INFLUENCE OF PERCEIVED EMPLOYEES’ PRESSURE ON INNOVATION IN THE TEA SUBSECTOR IN KENYA
Abstract
A major constraint in decision making in a firm is the power of environmental elements. The power of the dominant coalition in an organization determines the course of strategic action. The dominant coalition can be viewed as a key stakeholder group who greatly influences decisions of a firm. A firm’s strategy therefore can be said to be influenced by stakeholder pressure. Stakeholders are known to disagree on the relative importance of innovations and may therefore use their resources to influence other stakeholders and resort to politics and power to affect implementation processes. The different positions of stakeholders and the associated differences in priorities and interests are likely to affect stages of the implementation process of innovation from the first stage of experiencing and defining a problem to looking for solutions. Tea industry in Kenya has identified a type of process innovation which is comparatively cheaper i.e. mechanical tea harvesting technology yet the perplexing thing is that the uptake of this technology is low despite its cost advantages. This study therefore provided an opportunity to empirically test the theoretical basis of this contradiction. It sought to establish the influence of perceived stakeholder pressure of employees’ stake holder group on innovation with regards to adoption of mechanical tea harvesting technology. The study employed diagnostic survey research design. The target population was all tea plantation firms in Kenya. The respondents were the managers in charge of these business units. A census enquiry was used due the small nature of the target population. Data collection was done using a semi-structured questionnaire that targeted both qualitative and quantitative data. Data processing and analysis employed both descriptive and inferential statistics which included correlation and logistic regression analysis. The results of the study showed that perceived employees’ pressure influence on innovation was negatively significant at 5% level of significance with beta coefficient and p value being -1.463 and 0.016 respectively. The goodness of fit based on Nagelkerke R square of the individual models was 0.248 the findings suggest that the employee stakeholder group is important in the tea subsector in Kenya with regard to firm’s decision to pursue innovation as perceived by managers in the industry. The findings are in consonance with expectation from both theory and past empirical research therefore further firming up underlying theories. Based on the findings, it is recommended that those firms wishing to successfully pursue innovation in mechanical tea harvesting technology must engage constructively with employees in order to get full benefits of the innovation.
Key Words: Stakeholder pressure, Perceived employee pressure, Innovation, MTH technology, Adoption
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.61426/sjbcm.v3i2.255
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