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Introduction
Global context. Revenues raised from industry and commerce are becoming an
increasingly important source of income for universities. These sources are gradually
accounting for a larger proportion of the total income. The generation of this income,
along with certain other activities, has sometimes been referred to as academic
entrepreneurship.
The perception of universities as merely institutions of higher learning is gradually
giving way to the view that universities are important engines of economic growth and
development (Chrisman et al., 1995). The knowdege society is having an important
impact on economic life and universities are increasingly adopting a more outgoing,
market-led commercial attitude, plugging into and supporting economic development.
Smilor et al. (1993) argue that a new paradigm is emerging of the entrepreneurial
university which encompasses a more direct involvement in the commercialisation of
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90 Measuring Computing Research Excellence and Vitality
research activities, and a more proactive approach to the role of academic research in
the market place. This paradigm emphasises that the environmental forces of a hyper-
competitive global environment are alterting the universitys research, teaching and
service misssions.
Local background. Over the past one decade or so the University of Nairobi (UoN)
has continued to receive less financial allocations from the Kenyan government than
the estimated expenditure. This trend has resulted in the accumulation of a debt now
totalling about 2.3 billion (2005 Ministerial Public Expenditure Review, Table 2.16, page
39).
There are strong indications that the government will no longer be able to fully
finance public universities.
The Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2005 on Policy Framework for Education, Training
and Research has clearly brought out this fact by stating that university education is
particularly expensive to Government and is not sustainable within current resources.
Universities will, therefore, have to reduce their dependence on the Government and
diversify their sources of income as well as ensure more efficient and cost-effective
use of institutional resources. They will also be required to establish comprehensive
financial management systems that ensure efficiency in the application of resources
(p.74).
In an attempt to bridge the gap between the budgetary allocations and actual
expenditures, the university established University of Nairobi Enterprises and Services
Ltd. (UNES)in 1996 as its commercial arm and charged it with the responsibility of
promoting and coordinating income-generating activities in the university. In order to
respond fully to this challenge it was deemed necessary to separate the management
of income-generating activities from the mainstream teaching and research functions
of the university, while ensuring that the income from these activities serves the core
functions of the university. To successfully pursue this goal, the UNES Board of
Directors realised right from the beginning that the company needed a clear roadmap
to guide its operations. It, therefore, sanctioned formulation and implementation of
the first corporate Strategic Plan (1998-2001).
The main thrusts of the first Strategic Plan were stakeholder education on the need
to intensify income-generating activities, and the strategic value of mounting module
II degree programmes. In general, UNES successfully achieved these two strategic
objectives.
History has shown that the higher the success, the tougher the demands that are
placed on institutions as well as on individual players. It was, therefore, not surprising
that UNES identified new and perhaps more challenging issues as it formulated its
second Strategic Plan (2001-2005). Among these issues were the need for diversification
of business areas; consolidation and expansion of existing programmes; relationships
with various university organs, corporate governance and image, and human resource-
related issues. Despite its success, UNES has encountered serious challenges, mainly
from key internal stakeholders.
Part 4: Sustainable Information and Communication Technology Development 91
programmes, public sector reform programme documents, the State Corporations Act
and MoES&T documents.
For the primary data, the team adopted the survey approach. The team organised
face-to-face interviews, talks and discussions with UNES stakeholders that included
the Vice Chancellor, members of the College Academic Boards of the six colleges and
senior administrative staff. In addition, the team interviewed the Managing Director,
Business Development Manager and other staff at UNES.
In order to have wider university coverage, a structured questionnaire was distributed
both by hand and electronically to a number of stakeholders. The Technical Team
visited all the six UoN colleges and administered the questionnaires. Among other
analyses, the attitude analysis of the structured questionnaire enabled the team to
determine the attitude that the various stakeholders hold towards UNES.
Data Organization
Three different questionnaires were administered, each one to one of the following
groups:
1. UoN staff members comprising:
a) College Academic Board (CAB) members for all six colleges;
b) Senior staff in central administration including the librarian and internal
auditor; and
c) Miscellaneous staff.
