Emmanuel Katsvamutima

STRATEGY FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION IN ZIMBABWE FOOD MANUFACTURING SECTOR (2006 -2013) A key preoccupation of strategic management for competitive advantage as a field of study is the identification of sources of heterogeneous performance among food manufacturing firms in Zimbabwe in terms of their competitiveness. The main theories of the study of strategy formulation and implementation in the Zimbabwe’s food manufacturing sector includes contingency theory, Porter's positioning theory, resource-based view and its derivatives and environmental theories and offer varying views explaining the potential reasons for deriving superior rent. Empirical studies in the field of strategic management have mainly focused on two main streams of research: (i) the relationship between how strategy is formulated in a firm and firm performance and (ii) the relationship between the content of strategy and firm performance. A third area of interest is strategy implementation, but unlike the other two areas, strategy implementation in the food manufacturing organisations has not received much empirical interest. The results of the previous studies examining the relationship between strategy formulation and corporate performance and marketing strategy content and performance have been inconclusive. Some studies have reported positive relationships, while others found no relationship. The previous studies also suffered from a number of methodological inadequacies such as inconsistent operationalization of the constructs, unclear definition of industry sectors and small sample size. Only a few studies have focused on Zimbabwean based organizations. In addition there is a dearth of empirical research using Zimbabwean based food manufacturing organizations. The study reported in this thesis examines the impact of strategy formulation and strategy implementation on food manufacturing organizations in Zimbabwe regarding competitive performance, all within a single study. As far as the author was able to establish by examining the previous studies, none of the previous studies have looked into strategy formulation in the food manufacturing industry in Zimbabwe, business-level strategy and strategy implementation in the food industry simultaneously in a single study. Furthermore this study considers the moderating effects of environment on the relationship between strategy formulation and implementation and strategy content and competitive performance. Based on the literature review a conceptual model of strategy formulation and implementation in food manufacturing organizations in Zimbabwe was proposed and the hypotheses to be tested were derived. These hypotheses were classified into two groups namely (i) hypotheses for validating the findings of previous studies and (ii) hypotheses which have not been tested in previous studies. Hypotheses in the first group have examined the impact of strategy formulation, business-level strategy and strategy implementation on organizational competitive performance in the manufacturing sector. Hypotheses in the second group have examined the interrelationships between strategy formulation, business-level strategy and strategy implementation.

A B S T R A C T This paper examines business level strategies and the impact of strategy formulation, strategy content and strategy implementation on competitive performance, all within the food manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. As far as the author was able to establish by examining the previous studies, none of the previous studies have looked into strategic formulation, business-level strategy and strategy implementation simultaneously in a single study. The objective of this research study is premised on establishing cause and remedies to gain competitiveness in the food manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. Survey data affecting manufacturing sector competiveness like corruption, finance, technology, labour force, uncompetitive exports, unreliable and high cost electricity were analysed. Furthermore this study considers the moderating effects of environment on the relationship between strategy formulation and competitive performance and strategy content and implementation. The paper also assesses the moderating effect of business level structure on the relationship between strategy formulation content and competitive implementation performance. This study also addresses some of the methodological shortcomings of the previous studies by clearly defining the food manufacturing industry in Zimbabwe, using a good sample size and by using properly validated constructs. The sample size of this research paper consisted of 150 Chief Executive Officers located in Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Gweru and Masvingo in Zimbabwean. The research instrument used was the self – administered questionnaire. Data collected was analyzed using both inferential and descriptive statistical tools. The structural model indicates that some of the bivariate relationships become insignificant when strategy formulation is studied along with business-level strategy and strategy implementation simultaneously. Results obtained from the study revealed that strategy formulation and implementation if fully practiced in food manufacturing organisations enhances efficiency, profitability and competitive advantage in a dynamic environments. The paper recommended a conceptual model for Strategy formulation and implementation for competitive advantage in the food manufacturing industry in Zimbabwe.