Business Innovation Strategies and Enterprise Competiveness in a Challenged Environment: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in South Eastern Nigeria

Abstract

The study was carried out to evaluate business innovation strategies and enterprise competiveness in a challenged environment: Evidence from manufacturing firms in South Eastern Nigeria. The study specifically, examined the effect of: business process reengineering, benchmarking and corporate Partnering on organizational growth of manufacturing firms in South Eastern Nigeria. The study used the survey approach.  A population of 341 staff was used. The whole population was utilized because of the small size of the population.   277 staff returned the questionnaire and accurately filled. That gave 81 percent response rate. The validity of the instrument was tested using content analysis and the result was good. The reliability was tested using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). It gave a reliability co-efficient of  0.76  which was also good. Data was presented and analyzed by mean score (3.0 and above agreed while below 3.0 disagreed) and standard deviation using Sprint Likert Scale. The hypotheses were analyzed using F-statistics (ANOVA) tool. The findings indicated that business process reengineering had negative effect on organizational growth, f(n = 341)= 450.246, P<0.0. 5, benchmarking had positive effect on organisational competitiveness of manufacturing firms in South East Nigeria,f(n = 341)= 2.387, P<0.0. 5 and corporate partnering had significant influence on organizational growth f(n = 341)= 34.225, P<0.0. 5. The study concluded reengineering enables organizations meet the needs of customers and the demands of competition and change while Bench marking has become necessary for strategic planning and operational improvement. However, governments should encourage research and development, recognize and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.