Assessing the Relationship between Strategic Intellectual Resource Configuration and Urban Mobility Performance in Nairobi City, Kenya

Abstract

Urban mobility outcomes depend not only on infrastructure and funding but also on the knowledge, expertise, organisational systems, and stakeholder relationships required to plan and coordinate transport services. However, the contribution of intellectual resources to urban mobility remains insufficiently understood in complex urban transport environments. Anchored on Resource Orchestration Theory, which holds that value arises from how organisations structure, bundle and leverage their resources, this study examined the relationship between strategic intellectual resource configuration and urban mobility outcomes in Nairobi City, Kenya. The study adopted a positivist philosophy and a cross-sectional descriptive correlational research design. The target population was 765 stakeholders drawn from 20 institutions within Nairobi’s urban mobility ecosystem. A sample of 263 respondents was determined using Yamane’s formula and selected through multistage sampling, involving purposive selection of institutions and stratified random selection of respondents. Data were collected using structured questionnaires, of which 215 were valid for analysis (81.7% response rate), and analysed using SPSS version 30. Intellectual resource configuration had a moderate, positive and statistically significant association with urban mobility outcomes (r = .549, p < .001) and accounted for 30.2% of the variance in outcomes (R² = .302; F(1, 213) = 91.96, p < .001). Higher levels of professional expertise, institutionalised knowledge-sharing systems, organisational procedures and collaborative stakeholder relationships were associated with better perceived safety, efficiency and reliability of mobility services. Urban transport institutions should therefore prioritise specialised skills development, organisational learning, knowledge retention, and inter-organisational collaboration. Longitudinal research using objective mobility indicators is recommended to establish causal effects.