Obstacles to effective strategy implementation: Insights from Agricultural Cooperatives in Malawi

The strategy implementation literature remains fragmented, thus requiring further empirical studies to explain SI challenges in different types of organizations. This has influenced the nature of this study, which aims to identify barriers in SI in the novel organizational context of agriculture cooperatives. This research is a qualitative, multi-firm investigation of the barriers to strategy execution in Malawian agricultural cooperatives. Seven agricultural cooperatives with diverse characteristics that have been in business for at least ten years were purposefully chosen for the study. Managers, chairpersons, and organization members provided information through in-depth interviews facilitated by a semi-structured questionnaire. Findings include that strategy implementation ineffectiveness results from the lack of understanding of strategy, financial resources, inadequate infrastructure, governance, organizational structure, and low literacy levels. The reasons for the strategy implementation failure originated from the formulation stage, with the lack of understanding of strategy, resource allocation, and strategic direction affecting the type of strategy. It is recommended that agricultural cooperatives, in an effort to transform into competitive businesses, be remodeled into a structure that can influence effective strategy implementation and give them a competitive advantage. A limited number of in-depth interviews were conducted as access to the other cooperatives was a challenge. However, the number of cooperatives interviewed is a representative sample of the agriculture cooperatives across the country providing deep insights into the topic relevant to the organizational type and industry. This paper explains why strategy implementation fails in underexplored non-investor firms like cooperatives within the agriculture industry.