Technology Acquisition and Smes Performance, the Role of Innovation, Export and the Perception of Owner-Managers

摘要

Sufficient literature supports small and medium ‘enterprises’ (SMEs) significant rolein emerging and mature economies. Still, the same research highlights varying challenges thatinnovative firms in developing economies face, like access to formal credit and external markets.This study examines the effect of a capital budget’s proportion for acquiring new technology andsale performance between 2017–2019 using a sample of 101 Kenyan SMEs. The ordinary least squaremoderated mediation results indicate that: (1) the proportion of the capital budget allocated for theacquisition of technology positively and significantly influences sales; (2) the index of moderatedmediation suggests that the perception of firm owner-managers towards the availability of formalcredit moderates the mediated relationship between the capital budget’s portion spent on technologyand sales as mediated by innovation activities. However, the index is insignificant for the secondmediator, export longevity. However, in the final model, both the level of innovation and exportlongevity positively and substantially affect sales.