Strategic Positioning, Demographic Characteristics and Business Performance of Mobile Telecommunication Companies in Kenya

The aim of this study was to establish the moderating effect of demographic characteristics as an influence of strategic positioning on business performance of mobile telecommunication companies in Kenya. The study was fundamentally divided into three parts. First, the influence of strategic positioning on firm�s performance was examined. Second, organisational philosophy as an intervening variable along with demographic characteristic was determined. Third, the co-alignment joint effect of organisational philosophy and demographic characteristics on the relationship between strategic positioning and performance of mobile telecommunication companies in Kenya was determined. The adherence to ideal profile was taken as co-alignment for this study. This study was premised on Human Capital Theory and Resource Based View; which states that the strategic positioning alternatives available to firms are limited by their resources and capabilities. A combination of explanatory design and descriptive survey research design, specifically cross sectional design was used. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize data while inferential statistics, specifically Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression was used to test the research hypotheses. It was found that huge gender disparities still exist and gender did not statistically influence performance. The study findings support age consideration of managers as a factor that affects the organisation performance and managers with higher education level and experiences had greater chances of performing exceptionally with also a significant influence that performance improved steadily with their length of service in the company. Mean scores obtained from the four mobile firms differed statistically from each other therefore the study established that ownership structures of a company are a significant influence to performance. The interaction of the moderating effect accounted for a significantly higher variance in demographic characteristics and business performance by R2 change.039, p =.001, indicating there was a significant moderation effect between independent and dependent variable. The study established that managers� performance is highly related to both the skills of the individual worker and the interpersonal supports available within the organization.