KCA University Institutional Repository
Not a member yet
1075 research outputs found
Sort by
Effect Of Procurement Practices On Performance Of County Governments In Kenya; A Case Of Embu County
Get PDFThe government of Kenya acknowledges that inefficient public sector performance, notably in
the management of public resources, has hindered the country's ability to fulfill long-term
development objectives. The success or failure of a company is heavily influenced by its
procurement strategies. Procurement methods are designed with the objective of improving
customer service, lowering lead times and costs, and meeting market demand. The purpose of
the study was to examine effect of procurement practices on performance of county
governments in Kenya with an aim of making recommendations on its proper use among
county governments. The study aimed at establishing how inventory management,
procurement planning, supplier management and contract management influence performance
of county governments in Kenya. Descriptive research design was adopted to answer the
research problem. The target population was the heads of procurement, chief officers and four
(4) procurement officers from all the fourteen (14) ministries in the county. Pilot study was
carried out to establish the reliability and validity of research instruments. A structured
questionnaire was used to collect data. Data gathered from the questionnaires administered was
analyzed by the help of SPSS version 21 and Microsoft Excel. The outputs were presented
inform of statistical diagrams, tables and charts. The study used multiple linear regression and
correlation analysis to show the relationship between the variables. The study was applied in
the management of procurement practices in county governments in Kenya. The response rate
of the study was 93%. The findings of the study indicated that inventory management,
procurement planning, supplier management and contract management have a positive
relationship with performance of county governments. Finally, the study recommended that
county governments should embrace procurement practices so as to improve their performance
and further researches should to be carried out in other institutions to find out if the same results
can be obtained
Effect Of Supplier Financial Stability On Public Procurement Performance. A Case Study Of Kephis, Kenya
No full textPublic procurement is essential in the delivery of government services yet it is affected by many constraints which impact performance. In spite of the many efforts by the government to improve the procurement system, a number of problems still face the system such as shoddy work, and lack of quality goods and services. Supplier rating has been proposed as cure of public procurement method. Despite its use in public procurement system in Kenya, a lot of complaints have been made by buyers regarding the capacity of suppliers. Therefore the main purpose of the study is to analyze the effect of supplier financial stability on public procurement performance. A descriptive research design was adopted, and the study is anchored on lean supplier competence model, the fuzzy set theory and the grey system theory. The study targeted a population of 102 employees of KEPHIS. Primary data was obtained using questionnaires, analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics and presented in form of tables and graphs. The relationship between variables was determined using correlation coefficient and multilinear regression equation. Hypothesis was tested using ANOVA. A pilot study was done to establish the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. From the findings there was a statistically significant positive relationship between Supplier Financial Stability and the Public Procurement Performance (r=.684, p=0.000). The study concludes that the following factors which are considered by some organizations when selecting suppliers determine performance of procurement function, financial stability of suppliers. It can therefore be concluded that financial stability of suppliers affects supplier rating. KEPHIS should undertake financial stability appraisal of suppliers in depth and detail before awarding them contracts for supply of various goods or services. The researcher suggests that a study be carried out by other scholars to establish other determinants of procurement function performance in other sectors
The Effect Of Audit Committee Characteristics On The Financial Performance Of Manufacturing Firms Listed At The Nairobi Securities Exchange In Kenya
Get PDFAudit committees are established by regulations to help stem financial irregularities in
corporates thus enhancing the financial performance of firms. However, financial crises
experienced by listed firms, poor performance and collapses of others have raised concerns
about the role of audit committees on financial performance. As a result, this study's major
objective was to evaluate the effect characteristics of the audit committee had on the financial
performance of manufacturing firms listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange in Kenya.
Guided by the agency theory as the anchoring theory and stakeholder, stewardship, and
resource-based theories as to the other guiding theories, the study examined the effects of;
audit committee independence, the expertise of audit committee members, audit committee
gender diversity, audit committee meetings, and audit committee size on the financial
performance of manufacturing firms listed at the NSE. The study adopted a mixed research
design combining descriptive research design and longitudinal research design. The target
population of the study is all the 17 manufacturing firms listed in the manufacturing and
allied, construction and allied, agricultural and commercial and services sectors of the
Nairobi Securities Exchange. As the target population was small, the study did not result in
sampling but carried out a census. Secondary data used in the study was collected from
published financial statements using a data collection sheet. STATA statistical software was
used to test the model as well as carry out diagnostic tests. To analyse the data, this study
utilized pooled ordinary least squares regression on 127 firm years of observations. The
findings of the study revealed that jointly, audit committee characteristics accounted for a 22
per cent change in financial performance. nevertheless, mixed findings concerning each
specific influence of each disaggregated variable was reported. Findings revealed that
individually the size, expertise and independence all had a positive and statistically
significant association with firms financial performance. The negative but statistically
significant effects were found on the relationship between audit committee meetings and
financial performance. However, audit committee gender diversity was found to have a
statistically insignificant association with financial performance. This research study offers
useful insights to the regulator of listed firms, investors and managers of the manufacturing
companies. They may find the findings in this study useful and hence look for ways to
enhance the effectiveness of the audit committees and eventually financial performance.
