Competitive Strategies and Organizational Performance of Women-Owned SMEs in Mwanza City, Tanzania

Abstract

The performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania is severely affected by many challenges, including inefficiency in operations, insufficient employee training and development, and an ever-changing business environment. To remain buoyant in the market, they apply various short-and long-term strategies. This paper sought to examine the influence of competitive strategies on the performance of women-owned SMEs in Mwanza City, Tanzania. Specifically, it focused on studying the effects of differentiation strategy, cost leadership strategy, focus strategy, and combination strategy on the performance of these SMEs. A descriptive research design was employed for the study. The target population comprised 670 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) owned by women entrepreneurs in Mwanza City. A stratified sampling technique was utilized to select a sample size of 142 SMEs. The respondents were the owners or operators of these SMEs. Questionnaires, initially validated through a pilot test, served as the primary tool for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, including frequency distribution, means, and standard deviations.

Additionally, regression analysis was employed to evaluate the relationship between competitive strategies and organizational performance. The results showed that the combination strategy and cost leadership had a significantly more substantial impact than the differentiation and customer focus strategies. Additionally, the study found that integrating product differentiation, cost leadership and customer focus strategies into a combination strategy resulted in a much stronger and more influence on organizational performance than using only a single competitive strategy at a time. It is recommended that women-owned SMEs develop and apply complementary competitive strategies to endure competition and function effectively in the market. It is further recommended that SMEs implement technological innovations in their operations by marketing their products through social media and other digital marketing channels.