Networking Capability and Competitive Advantage of Event Management Ventures in Kenya

Abstract

With rising competition within the events management industry, competitive strategies help focus on assessing organizations' strengths, growth opportunities, and competitive threats. Traditional competitive advantage models may not wholly be applicable to smaller firms because they assume the existence of scale economies. Yet, small firms cannot compete with larger organizations in economies of scale. The study sought to establish the influence of networking capabilities (NC) on the competitive advantage of Event Management Ventures (EMVs) in selected counties in Kenya. Networking capabilities were categorized into 4 main sub-domains namely: Coordination, internal communication, relational skills, and partner knowledge. The target population comprised 310 managers and 20 entrepreneurs of EMVs from four purposively selected counties, of which 245 were sampled. Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for analyzing data. The results indicated that networking capabilities (β=0.197, p=0.001) significantly influenced the competitive advantage of EMVs thus, NC contributes to the competitive advantage of EMVs. Therefore, entrepreneurs and managers should deliberately engage in networking activities and turn those networks into profitable business relationships.