The Impact of Organizational Politics on The Effectiveness of Management Development In The Kenya Civil Service

The Civil service as a formal organization is designed to co-ordinate activities to drive the Government’s development agenda. It is the policy implementation arm of the Government and is guided by public policy pronouncements and attendant development plans and circulars (GOK, 2006). The civil service is expected to be effective and efficient in order to play a vital role in economic development of the country. Yet, the civil service as part of the political system is exposed to political decisions that may influence its effectiveness. This study sought to find out to what extent organization politics affect effectiveness of management development. Using an exploratory survey design, the study targeted 205 managers in the civil service deployed in Nairobi. The sample was picked through stratified random and simple random sampling and Data was collected using a questionnaire with both Likert type and open questions. SPSS was used to analyze the data quantitatively and qualitatively.The study found that managers were fully aware of the political context of the civil service but they did not think that Organizational Politics affected key management areas and felt that their supervisors supported them and ensured they were clear about their roles. They however thought that Organization Politics affected social relations at the workplace significantly. The study concluded that practices like performance contracting had reduced negative impacts and ensured that managers were clear on what was expected of them. The effect of politics on social relationships could be the reason for the ‘silo mentality’ pervading the civil service interfering with learning from each other, limiting benchmarking of successful interventions and resulting in duplication of effort that interferes with effective service delivery. The study recommends that the Government addresses the impact of politics on social relationships to improve work based learning through internal bench marking.