Strategic management and entreprenuership in food processing companies in Nairobi county

Abstract

In times of growing uncertainty and increasing speed of change, both new threats and new opportunities emerge. The identification and exploitation of these opportunities is the essence of entrepreneurship whereas the essence of strategic management is in how these opportunities can be transformed into sustainable competitive advantages. This study is based on the theory of Resource Based View (RBV). The RBV is used by strategic management scholars and increasingly by entrepreneurship scholars to identify and explain persistent performance differences among firms. This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurship intensity and four specific strategic management practices in a sample of 52 Kenyan manufacturing firms. The four strategic management practices include: analysis, planning, flexibility and control attributes. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the primary data while secondary data was gathered from reports, websites and journals. Data was analyzed using SPSS as a tool of analysis and the results of the study indicated a positive relationship between entrepreneurship intensity and analysis, planning, flexibility and strategic controls. The fine-grained nature of these results may be of practical use to firms that are trying to become more entrepreneurial and may help researchers better understand the interface between strategic management and corporate entrepreneurship. The compelling theme that emerges from this study is that a firm‟s strategic management practices influences its entrepreneurial intensity.