Influence of Construction Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises’ Innovation on Clients in Northern Nigeria

Abstract

Innovation of a firm is considered the firm’s ability to develop a new or improved product and processes or equipment for the creation and production of new invention. While customers or clients are essential to the realisation and success of innovation in construction firms. However, there is deprived understanding of the impacts of construction firms’ innovation on customers /clients. This paper, hence, exploratively determine the impacts of construction micro, small and medium enterprises’ (CMSMEs) innovation on customers/clients. To achieve this the research employed qualitative research method to exploratively determine the effects of innovation on construction micro, small and medium enterprises’ (CMSMEs) clients. While recorded semi-structured interview with opened ended questions were utilized to gather information from 43 innovative CMSMEs through judgemental and snowballing examining procedure. Information gathered were, open and axial coded, examined and interpreted. The outcome from the study reveal that innovation predominantly impacts on client/customer satisfaction, client/customer retention and client/customer relations. In addition, the findings also indicate minor occurrences of innovation impacting clients’/customers’ value for creativity, clients’/customers’ value for money and after sales services to clients’/customers. This outcome implies that innovation could be postulated as a driver of client satisfaction of a firm resulting in improved client retention and ultimately, the success of the firm. The search improves body of knowledge in respect of the basic effects of innovations on construction firm clients.