Influence of Customer Relations Capabilities on Competitive Advantage of Level 5 Public Hospitals in Kenya

Abstract

The healthcare industry in Kenya is going through many challenges including reduced funding, shortage of staff, technological innovations and changing customer expectations which puts pressure on public hospitals to attain competitive advantage. The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of customer relations capabilities on competitive advantage of Level 5 public hospitals in Kenya. This study was anchored on dynamic capabilities theory. Positivism philosophy applied, where a descriptive correlational research design and a structured questionnaire were applied to gather quantitative data. The study focused on 33 Level 5 public hospitals in Kenya and the study population comprised of 495 CEOs, departmental heads and administrative heads of all the Level 5 public hospitals. Stratified random sampling was used to pick a sample of 222 respondents. The study’s data analyses involved descriptive statistics (frequencies, means and standard deviations) and inferential analysis (simple linear regression analysis). The findings revealed that customer relations capabilities had a statistically significant and positive effect on the competitive advantage of Level 5 public hospitals in Kenya (β = 0.629, p < 0.05). The study concluded that customer relations capabilities are instrumental towards attainment of competitive advantage of the Level 5 public hospitals in Kenya. Based on the conclusion of the study, it is recommended to the top management of level 5 public hospitals to adopt systems and processes in their hospitals that gathers information to investigate customer needs.