Institutional Culture and Judicial Performance of High Courts in Kenya
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53819/81018102t2600Abstract
Institutional culture is widely regarded as an important foundation of organizational effectiveness because shared norms, leadership practices, employee adaptability, competence and communication shape how institutions respond to change and deliver services. This study examined the effect of institutional culture on judicial performance of High Courts in Kenya. Institutional culture was operationalized through leadership support for ICT adoption, staff openness to change, ICT skills and competence, communication efficiency, and resistance to change. Anchored mainly on Institutional Theory and complemented by Dynamic Capabilities Theory, the study adopted a positivist philosophy and quantitative correlational design. Data were collected through structured questionnaires from 254 respondents drawn from 46 High Court stations using stratified sampling. The measures demonstrated acceptable reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.766 to 0.875 for the institutional culture dimensions and 0.731 for judicial performance. Descriptive results indicated a generally supportive culture: leadership support (M = 3.812, SD = 0.517), staff openness (M = 3.787, SD = 0.485), ICT competence (M = 3.790, SD = 0.538), communication efficiency (M = 3.791, SD = 0.493), and reverse-coded resistance to change (M = 3.752, SD = 0.514). However, institutional culture was weakly and insignificantly correlated with judicial performance (r = -0.016, p = .799). The regression model was also insignificant, F (5,248) = 0.424, p = .832, R² = .008, and none of the five dimensions significantly predicted performance. The study concludes that supportive institutional culture is an enabling condition rather than a sufficient direct driver of judicial performance. It recommends linking cultural interventions with adequate staffing, workflow redesign, infrastructure, technical support and performance-oriented management systems.
Keywords: Institutional Culture; Judicial Performance; Leadership Support; Staff openness to Change; ICT Competence; Communication Efficiency; High Courts; Kenya.
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