Leadership Practices, Employee Motivation, Regulatory Framework, and Performance of Chartered Universities in Kenya

Description

This study aimed at establishing the relationship between leadership practices, employee motivation, regulatory framework, and performance of chartered universities in Kenya. The specific goals were: to establish the relationship between leadership practices and performance; to examine the mediating effect of employee motivation in the relationship between leadership practices and performance; to determine the moderating effect of the regulatory framework in the relationship between leadership practices and performance, and to determine the mediated moderation effect on the relationship between leadership practices and performance of chartered universities in Kenya. The study was anchored on transformational leadership, transactional leadership, Herzberg two factor theory, and institutional theory. The study variables are leadership practices, employee motivation, regulatory framework and performance. The study was guided by the positivist research philosophy. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey research design using a census with a target population consisting of 49 chartered universities operating in Kenya. The study had a sample of 245 respondents and used purposive sampling to select the participants. Data was collected from all the Academic Registrars, persons in charge of Human Resources, Finance, Quality Assurance, and Student Chairpersons as respondents. A pilot study was conducted using 25 respondents. The researcher used questionnaires to collect primary data. Data were analyzed using descriptive and regression analysis. The findings indicated that leadership practices (modelling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, encouraging the heart) had a positive and significant relationship with performance of chartered Universities. Employee motivation had a partial mediation effect on the mediating role of the relationship between leadership practices and performance. Regulatory framework significantly moderated the relationship between leadership practices and performance. The study concludes that the mediated moderation effect on the relationship between leadership practices and performance of chartered universities in Kenya was found to be significantly greater than their separate individual effects. The results of the study pro-vide university administrators with informative knowledge that may enhance their leader-ship practices. The study recommends that university leaders and policymakers should pay more attention to leadership practices, employee motivation, and regulatory framework since they were revealed to have a positive and statistically significant relationship with performance.