Financial Management Practices, IFMIS Adoption, and Perceived Performance of County Governments in Kenya: A Cross-sectional Survey

Abstract

This study examined associations among financial management practices (FMP), adoption of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS), and treasury officials' perceptions of county-government performance in Kenya, including a proposed FMP-by-IFMIS interaction. A cross-sectional survey approached 127 treasury officials from 15 counties across six economic blocs, of whom 98 returned questionnaires (77.2%). Official budget-implementation and audit publications provided institutional context but were not incorporated into the respondent-level regression. On five-point agreement items, the arithmetic mean of the item means was 3.7925 for IFMIS adoption and 3.5884 for perceived performance. The reported regression sums of squares yielded R² = .8919 and F(3, 94) = 258.49 (nominal p < .001); the reported interaction coefficient was positive (B = 1.030, SE = .050). However, the transformation of the model variables, several identical marginal response profiles across distinct items, the lack of a reduced-model comparison, and unadjusted within-county clustering limit the interpretation of moderation. The evidence describes respondents' perceptions and exploratory statistical associations, not independently verified improvements in public services or fiscal outcomes. Reproducible measurement and county-aware analyses are required to establish the conditional relationship.