An assessment of the impact of organisational structure on strategy implementation by transporters in the oil and energy sector in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The research sought to assess the impact of organisational structure and strategy implementation by transporters in the oil and energy sector in Zimbabwe. The increasing rate of failure in strategy implementation by transporters of oil and energy sector has motivated the need for this study. The aim of the research was to assess the impact of organisational structure in the Oil and Energy sector in Zimbabwe. A quantitative survey was carried out with the staff and managers of oil transporters using a structured questionnaire. A stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used. One hundred and fifty-eight respondents successfully completed the questionnaires, and a response rate of 77% was achieved. The questionnaire reliability was tested using Cronbach alpha value and a value of 0.757 was obtained. The research found a negative and statistically significant relationship between formalisation and strategy implementation, a weak and statistically insignificant relationship between centralised structure and strategy implementation, a positive and statistically significant relationship between departmentalisation and strategy implementation and a positive and statistically significant relationship between hierarchical structures and strategy implementation. It was concluded that formalised structures and centralised structures had negative influences on strategy implementation in the energy and oil transporters sector. Departmentalisation and hierarchical levels were ideal structures to improve strategy implementation. The research recommended that the structure of organisations should be aligned to the strategy being implemented to ensure effective strategy implementation. Oil and energy transporters sector must adopt simple organisational structures and consider departmentalised structures which promotes decentralised decision-making structures to give more authority to lower-level employees. Future research on new insights on structure and strategy implementation in other developing countries is recommended in order to devise new strategies and/or approaches to improve the strategy implementation in the oil and energy transporters.