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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 8, No. 5

Publication Date: May 25, 2021

DOI:10.14738/assrj.85.10159.

Kairu, J. K., Senaji, T. A. (2021). Exploring Salience as a Strategic Disposition in Kenya. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal,

8(5). 71-83.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Exploring Salience as a Strategic Disposition in Kenya

James Kamau Kairu

PhD Candidate, Kenya Methodist University

Thomas Anyanje Senaji

Professor, The East African University

ABSTRACT

Drawing from the socio-cognitive theory and upper echelon theory, we examined

the relationship between salience and competitiveness by surveying 163 managers

from leather and textile firms in Kenya. We used three dimensions of salience:

impact, sensitivity and interest and measured competitiveness using both efficiency,

such as profit; and effectiveness measures such as innovation. We found a

significant relationship between all the dimensions of salience and competiveness

(Impact: r = .250, p = .001; Sensitivity: r = .436, p < .001; Interest: r = .416, p < .001;

Salience: r = .427, p <.001). Further, sensitivity significantly influenced the odds for

competitiveness at 5% level of significance (sensitivity: exp (B) = 2.435, Wald =

4.191, p = .041); impact had the least negative and insignificant (exp (B) = .693, p =

.444) prediction of the odds for competiveness. These findings suggest that the

factors that are considered by managers of organizations as impactful, of interest

and which managers perceived as sensitive have implications for competitiveness.

It is recommended that managers enhance their cognitive capacity with regard to

salience to be able to perceive and interpret environmental cues and use these to

make appropriate strategic decisions to improve their competitiveness.

Key words: Salience, competitiveness, Kenya

INTRODUCTION

From the resource based view of the firm and the capability paradigm of strategy, superior

performance of organizations depends on unique resources and capabilities that an

organization has not least being the managers’ capabilities. In particular, the cognitions of

managers, which has implications for the decisions that managers make, and which affect the

organizational strategy hence overall performance are crucial.

Managerial cognition can be comprehended for the socio-cognitive theory Bandura (1988),

where the variables of cognition are salience, regulatory focus, identity domain and internal/

external orientation. Further, the strategy of an organization is partially a reflection of the

thinking of top managers as predicted by the upper echelon theory (Hambrick & Mason, 1984).

This study explored the relationship between salience and competitiveness of leather and

textile firms.

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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 8, Issue 5, May-2021

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Salience

In this study, salience connoted the state of being important or conspicuous or getting noticed.

It is the extent to which managers perceive factors as having impact on organization or to which

the performance of the organization is sensitive or being of interest to stakeholders. The salience

of an event is a factor which is essential in the discussion of the organization attention, which

can be evaluated by the use of both bottom-up and top-down approaches. Where, the salient

event has the more likely characteristic that can be noticed by an observer (Hubber & Sutcliffe,

2018). Also, it directly influences the perception of an event, and it forms the basis of the mental

model.

Mitsuhashi (2012) labeled the phenomena of salience as "objective salient" in one of his

vicarious study of biases. While studying nuclear plant operation error, he argued that errors

are more salient since they possess a substantial negative impact on the stakeholders.

However, Salvato and Rerup (2018) argue that the weak environmental cues may contain

opportunities or threat information, which are significant to the organization outcomes. He

further concludes by setting recommendations on processes and structures needed by

organizations to implement direct attention to the vital weak cues. Additionally, the top-down

process to attention can help one understand the salience concept. Organizational structure,

shared beliefs and managerial cognition can make events salient in the eye of an individual. For

instance, Mitsuhashi (2012) argues that an event is contextually salient when it becomes

different to individuals compared to what they are used to or as they have encountered them.

