Corporate Growth Strategies and Performance of Selected Real Estate Firms in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Purpose: Real estate and properties are emerging everywhere these days. In Nairobi, one will not walk more than ten kilometres before stumbling upon a construction site or a developed residential estate and commercial property. Although this trend is ongoing, the economy has yet to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian-Ukrainian war only worsens the situation. Inflation rates continue to rise, and the Kenyan currency continues to depreciate, reducing aspiring real estate owners' demand for real estate and subsequently leading to a decline in the performance of real estate firms. To improve their performance, real estate firms formulate and implement growth strategies. This study aims to determine the effect of strategic alliances on the performance of the selected real estate firms in Nairobi City County, Kenya. Methods: The study is explained by three theories: Resource-based view theory, contingency theory, and Porter’s five forces theory. The research has adopted a descriptive research design but limited to selected real estate firms in Nairobi City County targeting finance leads, sales leads, marketing leads, and operations lead. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires administered to managerial staff in the sampled real estate firms. Drop and pick method was adopted to get the research tools to the respondents. Prior to the main data collection phase, the researcher piloted the study on Cytonn real estate firm on eight of its managerial staff in the different departments to establish the validity and reliability. The researcher conducted the analysis with the utilization of Statistical Package for Social Sciences after coding and cleaning the data collected. Multiple regression was utilized to determine the impact of growth strategies on the performance of real estate firms. ANOVA substantiated the relevance of the regression model that the researcher chose and determined the existence of a significant variation caused by the independent variables. Pearson’s correlation matrix was used to determine the relationship between the variables. Results: Descriptive statistics revealed that leveraging cutting-edge technology had the highest mean score (3.96), indicating its crucial role in enhancing operational efficiency. Strategic alliances geared towards specific goals scored the highest mean (3.42), underscoring the importance of goal-oriented partnerships. Geographic diversification emerged as a key strategy with a mean score of 3.62, highlighting its significance in spreading risk and accessing new markets. There was a positive and significant relationship between the independent variable and the performance of real-estate firms as shown by the significant levels of 0.032 for strategic alliances. Conclusion: The researcher investigated the effect of corporate growth strategies on the performance of real-estate firms in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The analysis indicated significant positive correlations between innovation management strategies, strategic alliances, diversification strategies, and firm performance. Strategic alliances have the strongest correlation with firm performance of 0.698, followed by innovation management strategies and diversification strategies. The significant relationships suggest that improving these strategies can positively impact performance of real-estate firms in Nairobi city county, Kenya, with strategic alliances being particularly influential.