Challenges of Implementating of Entry Strategies and Competitive Advantage of Chinese Multinational Corporations in Kenya

Abstract

A firm whose profits are more than the average profits of the industry makes it to have a competitive advantage over its rivals. The aim of the particular strategy is to achieve a competitive advantage that is sustainable. Competitive advantage is gained by an organization over its competitors from an understanding of both markets and customers and special competences that possesses. This study answered the following question: what are the challenges facing implementation of market entry strategies and how they influence the competitive advantage of Chinese Multinational Corporations in Kenya. Cross sectional design was used for the studywhich involve collection of data on the study population at a single point in time and this aims at examining the association between the interest variables. Cross sectional research design was useful in that it can be used in proving and disproving assumption, it can be used to capture data at a specific point in time, it also contains multiple variables during the period of data snapshot and the data can be used for various research types. The target population of this study was 18 Chinese multinational companies in Kenya. The target respondents were the marketing and operations managers in these companies. Primary data was used, which was collected by the use of a structured questionnaires. Before data is collected, an authorisation form was collected from the University authorising the researcher to undertake this study across the target population of 18 Chinese multinational companies. This letter was important in providing credibility on the part of the researcher that the research was authorised from a credible institution of learning. Qualitative data was analysed by use of thematic content analysis, which involves the identification, examination, and recording of themes in a data set. Quantitative data was analyzed by the adoption of descriptive statistics and a statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 22) was also used. Furthermore, regression analysis was adopted in establishing the relationship existing between the challenges of implementation of entry strategies and competitive advantage of Chinese multinational companies in Kenya. The study found that resources, strategy commitment and organizational leadership had a positive relationship with the implementation of market entry strategy and completive advantage. However environmental factors had a negative relationship with the implementation of market entry strategy and completive advantage. The study recommends that the corporations should increase leadership trainings so as to improve on the leadership skill of the leaders;should make staff aware of market entry strategies in their organization;should ensure that there are adequate staffs with adequate skills and capabilities in the organization as these aspects have a resultant impact to the implementation of the entry strategy and competitive advantage in the market that they operate in. It also recommends that there are enough assets that are required in the implementation of market entry strategy.