Influence of Employee Personal Selling on Competitive Advantage of Institutions of Higher Learning in Kenya

Abstract

In the recent years, inadequate Government funding has led to stiff competition amongst institutions of higher learning to attract Self Sponsored Programme (SSP) students in order to meet the short-fall. As a consequence, nowadays, personal selling has become the key marketing tool for sustainable advantage in organizations. Most previous research on organization-public relationship investigates the relationship from an organizational and customers' perspective, where as this study investigated from the employee perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether employees personal selling has effect on institution competitive advantage of public universities in Kenya. Pragmatism philosophical paradigm and explanatory survey research design was utilized. Target population of 450 was considered, out of which a sample of 212 employees drawn from 28 universities were obtained using Slovin's sample size formula representing the institutions selected by simple random sampling technique. Questionnaires were then administered to these employees. The analysis of data was by use of multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed positive significant relationship between knowledge and institution competitive advantage, between dynamic and institution competitive advantage, between sales pitch and institution competitive advantage and between relationship and institution competitive advantage. Similarly, overall test of significance with F-test confirmed high significant effect of personal selling on institution competitive advantage. It was concluded that the findings extended the use of competitive advantage and resource based view theories. Subsequently, it extended the literature on the match between personal selling on institution competitive advantage. The findings clarified the alignment of personal selling on institution competitive advantage for employees to market their institutions as choices of customers.