Risk Management Practices And Performance Of Projects In Nairobi City County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Projects are prone to risks the numerous types of risks that may affect a project are financial,

strategic, hazardous and operational risks. Unexpected events and uncertainty often result to

damaging consequences for projects. If these risks are not effectively dealt with, they may

pose a challenge in the completion of the project. Therefore, risk analysis and management of

risks is a major feature of project management in which project managers need to effectively

deal with the risks and uncertainty in order to fully achieve the vision of the project. Project

performance is determined by factors such as cost, customer satisfaction, time, health, client

changes and business performance the concept of project delays as a result of risk is now a

global phenomenon. The study’ general objective was to determine the influence of risk

management practices on performance of projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The study

was guided by the following specific objectives; to determine the influence of risk retention

on project performance in Nairobi City County, Kenya, to investigate how risk prevention

affects performance of the projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya, to examine the effect of

risk control on performance of projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya and to evaluate how

risk transfer affects the performance of projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The study

will be guided by the Enterprise Risk Management theory, Network theory and the

Expectancy Theory. The study adopted a descriptive design in order to determine how risk

management practices with respect to the following independent variables risk prevention,

risk retention, risk transfer and risk control and how they affect the performance of projects in

Nairobi City County, Kenya. The study used primary data. The study employed semistructured

questionnaires to gather relevant information from a total of 135 project managers,

supervisors, risk managers, construction firms and finance officers. The data collected was

then analyzed using SPSS and findings of the study were presented in graphs, pie charts and

tables. The study established that risk management practices have a significant and positive

effect on project performance. The study concluded that risk transfer had a significant and to

a great extent affected the performance of the projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya. It was

also concluded that risk transfer is significantly embraced, applied and practiced among firms

implementing projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The study concluded that risk

prevention significantly affected project performance. It was concluded that risk prevention is

embraced among organizations executing projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya as a risk

management practice and it has enhanced project completion within scope, budget and time

schedule. The study further concluded that there a significant and positive relationship

between risk control and project performance. Risk control was significantly practiced among

the organizations involved projects in Nairobi City County, Kenya and had a significant

influence on project performance. It was concluded that risk retention had a positive and

significant effect on the performance of the projects. To great extent, risk retention as a risk

management practice had a positive effect on project performance. The study recommends

that the management of the projects need to ensure the risk management practices are

integrated in project implementation. Most of the practices were in place but were not

effectively employed to ensure peak performance. The organizations were found to be

skeptical on planning for risks and taking risk management steps and therefore for peak

performance there is need to have a risk management plan in place and stick by it.