Top Management Teams Demographics and Innovation Performance of Insurance Firms in Kenya

Abstract

The demographics and innovation performance of Top Management Teams in Kenyan insurance organizations were the main subjects of this study. The goal was to determine how the demographics of top management teams affected the performance of innovation in Kenyan insurance companies. “The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional research design, which surveyed 56 insurance companies in Kenya. Data was gathered via online questionnaires developed by Google that were distributed to the top leadership teams of the insurance company via email and WhatsApp. 35 replies were received in total, which was deemed adequate for analysis. According to the study's multiple regression model's positive coefficients, the findings demonstrate that diversity in education, variety in functional experience, and diversity in gender are all favorably connected to innovation performance. However, age diversity within top management teams was found to negatively affect innovation performance. Moreover, all the variables were found to be statistically significant except for education diversity. The model summary was found to account for only 15.8% variability on innovation performance within Insurance firms in Kenya, thus, it is a weak model. The ANOVA reveals that the joint top management teams’ demographics under investigation are not good predictors of innovation performance as exhibited by a significance F of 0.25>0.05 at 95% confidence level. The study recommends that Insurance companies may consider hiring more age homogenous teams in their top management which would support faster decision making and alignment. They also should be aware of the statistical insignificance of educational diversity on innovation performance and may consider innovative talents when hiring for top management teams. Further, firms need to consider functional experience diversity within top management teams. Different experiences among the teams would increase diversity of ideas enhancing innovation performance in the firms. The model assumed that the top management team demographics and innovation performance is relationship is linear, which may not be the case. Also the model could not reveal causation of the effects of top management team demographics and thus the study suggests that future research uses a mixed method approach which may reveal some of the reasons why the relationships exists.”