Communication Culture Strength and Customer Satisfaction in Public Secondary Schools in Nairobi County, Kenya
Authors: Karingu Winfred , Mberia Hellen , Ndati Ndeti 
Published: April 2024

Purpose: Communication culture strength influences customer satisfaction of customers served by organizations such as public secondary schools. The purpose of the study was to establish the influence of communication culture strength on customer satisfaction in public secondary schools in Nairobi County, Kenya. Communication culture strength involves important element of an organisational culture, with sharedness of values as the defining core of that culture as well as a multidimensional phenomenon that includes the strength of the prevailing value system.

Methodology: The study employed descriptive research design and examined both quantitative and qualitative data. The study population was 3588 students made up of both boys and girls and 12 principals or their deputies from 12 public secondary schools in Nairobi City County. The students ages ranged from 14 years to 21 years and were in Form 2 to Form 4. A sample size of 369 students was used out of which 296 responded.  This was a response rate of 80.22%. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to sample students from the target population. Purposive sampling technique was used to sample the principals and or their deputies. Questionnaires and interview guides were used as data collection tools for quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Quantitative data was collected from the students while qualitative data was collected from the principals or their deputies. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse quantitative data. SPSS a software package for social sciences Ver. 25 was used to statistically analyse quantitative data. The analysed data was then presented using graphs, tables and charts. Qualitative data derived from the objectives was analysed thematically and presented in a narrative form.  Inferential statistics used were descriptive, correlation, regression and ANOVA analysis.

Findings: The results showed that there existed a positive and significant relationship between communication culture strength and customer satisfaction in public secondary schools in Nairobi County (r=0.409, p-value=0.000). The findings indicated that  communication culture strength has a positive effect on an organization’s performance and therefore customer satisfaction. This showed that a unit improvement in communication culture strength would lead to a 0.429 improvement in customer satisfaction in public secondary schools in Nairobi County. The relationship was significant as the P-value (0.000) was less than the significance level (0.05).  The study concluded that communication culture strength had a significant influence on customer satisfaction public secondary school in Kenya.

Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study was anchored on Thibaut and Kelley, Social Exchange theory. This study contributed to theory because it links communication culture strength to customer satisfaction in public secondary schools. Additionally, the study recommends that communication culture strength should be enhanced in organizations such as schools since it influences organizational performance and therefore customer satisfaction. In addition, the findings from this study hopes that it will provide a source of information for policy makers to understand better the link between communication culture strength and organizational performance and therefore customer satisfaction.