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Abstract

This study examines the influence of organizational agility practices on competitive advantage within sugar milling companies in Western Kenya, a sector characterized by structural inefficiencies and environmental volatility. Grounded in the organizational agility and dynamic capabilities perspectives, the research operationalizes agility through three dimensions: organizational practices, employee empowerment, and customer enrichment. A descriptive cross sectional census design was employed, targeting 56 managers across top, middle, and functional levels within seven firms. Primary data were collected structured Likert scale questionnaires, achieving high internal consistency with a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.89. Descriptive statistics indicate moderate adoption of agility practices, with mean scores of 3.26 for organizational practices, 3.33 for employee empowerment, and 2.97 for customer enrichment, while competitive advantage recorded a mean of 3.34. Inferential analysis using Pearson correlation revealed statistically significant positive associations between all agility dimensions and competitive advantage at p less than 0.01. Regression results further demonstrate that organizational practices exert a significant positive effect on competitive advantage (β = 0.57, p = 0.002), explaining 28.6% of variance. Employee empowerment practices also show a significant contribution (β = 0.49, p = 0.004) with 24.7% explanatory power. Customer enrichment practices exhibit the strongest standardized effect (β = 0.75, p = 0.004), accounting for 24.5% of variance. The findings indicate that decentralized structures, participatory decision making, workforce autonomy, and customer centric value creation mechanisms enhance firm level competitiveness. The study establishes organizational agility as an empirically supported strategic capability within agro industrial contexts, demonstrating its role in improving responsiveness, operational flexibility, and market positioning under resource constrained conditions. These results provide a quantitative basis for integrating agility driven interventions in managerial practice and policy formulation aimed at revitalizing the performance of sugar manufacturing firms in developing economies.

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