Vendor Management Practices and the Performance of Energy State Corporations in Kenya

Today, globalization and evolving business practices put organizations under immense pressure to constantly upgrade the product or process, quality, delivery index, performance, responsiveness, and reduce costs. Procurement management is a core activity with implications for an organization's operations, and it is an activity that cuts across all the departments in an organization. The study's main objective was to analyze the influence of vendor management practices on the performance of energy state corporations in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were to establish the influence of Sourcing on the performance of the energy state corporations in Kenya, to assess the influence of contract management on the performance of the energy state corporations in Kenya, to determine the influence of vendor risk management on the performance of the energy state corporations in Kenya and to assess the influence of supplier performance appraisal on the performance of the energy state corporations in Kenya. Transaction Cost Theory, Agency Theory, Contingency Theory, and Theory of Constraints guided the study. A descriptive research design and a census data collection technique were used with a target population of Kenya's ten energy state corporations. Each firm's heads of procurement, project management, corporate planning, quality assurance, Innovation IT, finance, and operations management were the focus units of perception. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires distributed to the respondents through the drop-and-pick method. A pilot test was conducted to determine the validity and reliability of the data collection instrument. Data collected from the pilot study was expunged when analyzing the study data. Collected data was checked for completeness, coded, and analyzed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 24 using descriptive statistics, including frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation, and inferential statistics, which include regression and correlation analysis. The analyzed data was further presented in tables and figures. The response rate of the study was 82.54%. The study findings revealed that there exists a relationship between vendor management practices and the performance of energy state corporations with a positive correlation coefficient between sourcing (r=0.176), contract management (r=0.086), vendor risk management (r=0.187), and supplier risk management (r=0.447) performance of energy state corporations. The multiple regression analysis further supported the results as a positive and significant relationship existed between vendor management practices and the performance of energy state corporations. The study, therefore, concluded that Sourcing, contract management, vendor risk management, and supplier performance appraisal positively influenced the performance of state energy corporations in Kenya. The study further recommended adopting vendor management practices to boost the performance of Kenya's energy state corporations for effective service delivery