Assessment of the innovation capabilities' impact of a canine training business

For people with a demonstrated fondness for dogs, canine training business promises huge profits after low-capital investment. In the world of ever-mounting competition and imitation, one cannot talk business without incorporating innovation. The idea behind any business always has and will ever be about making a profit. Making profits in most of the times is realized by cutting costs and maximizing revenues. Innovation has become a central aspect of cutting costs and maximizing revenues for any form of business. The fundamental purpose is to assess the impact of innovation capability on competitiveness and sustainability specifically on canine training business. The paper will, therefore, examine the factors that determine the competitiveness and sustainability of the canine training business and assess how innovation impacts on them.

Background Innovation has established itself as an essential and inseparable part of modern business. Many modern companies are finding competitive success in the modern market continually updating their business operation to match the market needs. When the talk of innovation is presented, many people tend to think of in a single dimension, that is, they see only the positive part of it. Does innovation capability impact positively or negatively on canine training business competitive advantage? ii. Does innovation capability impact positively or negatively on canine training business sustainability? iii. Is innovation capability of overall importance to canine training business? 1. Theoretical Framework Several studies on innovation capability and it impacts on business have shown that innovation resulting from innovation capability positively influences businesses competitive advantage and sustainability.

The higher the innovation capabilities the company has, the higher the innovation. The theory is based on analysis of historical processes of real-world systems which include products, processes, markets, companies, and services among others; the systems are both technology-based and non-technology based (Yezersky, 2008, p. The theory looks at these systems according to how they relate to their environments. The main idea behind the theory is to uncover evolution process together with identifying the causes of problems, the need that make innovation imperative, and the resultant successes or failure of innovations. The theory considers every service or product sold in the market as a system. The systems evolve over time to keep pace with the changes in consumer preferences and tastes. When studying innovation capability and how it determines the company’s competitive advantage and sustainability, it is important that one looks at how innovation capability affects the factors that affect both competitive advantage and sustainability.

Several factors determine firm’s competitive advantage and sustainability. The leading among the factors that determine the business competitive advantage and sustainability is the performance. Innovation capability has been found to increase the performance of firms significantly. According to Ordanini, & Rubera, (2010, p. In an organization, empowerment can be seen in how the employees communicate with the top-level management and how the employees respond to the environment. In an empowered working environment, senior managers find it easier to delegate duties and consult with the junior employees in decision-making with utmost ease. In the empowered workplace, a win-win approach to doing things is observable as the benefits go to both the employees and the organization. Another determinant of competitive advantage and sustainability is the marketing capabilities.

A company should be in a position to develop its marketing capabilities which will effectively endear the company to the clientele. 1: interrelationships of the variables 1. Variables The dependent variable will be the innovation capability which in this paper will be represented by the addition to resource stock of the business. The independent variables will be the productivity which will be represented by a change in return on investment (ROI), customer loyalty, employee empowerment and marketing capabilities. Literature Review 2. Description Of Innovation Capability And Innovation A company or a business is considered a well-spring of knowledge. Studies have shown that the company’s innovation capabilities are positively related to the company growth and productivity. Technological innovation capabilities (TIC) have in the recent past become the core component of innovation capabilities (Aziati, et al.

, 2014, p. Many researchers in the field of innovation and business have proved beyond reasonable doubts that performance indicators such as innovation performance, growth and sales are positively impacted by technological innovation capabilities. Firms that have high level of technological innovation capabilities show increased competence of assimilating external knowledge, accumulates high degree of technical expertise, increasingly exploits the current know-how and lastly engage in activities aimed at improving efficiency and producing desired outcomes. By definition, dynamic capability refers to the ability of a firm to build, integrate and reconfigure internal and external knowledge assets to adapt its operational processes and products to the needs of evolving business environment (Belkahla, & Triki, 2011, p. It in simple terms to firm’s ability to regularly redeploy, renew and reconfigure its resources to take advantage of opportunities brought about by the evolution in the business environments (Sajib, & Agarwal, 2013, p.

A specific type of organizational capability is the absorptive capability which can be defined as how best a firm is in identifying external technologies and incorporate them in its own so that it can use it to better its internal processes (Belkahla, & Triki, 2011, p. How quick a firm is in assimilating external technologies determines the level of the firm’s absorptive capability. Many scholars term Firm's resource stock as the determinant of the firm’s dynamic capabilities (Sajib, & Agarwal, 2013, p. In keeping up with the broadening market, enthusiasts in the canine training business have developed technologies and innovation resources that add to the innovation capabilities in the area (Majikes et al. , 2017, p. The most recent among such developments is “the canine posture detection system” which is a computerized system that detects dog's sitting, standing and eating postures through wearable and instrumented devices.

In animal training, consistency and timeliness of behavior feedbacks take a central role in animal training according to studies on operant conditioning (Majikes et al. , 2017, p. Judging the above literature, it is clear that innovation capabilities and how it impacts the competitiveness and sustainability of the firm have been studies from the perspective of big corporations. The implication is that their lacks enough literature that explains the impacts of the capabilities of the small and medium-sized business. Given that canine training, business is a new form of business opportunity. There is virtually no literature assessing the impact of innovation capabilities on these types of businesses. The paper, therefore, seeks to fill the gap by considering canine training business. Questionnaires will be sent to the businesses farther away from the school and interviews conducted on businesses within walking distances from the school.

The questions in both the questionnaires and interview schedules are designed in such a way that they will produce answers which will provide relevant information. The questions in the interviews schedules and questionnaires will probe the respondents to answer the following questions. Has the company grown its resource stock in the past two years? 2. If yes, did the addition of items of resources increase the level of productivity as indicated by the difference in return on investment before and after the acquisition? 3. H. N. et al. The relationship of technological innovation capabilities and business innovation capabilities on organization performance: Preliminary findings of Malaysian food processing SMEs.  2014 International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation (ICE). Influence of innovation capability and customer experience on reputation and loyalty.