2. UoN students from both Module I and II.
3. All UNES staff members.
Not all the data that was collected using the above instruments was analysed. This is
because some of the questions in these questionnaires required a continuous prose
answer. The data that was extracted for analysis was essentially the structured data, i.e.
tabular data or multiple choice questions.
For the purpose of analysis, the responses were given ordinal values.
Analysis
The data that was entered was analysed using SPSS. Three measures were obtained
from the analysis.
1. Frequency tables: These tables show the percentage who chose each response.
2. Average response: This value was obtained by averaging the responses from
one respondent, thus obtaining one response for that respondent for a table.
This was then calculated per cohort by obtaining an average of the average
responses of individuals in the same cohort.
3. Attitude index: This is a measure that shows the orientation of the attitude of
a group of people. It is computed using the following formula: Percentage
frequency of positive responses Percentage frequency of negative
responses = Attitude Index. Responses like dont know, neutral, fair and
Part 4: Sustainable Information and Communication Technology Development 93
not applicable were omitted since these responses are neither negatively nor
positively oriented. The more positive the attitude index the more positive
the attitude for a given group of people, and vice versa.
The following tables summarize the findings for the various cohorts identified using the
measures explained above.
UON Staff Members
Frequency tables
Table 9.1: Overall satisfaction with the quality of service being offered by UNES
from UoN staff members
College of Biological
and Physical 13 0% 15.38% 0% 53.85% 23.08%
Sciences
College of Health
23 0% 17.39% 4.35% 43.48% 13.04%
Sciences
College of
Agriculture and 33 9.09% 45.46% 0% 24.24% 18.18%
Veterinary Sciences
College of Education
16 5.88% 47.06% 0% 41.18% 5.88%
and External Studies
College of
Humanities and 13 7.69% 53.85% 0% 23.08% 15.38%
Social Sciences
College of
Architecture and 2 0% 100% 0% 0% 0%
Engineering
Senior administrative
7 14.30% 71.40% 0% 14.30% 0%
staff
Table 9.2: Attitude Index for Service delivery within UNES from UoN staff members
Respondents
Access
= 114
Security
Courtesy
Tangibles
Reliability
Credibility
Competence
Communication
Responsiveness
Understanding the stakeholder
Bad 32.7% 26.1% 35.7% 32.4% 18.1% 79.1% 43.1% 28.3% 69.8% 46.6%
Good 67.3% 73.9% 64.3% 67.6% 81.9% 20.9% 56.9% 71.7% 30.2% 53.4%
Attitude Index 34.5% 47.8% 28.6% 35.2% 63.9% -58.2% 13.8% 43.4% -39.7% 6.9%
94
Table 9.3: Attitude Index for Strategic Directions for UNES from UoN staff members
Mission of We
Goals and UNES has
UNES is We understand understand UNES keeps its policies and
Respondents objectives of a visionary Strategies used by UNES are
consistent the objectives of well procedures relevant and up-to-
= 114 UNES are capable consistent with its objectives
with that of UNES priorities of date
clearly stated leadership
UoN UNES
95
Table 9.4: Average response values for Service delivery within UNES from UoN staff members
College of
College of College of College of
College of
Biological College Agriculture Education Humanities
Architecture Senior
and of Health and and Miscellaneous
and Social and administrative Overall
Physical Sciences Veterinary External staff
Engineering staff
Sciences (CHS) Sciences Studies Sciences
(CAE)
(CBPS) (CAVS) (CEES)
(CHSS)
Respondents 13 23 33 16 13 2 7 7 114
Average
5.39 4.96 5.99 6.37 6.04 6.75 5.75 5.72 5.87
Response
Bad - Very Bad Fair - Fair -
Response Bad - Fair Fair - Good Bad - Fair Bad - Fair Bad - Fair
Fair - Bad Good Good
Table 9.5: Average response values for Strategic directions for UNES from UoN staff members
College of College of College of
College of College of
Biological College Agriculture Education
Humanities Architecture Senior
and of Health and and Miscellaneous
and Social and administrative Overall
Physical Sciences Veterinary External staff
Sciences Engineering staff
Sciences (CHS) Sciences Studies
(CHSS) (CAE)
(CBPS) (CAVS) (CEES)
Respondents 13 23 33 16 13 2 7 7 114
Average
5.71 4.87 6.33 6.23 5.59 7.11 6.41 5.55 5.98
Response
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Part 4: Sustainable Information and Communication Technology Development 97
Average response
UNES facilities are adequate to support UNES performance 4.29 Disagree - Neutral
UNES technology resources help improve UNES performance 4.08 Disagree - Neutral
UNES appropriately plans its programmes 5.05 Neutral - Agree
