THE INTERVENING ROLE OF STAFF LOYALTY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE AND PERFORMANCE OF CHARTERED UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA

Background: In Sub-Saharan Africa, university education plays a critical role in promoting technological advancements and improving the country's ability to capitalize economically. However, staff disloyalty results in low productivity and organizations that offer little or no career opportunities or provide fewer opportunities for equality in promotions, racial discrimination and weak or small rewards for improved performance are likely to face staff disloyalty. Objective of the study: This study evaluated the intervening role of staff loyalty on the relationship between leadership style and performance of chartered Universities in Kenya. Positivistic philosophy approach was adopted with a cross-sectional survey research design. Methodology: The target populations for this study were 49 chartered universities in Kenya. Respondents comprised of university teaching staff, and non-teaching staff in Kenyan chartered universities. Teaching staff who participated in the study comprised of professors, Associate Professors, Senior Lecturers, Lecturers, Assistant Lectures, and Tutorial Fellows. For non-teaching staff that was selected for the study are top management levels, middle level, and lower-level staff. For a comparative analysis, each University was targeted, and the sample was drawn from each participating institution of 10% to 30% of the target population is adequate to provide valid results on any research study. The study adopted the minimum which is 10% due to fact that 10 percent presented adequate sample and therefore final sample size of 3851 was recalculated using Yamane formula to arrive at the suitable sample population that adopted for the final study. The study sample size was 362 that included all the 49-chartered universities. The questionnaires were distributed equally in all participating institution. The researcher utilized questionnaire as the essential instrument for information gathering. Questionnaires were formatted to contain sections reflecting the study variables. Quantitative data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Findings: The study findings indicated that a unit increase in staff loyalty index lead to an increase in performance index and the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was accepted. Therefore the conclusion was that staff loyalty has significant intervening role of staff loyalty on the relationship between leadership style and performance of chartered Universities in Kenya. Recommendations: The study recommends that the University management board should pay more attention to improve organizational factors such as skill development opportunity, organizational work culture and employee’s involvement in decision making in building staff loyalty. University management board and institution leadership should measure staff loyalty in two aspects that is the longevity part and the substantive part. The longevity part is the tangible and physical responsibility that ties staff to the organization for a long lasting relationship. While the substantive part is the essential and actual part links the staff directly to performance and the cause of the university. Keywords: Transformational Leadership Style, Staff Loyalty, Performance, Chartered Universities & Kenya.