Attaining Organisational Success in Zimbabwe’s State Universities: Perceptions of the Operational Staff

Abstract

The researcher sought to establish the perceptions of operational staff on their understanding of organisational success. The perception of organisational success is usually a reflection of where the owner of the perception stands in the organisation. A constructivist philosophy was adopted to engage a group of purposefully selected operational staff members in in-depth interviews through a face-to-face mode and then by WhatsApp. The purposefully selected members of the operational staff were asked three questions, and they discussed these questions over a period of two months. At the end of the period, transcripts of the discussions were given to relevant members for their authenticity check and validation. Further to that process, the responses were coded, and themes were formulated from which the perceptions of operational staff were derived. The staff perceived that their hard work, the awards they received from the organisation and the achievement of the assigned targets meant that the organisation was succeeding. The recommendation was that operational staff members need to be involved in strategic planning sessions where organisational goals are derived and cascaded from the corporate level down to the operational level to make them understand the importance of hard work at each level and by every worker.