Organisational Resources And Sustainable Competitive Advantage Amongst Selected Firms In The Aviation Industry In Kenya

ABSTRACT

Kenya’s aviation industry has been losing its competitiveness over the last two decades. The industry consist of the Ministry of transport and Infrastructure, Directorate of Aircraft Accidents Investigation, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA), aerodrome operators, airlines operators and auxiliary service providers. Previous studies have failed to address the issue of the dwindling competitiveness. Through this study, the researcher sought to investigate whether there is significant relationship between organisational resources and sustainable competitive advantage amongst selected firms in the aviation industry in Kenya. The specific research objectives were to investigate whether there is significant relationship between infrastructure, human capital, knowledge and sustainable competitive advantage amongst selected firms in the aviation industry in Kenya. The study reviewed Market Based View theory, theory of National Advantage and Resource Based View theory. The conceptual framework used had infrastructure, human capital and knowledge resources as the independent variables while sustainable competitive advantage was the dependent variable. The study used descriptive survey design. The target population for this study were 32 senior most employees of the various aviation organisation operating at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. A census approach was used since the researcher was interested in collecting data from every member of the target population. The respondents were 32 I number. Research data was obtained through structured questionnaire. To measure the responses from the respondents, a five point Likert scale was used. Data collected from the field was tabulated and analysed using Statistic Package for Social Science version 21 software. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was used. Descriptive statistics included frequencies, mean and standard deviation. The inferential statistics comprised of correlation and multiple regression. Multiple regression equation was used to perform hypothesis testing and to comprehend how dependent variable varied when any one of the independent variables was changed with the others independent variables remaining constant. A Pearson’s correlation was calculated to conclude the nature of the relationship that existed between the dependent variable and the independent variables. Results of data analysis were presented in tabular form. The study found out that there is significant relationship between organisational resources and sustainable competitive advantage amongst selected firms in the aviation industry in Kenya. The study recommended that aviation organisations should invest more in infrastructure, improve on employees’ motivation and invest more in creation of new knowledge.