Human resources and innovation capability: Evidences from Nigeria food and beverage firms

Abstract

Human resources are recognized as the ultimate and most indispensable resource in economic development. In this study, an inquiry was made to ascertain the determinants of workers’ innovativeness. A survey of 229 respondents in food and beverage processing firms selected through random and snowballing sampling techniques was implemented. Data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and the structural equation model. Findings reveal that though personal, family, organizational and social factors were hypothesized to be influencing the ability of employees to innovate, only family (β = 0.358; p < 0.001) and organizational (β = 0.213; p < 0.01) factors showed a significant and positive influence on employees’ innovativeness. The paper concludes that the support employees received from their homes and organizations is crucial and contributed significantly to their innovative ability.

Keywords:

• innovation capability
• human resource capacity
• food and beverage firms
• structural equation model
• exploratory factor analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the comments of the anonymous reviewers, through which the quality of the manuscript has been improved. We would like to thank Dr Adegbola B. Oluwale (African Institute for Science Policy and Innovation) and Mr Oshodi Darasimi (National Centre for Technology Management) for their comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this manuscript. This manuscript was prepared from a PhD thesis submitted by Victor Oluwasina Sobanke in 2020 for the award of PhD in Technology Management at the African Institute for Science Policy and Innovation (AISPI), Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. An earlier version of the manuscript was presented at the 29th International Conference of the International Association for Management of Technology, IAMOT 2020 in Cairo, Egypt.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.