Innovation Strategies and Performance of Agrochemical Companies in Nairobi County
Abstract
The “objective of the study was to establish the effects of innovation strategies on the
performance of agrochemical firms in Nairobi County. The study sought to determine the
effect of product, technological, marketing and process innovations on the performance of
agrochemical companies in Nairobi County. This study employed “a descriptive survey
research design. The target population for the study was the agrochemical firms in Nairobi
who are listed as full members of Agrochemicals Association of Kenya. Since the population
was small, the study was a census where all the 58 agrochemical firms in Nairobi were
considered. Primary data was used in the study was collected from the respondents with the
use of a semi-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics inferential statistics were used to
analyze with aid of SPSS. The study concludes that there was a strong relationship (R-value
= 0.532) between innovation strategies and organizational performance of agrochemical firms
in Nairobi with innovation strategies explaining 21.4% of the total variance in the
organizational performance of agrochemical firms in Nairobi. The study also concluded that
product, technological, marketing and process innovations strategies have a positive effect on
the organizational performance of agrochemical firms in Nairobi with marketing innovation
strategy being the only one influencing the organization performance significantly. The
concluded that agrochemical firms in Nairobi face innovation challenges to a moderate extent
with high costs of developing new products, high cost of implementing new strategies,
inadequate technological infrastructure, shortage of expertise, rigid regulating practice that
discourages innovation, lack of a research and development department, lack of avenues to
share innovative ideas and lack of top management support being the most faced challenges.
The management of the agrochemical firms in Nairobi should set aside adequate budget to
establish proper technological infrastructure, hire qualified experts, create avenues to share
innovative ideas, set up a R&D department and create a conducive environment for
innovation. The Government should create a business environment that encourages and
supports innovation in the agrochemical sector.” This should be in form of offering tax
exemptions on the technologies required come up with more innovative products and relaxing
the rigid regulating practices that discourages innovation. In future, a similar study should be
done considering all the 47 counties in Kenya and with a focus on other sectors other than the
agro-chemical sector.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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