The Mediating Effect of Customer Focus on the Relationship Between Strategic Planning and Competitive Advantage in Railway Sector

Empirical studies have been conducted to investigate the association between strategic planning and competitive advantage. Many recent studies have shown that strategic planning helps organizations to gain competitive advantage over their rivals. However, other empirical studies found strategic planning to have no effect on competitive advantage. This study attempted to settle this inconclusive debate and included a mediating variable on this association using a data sample collected from Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) employees who are in management. This research contributes to literature by determining the mediation effect of customer focus on the relationship between strategic planning and competitive advantage. The reliability, validity, and model fit were all checked using principal component analysis, factor analysis, and regression analysis in Jamovi software. The results reveal that a positive significant relationship exists between strategic planning and competitive advantage and also between customer focus and competitive advantage. Customer focus was found to partially mediate the association between strategic planning and competitive advantage. The study results may assist decision-makers in the railway sector to be more customer focusing and practicing strategic planning in order to survive this tense fierce competition of the twenty-first century. Scholars are recommended to replicate this study to other sectors and include other mediating/moderating variables.