Strategic Management Capabilities and Competitive Advantage of Manufacturing Firms in South-East, Nigeria (Published)
Manufacturing firms in the South-East Nigeria operate in an increasingly turbulent environment characterized by intense competition, technological change, rising production costs, exchange-rate volatility, infrastructure deficiencies, changing consumer preferences and pressure to improve product quality and market responsiveness. In such an environment, possession of physical resources alone may not guarantee superior competitive performance; firms require managerial capabilities that enable them to formulate appropriate strategies, allocate resources effectively, respond to environmental changes, innovate and sustain valuable organizational competencies. The study examined the relationship between strategic management capabilities and competitive advantage of manufacturing firms in South-East Nigeria. The study was anchored principally on the Resource-Based View (RBV) and Dynamic Capabilities Theory. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted. The study population comprises 184 registered manufacturing firms in South-East Nigeria and the target respondents were managers, directors/CEOs, and other managerial personnel of selected manufacturing firms across the five states of South-East Nigeria: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states. The sample size of 126 firms was determined using the Taro Yamane formula at a 5% level of precision. Proportionate sampling was subsequently employed to allocate the sample across the five states. A structured questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale was used for primary data collection. Descriptive statistics such as frequency tables and percentage, and multiple regression were employed to test the hypotheses at the 5% level of significance. The findings of the study indicated that strategic planning capability (t-value 3.135), environmental scanning capability (t-value 3.335), strategic decision-making capability (t-value 3.235) and strategic implementation capability (t-value3.241) have positive and significant effect on competitive advantage. However, environmental scanning has the strongest explanatory power over other strategic management capabilities because it enables manufacturing firms to know what is changing, why it is changing and how they should respond before competitors do, thereby providing the information and adaptability necessary for superior competitive advantage. The relatively stronger effect of environmental scanning was also explained by its enabling role in the other strategic management capabilities. Effective strategic planning and strategic decision-making require accurate and timely environmental information, while strategic implementation requires the organization to execute strategies that remain relevant to prevailing environmental conditions. The study recommended that manufacturing firms should develop stronger strategic intelligence, implementation discipline, innovation capability, managerial learning systems and continuous environmental scanning.
Keywords: Competitive Advantage, Environmental Scanning, Manufacturing Firms, South East Nigeria, Strategic management capabilities, strategic decision-making, strategic planning, strategy implementation