Effect of Financial Controls on Organizational Performance of Selected County Governments in Western Kenya

: As a result of partial definition of strategies and operating plan, many organizations do not manage their strategies. This is due to the lack of a strong framework to coordinate employees, the operational process and the organizational objectives. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of financial controls on organizational performance in selected county governments in Western Kenya. The study was anchored on the following three theories: Control Theory, Resource Based Theory and Levers of Control Theory. Across-sectional survey design was used. Stratified sampling was applied to segment the population into various strata of workers, and thereafter, a simple random sampling method was used to pick a sample size of 390 employees from the target population of 6049, 6549 and 3611 employees in Bungoma County, Kakamega County and Busia County respectively. Data was collected using structured questionnaires that was thereafter analysed with an aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software. Based on the analysis, the findings were: there was positive, strong and significant associations between financial controls, on the organizational performance of selected County Governments (R=0.890, p≤0.05). It was concluded that R-square value of 0.792 implied that 79.2% of the corresponding change in the dependent variable (performance) could be predicted by financial controls, the recommendations of the study were: the government organizations should adopt financial evaluation strategies that could help cut down on the unnecessary wastage of funds. The findings of this study would be of significance to the organizational management, as these could help them in making informed decisions for the management and thereby improving the overall performance of the county government that ensure sustainability in the face of global competition. earlier empirical findings presented in the literature, this section further presents studies relative to organizational strategy and performance effects. One of the recent conceptual studies in Nigeria by Ujunwa and Modebe (2011) advocated for the adoption of strategic management approach in ensuring capital market efficiency following the perceived pivotal role the capital market in economic development. The strategic measure they reviewed ranged from effective regulation to achieving favorable macroeconomic environment. They posited that these strategies will not only promote the efficiency of the capital market, but will leverage the role of the capital market in promoting economic growth. control practices on performance of small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan. The duration of the study was seven years from 2006 to 2012. The data used in this study was taken from SMEDA, Karachi Stock Exchange, tax offices, company itself and Bloom burgee business week. The dependent variable of the study was Return on Assets (ROA) which was used as a proxy for profitability. Independent variables were number of days’ account receivable, number of day’s inventory, cash conversion cycle and number of days’ account payable. Regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between WCM control practices and performance of SMEs in Pakistan. Results suggested that accounts payable, growth and size, have positive association with Profitability whereas accounts receivable, day’s inventory, cash conversion cycle and debt ratio have inverse relation with profitability. However, the study relied on secondary data which is prone to statistical spuriousness.