An assessment of the impact of results based management system on organisational performance 2012 -2014: Case of Zimbabwe United Passenger Company

Abstract

Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (ZUPCO) is a state enterprise that has the mandate to provide safe and reliable passenger transport services to rural and urban dwellers of Zimbabwe. However, the company has not been able to execute its mandate efficiently due to a lot of inefficiencies that has to do with the management of scarce resources within the organisation. In January 2012, the company adopted the Results Based Management (RBM) system as a management strategy to improve performance. This again did not improve the performance of the company. It is then the premise of this study to assess the impact of RBM system on organisational performance. The main objective of this study was therefore to find out if the introduction of RBM has improved performance at ZUPCO. Literature has shown that if RBM if properly implemented, indeed it does improve performance as what happened in the Malaysian case for example. However, literature also highlighted the issues of inapplicability of the system within the Zimbabwean context. Literature has also shown that there are other factors that also affect the performance of any organisation like operating environment, culture of employees and the issue of incentives and motivation of employees. The study used stratified random sampling to select the sample of those who participated in the study. The major research question was to establish whether the introduction of RBM had improved performance at Zupco. The objectives of the study were met and reliability analysis which was done showed that the items measured were consistent. The response of the study rate was at 100%. The study showed that RBM system has not improved performance at ZUPCO and that there is need to train all the employees on the system because knowledge of the system is related to its effectiveness was supported and accepted as a hypothesis. The study then recommended training of all employees on the system as this will also help in changing the culture of employees and have them to be results centred. Rewarding performance is another recommendation that was made as it was seen as the other factor that affects performance regardless of having implemented RBM system or not.