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capabilities, where reactive strategies enable firms to respond effectively to emerging market opportunities. The significance of the ‘Age’ variable suggests that younger firms are more likely to explore and enter new markets, reflecting their agility and adaptability.
The marginally significant positive relationship between passive innovation strategies and reaching new markets further complicates the narrative. Although passive strategies are generally characterised by reliance on external public research and minimal in-house R&D, this finding suggests that even firms with a conservative approach can achieve market growth under certain conditions. This outcome challenges the traditional view that passive strategies are inherently less effective, indicating that they can still offer advantages, particularly in accessing new markets. However, the lack of significant effects on other outcomes, such as revenue growth and cost reduction, implies that the benefits of passive strategies may be limited to specific contexts and do not necessarily contribute to overall financial performance.
Developed New Intellectual Property
The development of new intellectual property is another area where innovation strategies showed no significant effects, except for a positive but statistically insignificant relationship with reactive strategies. Firm that took a ‘Passive’ strategy showed no significant relationship, while the ‘Reactive’ strategy showed a positive relationship with developing new intellectual property. The insignificant relationship of ‘Stagnant Innovators’ suggests that firms with less adaptive strategies were not more likely to engage in intellectual property development.
This finding suggests that the creation of new intellectual property, often seen as a key indicator of innovative success, may not be directly influenced by the strategic orientation of a firm. This result aligns with the notion that intellectual property development is a complex process influenced by a range of factors beyond the scope of immediate strategic decisions, such as long-term R&D investments, industry- specific dynamics, and regulatory environments. The insignificant relationship for stagnant innovators further reinforces the idea that firms without adaptive strategies are less likely to engage in innovative activities that lead to intellectual property creation, echoing the broader literature on innovation inertia.
These results highlight the varying effectiveness of different innovation strategies on specific performance outcomes, with reactive innovators showing some positive potential in market expansion, while stagnant innovators face significant challenges in improving financial performance.
Age and firm size
The analysis of the size group variable in relation to innovation outcomes showed that firm size had a minimal effect on the dimensions of innovation performance, although the effects are not uniformly significant across all outcomes. The positive coefficients for increased revenue, reduced costs, and reaching new markets suggest that larger firms may experience slight advantages in these areas, possibly due to their greater resources, established market presence, and ability to scale innovations more effectively. However, the lack of statistical significance in these relationships indicates that size alone does not decisively drive innovation success, implying that other factors, such as strategic orientation and dynamic capabilities, may play a more critical role. The minimal influence of size on the development of new intellectual property, as reflected by an insignificant coefficient, further reinforces the complexity of innovation processes, where firm size does not necessarily confer an advantage in creating new intellectual assets.
The analysis also sheds light on the role of firm age, in influencing innovation outcomes. The significant negative relationship between firm age and reaching new markets suggests that younger firms are more agile and better positioned to explore and enter new markets. This finding supports the argument made by Eisenhardt and Martin (2000) that younger firms often possess greater flexibility and adaptability, allowing them to capitalize on new opportunities more effectively than their older counterparts. The agility of younger firms likely enables them to overcome the inertia that can develop in more established organizations, making them more responsive to market dynamics.
Conclusions
The primary objective of this study was to explore the innovation strategies employed by agribusinesses during the COVID-19 pandemic and to understand how these strategies influenced organisational resilience and performance. Using data from the South African Agricultural Business Innovation Survey (AgriBIS 2019- 2021), the study combined explorative data analysis techniques with an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model, to assess the relationship between different innovation strategies and key outcomes such as revenue growth, cost reduction, market expansion, and the development of new intellectual property.
The findings from this study contribute significantly to the ongoing discourse on the role of innovation strategies in organisational resilience. While the literature has traditionally emphasized the strategic integration of
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