Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Leadership on the Relationship between Senior Team Attributes and Organizational Ambidexterity of Coffee Marketing Cooperative Societies in Kenya

Abstract

Coffee has been an important cash crop in Kenya’s agricultural sector. Coffee is a foreign exchange earner to the country, main source of employment in rural areas, providing food security and income for the rural areas. This has been achieved through coffee cooperative societies that process and market coffee for the farmers. There has been a decline in coffee production in Kenya that has caused devastating effects to the economy impacting on social inequality problems and increasing poverty levels.This study was anchored on the transformational leadership theory and it used both exploratory and cross-sectional survey designs. The target population was coffee marketing cooperatives societies registered in Kenya. The sample frame was coffee marketing cooperatives while the sample size was 242 coffee marketing cooperative societies in Kenya. Primary data was obtained from cooperative society managers using a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire. Data analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics. Study found out that the entrepreneurial leadership, though found to be meritorious, had its indicators rated below three on average. This means entrepreneurial leadership in terms of innovation influence, creativity and risk taking consideration is still infrequently practiced which explains the reasons behind the low performance by coffee marketing cooperative societies. On mediating role of entrepreneurial leadership on the relationship between senior team attributes and organizational ambidexterity of coffee marketing cooperative societies in Kenya. Entrepreneurial leadership is therefore a very crucial factor when modelling for the practice of senior team attributes towards achieving organizational ambidexterity. The study recommends that all training for coffee marketing cooperative societies include the senior team attributes, the content of organizational ambidexterity and entrepreneurial leadership. This important to enhance practice so as to move the cooperative societies from below to optimal performance