| Abstract: | Strategic management emerged as an important management tool in or to cope up with the
dynamism and retain competitive advantage. Strategic management is a series of decisions taken
to determine long term objectives and includes the phases of environmental scanning, strategy
formulation, strategy implementation and strategy monitoring and evaluation. The major objective
of this study was to describe the strategic management practices of Ethiopian Roads Authority.
The study compares strategic management practices of Ethiopian Roads Authority with the widely
accepted theoretical concepts in the field. As result, its strategic management has been determined
by selecting four major strategic component variables and other related concepts. This research
has a descriptive nature which describes the existing phenomenon as it exists. Furthermore,
managerial and non-managerial employees were selected based on their proportion to the
population size. Out of 410 employees, 201 employees were taken as a sample. Qualitative data
was collected via interview from two members of the organization intensively involved in the
strategic management. Quantitative data was collected based on the questionnaires distributed to
the management and employees. Secondary sources of data including strategic plans and budget
preparation guidelines were also used. Under the section dealing with analysis and interpretation
of data, the four phases of the strategic management process in Ethiopian Roads Authority are
assessed as per prior literature. Results of the study based on the analysis showed that, lack of
trained professionals with some environmental scanning, the strategic plan preparation is not
aligned with strategy of other economic sectors, employee and management aren’t rewarded for
achieving the strategic plan, the strategy monitoring and evaluation tools based on which
implementation of strategies are evaluated are not clear and the major challenges are over
ambition, unexpected issues, un expected weather condition, poor coordination between Federal
Infrastructure Development Cooperation Agency and the effect of delay. The recommendation
based on the results from the study is that, the management should also be regularly scheduled
formal reviews processes to ensure the plan is performing as designed and fulfill the SMART
criteria (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely), to reflect the specific desired
accomplishments. |
