Stakeholder Engagement in Sustainable Strategic Management: Enhancing the Resilience of Zimbabwean Urban Councils

Abstract

With awareness of the negative impacts of climate change, natural resource shortages and social inequalities, organisations in all sectors are increasingly recognising the importance of integrating the principles of sustainability into their operations and strategies to enhance their resilience. The integration calls for a multifaceted approach. However, existing literature reveal the involvement of internal factors in the sustainable strategic management practices in organisations at the expense of external factors. This study, therefore, explores the influence of stakeholder engagement (an external factor) in the practice of sustainable strategic management in organisations. The study adopts a descriptive survey design of the quantitative research approach. A total of 2 931 employees drawn from six urban councils in Zimbabwe consisting of managers and practitioners, formed the population of the study. A sample of 344 was drawn from the population using the Krejcie and Morgan (1970)‘s determination table. Data were collected using a questionnaire whose internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha. The Kaiser Meyer Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO) test was used to measure the suitability of data for factor analysis, while the Bartlett‘s Test of Sphericity was done for its adequacy. The results of the study show a positive and significant relationship between the engagement of both internal and external stakeholders and the practice of sustainable strategic management in organisations. It is, therefore, recommended that a policy framework be developed guiding urban councils in Zimbabwe on the inclusion of stakeholders in their practice of sustainable strategic management to enhance their resilience. However, further research is recommended with a different methodology and targeting different organisations on how stakeholder engagement influences the practice of sustainable strategic management.