| dc.description.abstract | The objective of this project is to determine
the role of innovation in building competitive
advantage in the horticultural processing and export firms in Kenya.
The objective of this paper
was to determine
the innovation activities adopted by various horticultural firms, assess
the role
of these activities in augmenting competitive advantage, and identifies the factors that may
impede or facilitate innovation. Specifically, surveys assessing t
he above factors are given to 49
companies in the horticultural
processing and export
industry.
Competitive advantage is
operationalized by a survey question which tracks the percentage of turnover accounted for by
innovation in each firm. Multiple linear regression analysis is performed on the relationship
between the percentage of turnover accounted for by innovation and innovations in
organizational structure, marketing, product development, and process changes. The regression
analysis finds that only product and marketing innovations have a statistically significant effect
on the percentage turnover accounted for by innovation, with marketing having a negative
overall effect. Customer
demand
play‟s the largest role in the implementation of innovation
activities, followed
by technological advancement.
The
fact that customer demand has the
strongest relationship on innovation activities is supported by the
regression analysis, where we
found that product innovation had
the strongest role in building competitive advantage | en_US |
