Factors Influencing Adoption Of Digital Weighing Scales Among Coffee Co-Operative Societies In Imenti North Sub- County, Meru, Kenya.

Abstract

Cooperative societies are responding to customer’s demand by becoming more innovative in many ways in response to rapidly changing business environment. With the rapid technological changes, innovation has become inevitable for the firms to position themselves and gain a competitive edge. Digital weighing scale is one of the key factors for improving the competitiveness and productivity in cooperatives. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that influence the adoption of digital weighing scales within Imenti North Sub-County. This study objectives were; to determine how user perception influences the adoption of digital weighing scales, to find out how user convenience influence adoption of digital weighing scales, to assess how initial investment cost influence adoption of digital weighing scales and to establish how initial investment cost influence adoption digital weighing scales among coffee cooperative societies in Imenti North Sub-County. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population for this study was 2502 management committee members of coffee cooperative societies and affiliated coffee farmers within Imenti North Sub-County, Meru County with a sample size of 232. The open-ended structured questionnaires used generated descriptive statistics, frequencies, percentages, mean score and Standard deviation. Quantitative variables are presented inform of tables while inferential data analysis was done using multiple regression analysis. The findings are in frequency tables. The findings revealed that improved competitiveness in the speed and reliability of transactions influenced adoption of technology. Findings further show that increased transparency in view of balances and logs of transactions done positively influence adoption of weighing scales. On the service efficiency, the findings indicate minimal errors reading influenced organization decision in adopting new technology. The user perception had a positive and significant influence on the adoption of digital weighing scales among coffee cooperative societies. User convenience positively influenced adoption of digital weighing scales among coffee cooperative societies. The initial investment cost had a positive and significant influence on the adoption of digital weighing scales among coffee cooperative societies. Finally, the study concluded that service efficiency positively and significantly influences adoption digital weighing scales among coffee cooperative societies. The study findings reveal that all the four variables have a positive correlation with adoption of digital weighing machine in cooperative societies in Meru North Sub County. They study therefore recommends training of farmers through organised seminars as well as workshops to instil skills and knowledge to the farmers and also enable smooth transition from the old to the new technology as well as influencing adoption of the digital weighing scales. The study also recommends that digital weighing machine made in such a way that a farmer can easily use them. The modified scales are easily readable and easy to interpret. On initial investment cost the study recommends that the pretesting cost as well as initial set-up cost should be set as low as possible to allow the low-income farmers to be able to adopt the digital weighing scales. This will make it cheap and affordable for the farmers to be able to adopt without any constraints. The study recommends that the weighing scales made should be of high speed since majority of users commented more on the importance of speed in their choice of digital weighing scales.