An individual makes sense of the surrounding and the unfolding environmental events that are

greatly influenced by the contemporary schema and mental models. Weick (2015) describes

the process of sense-making as an individual’s ability that extracts cues from the environment

and compare them with the experience in their mental models. He also considers it as the

process of making sense; suggesting that an individual always enacts an affirmation that is held

currently in the mental model. In this regard, sense-making of an organization provides a view

of attention which describes the components influencing the interpretation of issues by

members of the organization (Weick, 2015). Finally, Ocasio and Nigam (2018) argue that sense- making and attention paying in a particular industry’s aggressive moves are rooted in past

mental models, in which this process creates new mental models directing future attention and

further sense-making.

According to Hoffman and Ocasio (2010), salience stimuli interact with current models of mind

in shaping the attention of individuals. Also, Sutcliffe and Huber (2018) consider salient as an

event that has properties making it get noticed despite the difference level that may existing

among individuals. Salience is regarded as the impact of a cue of the environment that attracts

a lot of attention than any other. This is an essential element in attention concept. Particular

attention suggests that organizations and individuals selectively concentrate on certain stimuli

from external environment while not looking at others (Hoffman & Ocasio, 2010). Two

processes exist to determine whether the event is salient. First, is the top-down process, where

the decision-maker’s mental models, channels and organization share beliefs and norms in

making stimuli remarkable. The top-down process creates a notion that managers rearrange,

alter and construct the physical features and meaning of their existing environment (Weick,

2015).

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Kairu, J. K., Senaji, T. A. (2021). Exploring Salience as a Strategic Disposition in Kenya. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(5). 71-83.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.85.10159

An environmental cue is salient if it is perceived by individuals in an organization as having an

impact on an organization’s outcomes, it is of interest and that if it is perceived as sensitive.

Such factors can be competition, product quality, and customer service among other factors.

These three have important implications for the performance of organizations including their

competitiveness, and tend to receive managers’ attention. Stated otherwise a salient cue or

factor is one that attracts attention compared to other cues or factors in both the external and

internal environment. However, from an organizational perspective, and considering a

competitive business environment, salient factors are mainly from the external environment.

From a strategy standpoint, some of the factors along which salience is perceived are product

quality, customer service, and competition because these are important considerations that

have implications for performance of organisations.

Competitiveness

Competitiveness is important in understanding the continued existence of firms after their

formation. It represents the minimum conditions for firms to remain in the market without

implying any kind of competitive advantage. For as long as limits on opportunities and

resources exist, firms in any industry have to compete and engage in actions that can give them

an advantage over competitors. Competitive actions can take many forms including marketing

campaigns, pricing strategies as well as mergers acquisitions. The common feature about these

activities is that all aim at gaining competitive advantage over rival firms. To gain a better

position at the expense of another player in an industry, a firm will resort to effective

competitive strategies (Ferrier, 2015).

Ocasio (2017) asserts that initiation of competitive action by a competitor has important

consequences for other organizations in the same industry, sector or market segment. The

response from an organization occurs when decision-makers are aware of the activities in the

business competitive environment. He argues that the decision-makers are bound by two

processes involved in determining attention focus. The first one is a bottom-up process that

deals with stimuli characteristics and the things that make them unique from others. The top- down process is the second one, which claims that values, goals, cognitive orientations and

demand tasks influence the direction of attention. Thomas et al., (2014), argued that when

industries experiencing competition at a faster pace face a demanding and complex

environment, managers in these organizations should develop a quick interpretation of

information and use this interpretation to make decisions. They suggest that interpretation

may be a complicated process and various previous studies argue empirically and theoretically

that when managers are exposed to the same stimuli, there will be a different interpretation

from decision-makers of these organizations. For instance, different managers may look at

specific competitive action by rivals, with others interpreting it as an opportunity while other

may view it as a threat. This is due to contextual factors directing attention, information flow

and interpretation (Ocasio, 2017). The more accurate the interpretation of the environment

and the use of the information to make decision and take actions, the better will be the

performance compared to that of competitors.

Consequently, competitiveness should be measured with respect to a benchmark because it is

a relative concept (Pedraza, 2014). Firms must be compared with each other, or nations with

each other; in this case producing absolute figures for a country or an industry is of no much

use with regard to competitiveness. For example, an increase in competitiveness happens when