Abstracts Category : Other

The role of monitoring and evaluation in promoting Strategic Management: a case study of the Royal Bank Ltd, Ghana

by Issah Rashid Dziyaba

It is undeniable that every organization is set up with a purpose. For most banks, one of core motives why they are set up is to be profitable. Profitability is important because when a bank is profitable, all of the interests of all the stakeholders are met; shareholders receive dividends, staff members receive bonuses, taxes are paid to the government, investors receive interests on their investments and the communities get amenities through the corporate social responsibility of the bank. Profitability is achieved when the bank is accountable, transparent, promotes learning and has competitive advantage. Strategic management techniques are therefore adopted to guarantee the accomplishments of these profitability parametres. Strategic management is a process and involves various steps. Prominent among these is Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E). This thesis set out to highlight the role played by M&E in the strategic management process while using The Royal Bank as a case study. Information was sought through a questionnaire survey administered to 120 customers in 6 branches of The Royal Bank and 60 staff members in 6 branches of The Royal Bank. It was realized that M&E is given a lot of importance in The Royal Bank. It is a systems approach woven around the notion of compliance to outcome measures. To be effective, M&E deviates from the concept of sole judge in The Royal Bank. It draws expertise from customers and staff members by promoting participatory approaches in decision making. The main challenge of M&E in The Royal Bank is that staff members feel they are subjects of evaluation rather than users. They feel their contributions do not play a role in decision making. To solve this challenge, it is recommended that management should allow certain basic decisions be made at the branch levels. A Thesis submitted to the School of Business, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Master of Business Administration in Strategic Management and Consulting, 2016 KNUST