Sustaining Competitive Advantage in Medium-sized Enterprises (MEs) through Employee Social Interaction and Helping Behaviours

Abstract

The ability to compete in today's turbulent, complex, fluid and highly dynamic business environment depends, to a large extent, on the innovative, creative and knowledge sharing capacity of employees in firms; especially for medium-sized enterprises with its peculiar characteristics. Creative/innovative and knowledge sharing capacity of firms has been attributed to the level of Employees' Social Interactions (ESI) and Helping Behaviours (HB) at work. However, discourse in existing literatures on ways through which Medium-sized Enterprises (MEs) can acquire requisite creative and innovative and employee knowledge-sharing needed to build competitive advantage, most especially through their human resource practices, are minimal. This paper examines the perception of Human Resource (HR) practitioners in Nigerian MEs to building/sustaining competitive advantage for their firms through ESI and HB. The study carried out exploratory survey of 453 HR practitioners from seven sub-sectors of Nigerian MEs sectors; data collected was subjected to descriptive statistical analysis to justify the study's specific objectives. HR practitioners' attitude to ESI and HB was measured with the administration of questionnaires using Likert Scale based on identified indicators of organisational ESI and HB to sustaining competitive advantage. The study infers that Nigerian HR practitioners in education and health and social work sector are more likely to ensure ESI at work as a means of building competitive advantage. It was also found that HR practitioners in all the subsectors examined exhibit positive inclination towards encouraging HB amongst employees as a means of building sustainable competitive advantage.