Policymakers and regulators should make recommendations to manufacturing firms to
develop efficient governance structures in audit committees that fit with the unique features
of such entities
Bayesian Model Averaging in Modeling of State Specific Failure Rates in HIV/AIDS Progression
No full textIn modeling HIV/AIDS progression, we carried out a comprehensive investigation into the risk factors for state-specific-failure rates to identify the influential co-variates using Bayesian Model averaging method (BMA). BMA provides a posterior probability via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) for each variable that belongs to the model. It accounts for model uncertainty by averaging all plausible models using their posterior probabilities as the weights for model-averaged predictions and estimates of the required parameters. Patients' age, and gender, among other co-variates, have been found to influence the state-specific-failure rates highly. However, the impact of each of the factors on the state specific failure was not quantified. This paper seeks to evaluate and quantify the contribution of the patient's age and gender, CD4 cell count during any two consecutive visits, and state movement on the state-specific-failure rates for patients transiting either to the same, better or worse state. We used R Studio statistical Programming software to implement the method by applying BMS and BMA packages. State movement had a comparatively large coefficient with a posterior inclusion probability (PIP) of 0.8788 (87.88%). Hence, the most critical variable followed by observation-two-CD4-cell-count with a PIP of 0.1416 (14.16%), age and gender were the last with a PIP of 0.0556 (5.56%) and 0.0510 (5.10%) respectively for patients transiting to the same state. For patients transiting to a better state, the patients' age group dominated with a PIP of 0.9969 (99.69%), followed by patients' gender with a PIP of 0.0608 (6.08%). Patients' CD4 cell count during the second observation had the least PIP of 0.0399 (3.99%). For patients transiting to a worse disease state, patients CD4 cell count during the second observation proved to be the most important, with a PIP of 0.6179(61.79%) followed by state movement with a PIP of 0.2599 (25.99%), patients gender tailed with a PIP of 0.0467 (4.67%)
Influence Of Procurement Blockchain Technology On Financial Performance Of Commercial Banks In Kenya
Get PDFEvaluation Of Impact Of Project Quality Management On Project Success
Get PDFIn construction and building projects quality management is a major factor to be considered for the accomplishment of project success.To understand the degree to which quality management contributes to project success,this study was conducted to evaluate the relationships between project quality management and project success.A survey research design was adopted for the study.The data was collected using structured questionnaire.Proportional stratification,random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the sample size of 57 and 246 for finite and infinite population of project managers and clients of construction firms registered with Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry.Content validity was used to validate the questionnaire,while Cronbach’s Alpha was used to determine the reliability atα=(0.88). Regression analysis was used for the data analysis.The findings revealed that there were significant relationships between project quality management and client’s satisfaction(R=0.508;p<0.05),(R2=0.258). Conclusively, the findings of this study further revealed that an organization with effective project quality management strategies would more likely fulfill the needs of clients,which could ultimately lead to client’s satisfaction
Why are COVID-19 effects less severe in Sub-Saharan Africa? Moving more and sitting less may be a primary reason
No full textThe world is entering a new phase of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) health crisis with the lifting of social and physical distancing as well as lockdown restrictions to control the pandemic. Scientific evidence obtained during the COVID-19 pandemic to this point have brought clear themes to the forefront. One important theme pertains
to who is at a higher risk for poorer outcomes if infected with severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Clearly, indi viduals with risk factors for chronic disease and one or more chronic
disease diagnoses are at significantly higher risk for poor outcomes
with SARS-CoV-2 infection.1,2 Moreover, unhealthy lifestyle behaviors
(i.e., physical inactivity, poor nutrition, smoking and excess body
mass) are the leading cause for the high incidence and prevalence
of chronic disease the world was facing well before the COVID-19
pandemic.3 In fact, physical inactivity and chronic diseases were both
characterized as pandemics prior to COVID-1
A Data Pipeline Architecture For Classification Of Potential Claimants In Reunification Of Unclaimed Financial Assets
No full textAs data grows exponentially, organizations are leveraging on the capabilities of technology to generate knowledge that can support decision making. However, storage and processing data through traditional data pipeline architectures presents a risk of single point of failure. The Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority, like other organizations has faced such challenges when reunifying unclaimed financial assets, due to the inability to harness and process data received from the disintegrated systems. The main aim of this study was to develop a modern data pipeline architecture for classification of potential claimants in the reunification of unclaimed assets. Target population for the study was potential claimants that had registered on the various platforms provided by the Authority and records submitted by holders between July 1, 2020 and November 1, 2020. Secondary data was extracted from the various platforms and systems. The data used is 210587 and 1378953 records for potential claimants and holders’ reports respectively. Data cleaning was done using Python’s Pandas library. Use-modify-create development approach was used to design and implement the proposed classification of potential claimants’ data pipeline architecture by leveraging on the Lambda architecture and data lake approach. The approach facilitated activities like ingestion into Hadoop data lake. Pyspark was used to transform the data through Map Reduce approach, before classification algorithm was applied. HiBench was used to evaluate the architecture implemented where the Micro-benchmark metrics were used to refine the architecture. The major findings of the study were the high utilization of allocated resources by the Non-DFS storage and the Non-Heap memory which calls for management and monitoring to avoid out of storage and memory issues. The study recommends Neural Network algorithm for classification with an accuracy of 94.27% and F1-Score of 1. Use of Micro-benchmark workloads to indicate instances where CPU requires optimization and where disk I/O utilization is heavy was also recommended. A further comparative study that includes other ML techniques using different dataset, evaluation metrics, and Hibench workloads is recommended