A critical analysis of the adoption of continuous innovation as a tool to gain sustainable competitive advantage in a VUCA world: Case of Zimbabwe’s gold mining sector

Abstract

The general purpose of the study was to find out how various dimensions of an innovation strategy affect sustainable competitive advantage in the Gold mining industry within a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) Zimbabwean environment. The specific objective of this study was aimed at determining how innovative design solutions, advanced technology utilisation, rewarding for innovation and innovative business re-organisation affected sustainable competitive advantage. An explanatory research was adopted because the study was aimed at collecting information from respondents on their perceptions to sustainable competitive advantage in the various mines operating with the gold sector. The target population for this study was the gold mines registered with the Chamber of Mines in Zimbabwe. Out of the total of 150 questionnaires awarded only 120 were filled and returned giving a response rate of 77%. Further, a correlation approach was adopted as the study was seeking to describe relationship between sustainable competitive advantage and the independent variables (innovative design solutions, advanced technology utilisation, rewarding for innovation and innovative business re-organisation). Generally, the regression model showed that innovative design solutions and rewarding innovative employee ideas were significant predictors of the sustainability of the competitive advantage of the mining companies. It can be noted that rewarding innovative employee ideas factors makes the most contribution to the sustainability of competitive advantage from all the four variables tested and this can be argued along the lines of employees being the biggest assets the mines have thus no amount of technology will function without buy-in from the employees to operate that machinery. The analysis also showed that most if not all respondents believed that they were operating in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments hence the usual strategy taken was that of survival as compared to growth. 3 | P a g e The study thereby established that effectiveness and extend of adopting a continuous innovation strategy is key for the mining companies to gain sustained competitive advantage of Mining firms and thus allow them to compete globally without just confinement to the local factors. The study also highlighted that adoption of innovation as a strategy does not only mean acquiring modernised equipment but also entails that business need to streamline their activities, structure and capabilities along the notion of attaining sustainability as well. The study recommends that the successful implementation will require different skills sets, new modes of collaboration and different teaming structures. These are all enterprise model problems which need to be addressed. While the mining sector knows that innovation is important and that it should be central to an organizations agenda, they often fail to get the traction they desire due to lack of a systemic approach to implementation of innovation. It was therefore recommended that when an enterprise is pursuing the implementation of strategies of sustainable innovation, the process should lie in the people of the organization. Employee participation means employees participate in the process of formulating and implementing the management decisions. For scholars, the work leaves room for the proposition of similar quantitative studies in different regions, provided that innovation data is exhaustive and adopts the same standards across countries. In addition, the inclusion of small- or medium sized firms could highlight the presence of differences of behaviour across size-classes, as posited by previous works