UNES appropriately implements its programmes 4.09 Disagree - Neutral
UNES appropriately monitors and evaluates it programmes 4.95 Disagree - Neutral
UNES has a planning process that improves its performance 4.95 Disagree - Neutral
Problem-solving and decision-making processes at UNES support it in
4.43 Disagree - Neutral
carrying out its functions
UNES performance is effectively supported by its communication system 4.17 Disagree - Neutral
Strongly Disagree -
UNES monitoring and evaluation is adequate to improve performance 3.97
Disagree
UNES has established and pursued external linkages adequate to support its Strongly Disagree -
3.99
performance Disagree
UNES has established and pursued electronic linkages adequate to support
4.9 Disagree - Neutral
its performance
Overall Response 4.55 Disagree - Neutral
Analysis Results
The following can be deduced from the tables above:
1. In general, UoN staff members are Somewhat Satisfied with the quality of
service being offered by UNES (see Table 9.1).
2. The Communication and Understanding the stakeholder criteria were rated
most negatively in the service delivery within the UNES table. Courtesy
however, had the most positive attitude index (see Table 9.2).
3. In the strategic directions for the UNES table, UNES is highly innovative
was the worst voted criterion. This was closely followed by UNES and IGUs
work well to produce good performance, which was also given a strongly
negative attitude index. On the other hand, Opportunities exist for increased
responsibilities in our IGUs and Mission of UNES is consistent with that of
UoN were the two best voted criteria (see Table 9.3).
4. The overall average response to the criteria in service delivery within the
UNES table was between Bad and Fair while it was between Slightly
Disagree and Neutral for strategic directions for UNES (see Table 9.4 and
Table 9.5).
5. For the UNES staff members table, UNES has an appropriate system for
assessment and reward that is fair and motivating had the most negative
attitude index, whereas UNES has appropriate human resource development
systems and approaches to ensure its performance had the most positive
attitude index. It is worth noting that most of the criteria in this table had a
negative attitude index (see Table 9.6).
100 Measuring Computing Research Excellence and Vitality
6. The overall average response for the criteria in the UNES staff members
table was between Disagree and Neutral (see table 9.7).
Strategic Analysis
Introduction. In addition to the findings from the data analysis summarised in the
aforesaid tables, the strategic analysis of UNES involved evaluating the questions of
where has UNES come from, where it is now and where it will be in five years time.
To address these questions, the following tasks were undertaken:
a review of the past performance of the company;
an analysis of the internal environment in order to identify key strengths (S)
and weaknesses (W);
an analysis of the external environment in order to identify opportunities
(O) and threats (T);
a scenario analysis of where UNES is likely to be in future and identification
and prioritisation of strategic issues.
Review of Past Performance (2001-2005 Plan Period). The review of past performance
compares the objectives of the 2001-2005 Strategic Plan with the actual performance.
This is followed by the identification and analysis of possible causes of any significant
differences between the targets and actual achievements.
Internal and External Environment Analysis. Besides the review of past performance,
an internal and external environment assessment of UNES was undertaken in
order to identify key resources and competencies of the company on one hand and
opportunities and challenges that face the company on the other. These are summarised
as Strengthens, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT).
Strengths
Diverse and highly resourceful human resource within the university.
An intelligent, vibrant, energetic and resourceful student body.
Vast physical asset base of the university.
Valuable intangible assets such as strategic location, knowledge, innovations
and research and development.
Corporate image of the University.
Established institutional framework.
Strategic partnerships, networks and linkages.
Diverse products and services of high quality such as the postgraduate
programmes, publications and software for e-learning.
Open and distance learning facilities.
Part 4: Sustainable Information and Communication Technology Development 101
Weaknesses
Inadequate marketing strategies.
Limited entrepreneurial culture.
