The triggers for innovation in the agricultural processing industry, South Africa

Abstract

This study describes how firms in the agro processing industry within South Africa vary in terms of their types of innovation based on whether or not the firm exports into a developed context or supplies only into the local South African market. In conjunction with this the research attempts to describe who these firms engage with in order to develop their most significant innovations. Empirically this research set out to establish whether or not exporting firms differed considerably with regards to how they innovate relative to firms which only supply into the regional domestic market. This could provide insights as to whether either group could learn from one another and develop a collaborative relationship whereby a mutually reinforcing innovative model could be developed to support overall industry growth. The central argument here is, given that the agro processing industry employs a large portion of the South African work force, any innovations which can create long term sustainable volume growth for the industry need to be taken advantage of. Thus not only does the South African agro processing industry need to develop innovative networks domestically but also internationally.Chi squared and t-test were run on the responses of the firms belonging to the export or domestic categories. The results overwhelmingly suggest that in respect of innovativeness, the domestic suppliers do not differ from those that opt to export into the developed world. However the firms belonging to the domestic group differ considerably with regards to who they collaborate with for their innovations when compared to the export group.