Competition in the Kenyan manufacturing sector has forced manufacturing firms to implement various competitive strategies to boost their performance and adapt to ever changing business environment. This study sought to determine the effect of competitive strategies employed by the manufacturing firms in Kenya in order to improve their performance. Specifically, this study sought to determine the effect of cost leadership, differentiation strategy and focus strategies on performance of manufacturing firms and to establish the moderating effect of competitive intensity on the relationship between competitive strategies and performance of manufacturing firms in Kenya. The study adopted cross-sectional survey research design in which a sample of 189 firms were drawn from the 454 manufacturing firms distributed across the 12 key industrial sub-sectors in Kenya. The findings of the study revealed that cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategies have a significant positive relationship with manufacturing firm performance in Kenya. It was further established that competitive intensity had insignificant moderating effect in the relationship between competitive strategies and firm performance. The study recommends that manufacturing firms utilize much of differentiation strategy since it seemed to have the greatest effect on performance as well as try out the other two strategies of cost leadership and focus simultaneously. It is also recommended that these firms pay more attention to competitive intensity and adopt other ways of coping with challenges presented by the external environment.
Written by:
Rukya Atikiya, PhD
Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology
This article was published in the Researchacies International Journal of Business and Management Studies:
