Entrepreneurial Culture and Innovation by 1-3 Star Rated Hotels in Kenya

Abstract

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to assess the effect of entrepreneurial culture as a driver of innovation by 1-3 star rated hotels in Kenya.
 Methodology: This study considered positivism philosophy, a quantitative measurement paradigm. The study targeted 111 hotels (1-3 star rated) through census, of which 3 respondents per hotel (CEO, Finance manager, and Operations manager) were considered, from the hotels’ list provided by the Kenya Tourism Regulatory Authority (TRA). A cross-sectional survey was conducted where the self-administered questionnaire was used. Both the reliability and validity tests were done before the data analysis. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of Excel and SPSS version 25.0. The hypotheses were presented and tested using multiple analysis and accepted at 95 percent confidence level.
 Results: The study hypothesized that the effect of entrepreneurial culture on innovation by 1-3 stars rated hotels in Kenya is not statistically significant. The study revealed that entrepreneurial culture has a positive and significant effect on hotel innovation by 1-3 star rated hotels in Kenya (β=0.567, p=0.000). This implies that improvement in 1 unit of the aspects related to entrepreneurial culture leads to an improvement in hotel innovation by 1-3 star rated hotels in Kenya by 0.567 units. This implies that an increase in entrepreneurial culture results in an increase in hotel innovation by 1-3 star rated hotels in Kenya. The study concludes that there is an entrepreneurial culture that can be concluded to enhance the innovation of the hotels. This has been noted where the hotel management always appreciates new business ideas from employees and other stakeholders. The management portrays the visionary leadership style that ensures the continuity of the business. In extension, the hotels that have excelled in innovation, encourage and support employees to continue pursuing new opportunities even when their previous ones had failed to pick up as expected; values communication as a tool for effective innovative strategies; appreciates the use of modern technology as a mechanism to offer reinforcement to innovation; employs risk management strategies in the course of innovation process and always embraces new changes that come with new ideas discovered and exploited.
 Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: The study recommends that hotel entrepreneurs be proactive in seeking new product ideas and customer product information which will in turn enable them to create ideas for coming up with innovative products. Studies have shown that there is a positive and significant impact of entrepreneurial culture on all the perceived performance measures, with the exception of perceived financial performance measures.