Partial strategy implementation and inadequate monitoring and evaluation
practices.
Inadequate capacity at UNES level.
Conflicting legal framework.
Lack of a comprehensive human resources policy.
Inadequate partnerships with industry.
Tenuous relationships among key internal stakeholders.
Ineffective interpersonal communication.
Narrow product portfolio.
Ineffective organisational processes, systems and infrastructure, including
inadequate managerial and financial accounting systems, inadequate
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, poor
credit management, lack of an integrated Management Information System
(MIS).
Unsatisfactory service delivery to internal and external customers.
Inadequate funding due to limited ability to access external financing.
Limited internal financial resources due to the deteriorating university debt
burden.
Opportunities
Increased demand for higher education in Kenya and the requirement by the
economy for highly skilled manpower for development purposes. The latter
is in turn supported by official development policies, that is, the Economic
Recovery Strategy (ERS) Paper and the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).
Wider markets following regional integration and potential economic
prospects in Southern Sudan and Somalia.
Emphasis by the Government, non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
and development partners for utilisation of local expertise.
Increasing transparency and competitiveness in the political, socio-economic
and legal environment for doing business.
Strong alumni in key positions and an established corporate name of the
university.
Strong and diverse human resource base within the country.
102 Measuring Computing Research Excellence and Vitality
Strategic Issues
Introduction. A strategic issue is anything that must be addressed if the organisation is
to succeed. It is therefore a fundamental challenge affecting an organisations mandates,
mission, product or service level and mix, clients or users, and management.
Consolidating the Gains and Growth. Revenue from academic programmes, particularly
module II, has continued to grow but at a slower rate than in the previous years,
indicating a maturing product and market. The strategic plan proposes a number of
initiatives that, while drawing from past experience, will sustain the current programmes
and drive growth over the plan period.
The initiatives seek to broaden the product portfolio by entering new business
areas while consolidating the gains made in the last seven years. As a consequence, the
current plan is growth-focused through consolidation and new products.
Strategic Issues
Students
Human Resources
Assets and their Utilization
Underutilised Real Estate and Other Physical Assets
Investment Policy
Part 4: Sustainable Information and Communication Technology Development 103
Table 9.10: Objective 2 - To increase the net surplus of UNES by 30% per annum
2.2.1 Improve and invest in the client service Low ratio of cost to revenue
2.2 Increase operating
delivery compared to other universities?
efficiency
2.2.2 Improve on internal processes Significant reduction in clients
complains
3.5 Prepare and roll out 3.5.1 Publish a quarterly UNES newsletter
a communication 3.5.2 Revitalise and regularly update UNES
and public relations website Better perception by internal and
improvement 3.5.3 Synchronise the front office function of external clients
programme UNES and UoN
Part 4: Sustainable Information and Communication Technology Development 107
5.2 Establish a 5.2.1 Publish quarterly newsletter on UNES An easily accessible and neutral
mechanism 5.2.2 Develop corporate profile and a
source of news and information about
for effective brochure
5.2.3 Re-design, regularly update and UNES is available
communication
popularise UNES website
Conclusion
As is apparent from the above, our university is now paying increasing attention to
the value of more applied research, innovative and relevant teaching and service to the
local, regional, national and global public and private sectors. Such developments are
usually facilitated through innovative linkages between the university and its external
constituencies.
The paradigm shift to a more entrepreneurial university appears to be still elusive,
particularly with regard to mechanisms for increasing technology transfer between
universities and industry. These mechanisms could include the introduction or
expansion of university offices involved in licensing and patenting (seeking commercial
applications for university research); small business development (providing technical
or managerial assistance to entrepreneurs or small businesses); research and technology
centres (operating or participaing in facilities for the development of new technology);
incubators (managing facilities in support of new technology-based businesses); and
investment/endowment offices (utilising the universitys financial resources for equity
in start-up businesses) (as indicated in Dill, 1995). For example, in the case of the
University of Nairobi, the establishment of a Science Park has only recently (June 2005)
been approved by the University Management Board. This indicates that we still have a
long way to go in the entrepreneur performance benchmark.
Part 4: Sustainable Information and Communication Technology Development 111
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