Consumer Orientation and Competitor Awareness on Firm Performance in the Bottled Water Industry

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the Influence of strategic positioning indicators namely customer orientation and competitor awareness on firm performance in the bottled water Industry, with sector standards as a moderating variable.
 Design/Method/Approach: This study adopted a quantitative methodology and cross-sectional explanatory study design of which a sample of 424 licensed bottled water firms were randomly selected. Structured questionnaires were distributed to the managers and a factor analysis was used to reduce the number of variables and establish the underlying constructs, while the analysis of moments of structures was applied to develop theory.
 Findings: It was found that there exists a positive and significant relationship among consumer orientation and competitor awareness on firm performance. The moderating effect of water sector standards on consumer orientation and firm performance was found to be statistically significant and operates fully or in part as a mediating variable in predicting the influence of competitor awareness on firm performance.
 Theoretical Implication: This study concluded that to enhance firms’ performance measured in terms of growth, there is need to manage and sustain consumers’ needs based on gender and age preferences, buying behavior as well as conducting market analysis and have internal capability to retaliate.
 Originality/Value: This study will not only add value to the existing body of knowledge in strategic management, but will also address the application of strategic position to improve firm performance.
 Research Limitations/Future Research: Since the study was quantitative, there was risk of omitted variable and nonresponse bias, limited access to performance data and lack of previous research on the subject. Future research should extend to other categories of firms which have diverse decision processes and purchase intentions amongst consumers.
 Paper type: Empirical

Core Competencies and Resource Allocation in the Performance of Bottled Water Industry

“…The three subthemes extracted were sourcing, Internal processes & procedures and revenue. Lastly, the dependent variable firm performance was construed using twenty (20) indicators measured in a 5-point Likert scale (Ichoroh, 2021), of which the measurement values ranged from strongly agree coded as (5), agree coded (4), neutral (3), disagree ( 2) and ( 1) denoting strongly disagree. The reported reliability for these twenty items was Cronbach alpha 0.864 which exceeded the threshold value Cronbach alpha of 0.7 (Keith, 2018).…”

“…The first null hypothesis in this study was that there exists no association between core competencies and firm performance in the bottled water industry. To examine this hypothesis a structural model relating core competencies and performance of firms in the bottled water industry was fitted (Ichoroh, 2021) as is illustrated in Figure 1. The ten items used to measure core competencies were: competence based recruitment of staff (COP2), competitive remuneration (COP3), staff incentives (COP4), employees performance management (COP4b), incentives pegged on performance (COP5), staff engagement in the implementation process (COP6), employees adaptation to changes in plans (COP7), firm's help to employees to shift and pivot in response changes (COP8), firm's changes to employees management (COP9) and firm's shares with employees opportunities available for personal development (COP10).…”

“…Since resource availability and multiple products positively affects firms' performance (Tharamba, 2018;Gachimu and Njuguna, 2017), there is a need for management of firms to conduct an in-depth study on determinants of strategic positioning as a driver of growth. This is necessitated in the bottled water industry by an increase in health awareness, perceived quality and safety of bottled water over non-bottled water, taste, portability, and as a replacement for carbonated soft drinks (Ichoroh, 2021). The proliferation of bottled water manufacturers in Kenya from one in 1988 to over 600 licensed manufacturers in 2016 (KEBS, 2019) has led to growth in volume, value, increase in the number of brands in the market and a sharp decline in bottled water imports.…”

“…This study conceptualizes that the performance of firms dealing with bottled water are influenced by core competencies (Hirindu, 2017), resource allocation (Catherine & Lee, 2017) and that there is an intervening effect of water sector standards. Idea: The idea behind this study is to model the relationship among core competencies, resource allocation and firm performance in the bottled water industry and also to examine the moderating effect of water sector standards in explaining firm performance (Ichoroh, 2021). Data: The study used quantitative cross-sectional survey design of which the population of interest comprised of 80 licensed bottled water manufacturing firms in Kenya.…”

Financial Technology: From Temporary Disruption to New Financial Industry Model

“…In addition, proactive market orientation has been found to have an indirect effect on export yields. Another case of Ichoroh, (2021) in his research found that there is a positive and significant relationship between consumer orientation and competitor awareness about company performance. Thus, it is hypothesized: H3: There is a positive relationship between Consumer Orientation (CO) and Innovation Capabilities (IC).…”