60; M10; M21; O14.