Transient Advantage And Performance Of Private Health Insurance Sector In Kenya: Dynamic Capabilities View

ABSTRACT

The performance of the private health insurance sector in Kenya has continued to be below expectation with most of the companies reporting losses. Health insurance firms continue to compete for the same client base without registering any significant improvement in either penetration levels or performance. This study sought to establish the influence of transient advantage on performance specifically, the role of innovative products, distribution models, market sensing capability and strategic partnerships on performance. The dynamic capabilities view of the firm and institutional theory were used to anchor the study while a descriptive survey design was adopted in the study targeting a population comprising managers, assistant managers and supervisors. Four respondents were drawn from each of the five departments: sales, strategy, finance, operations and customer service. These are departments in the 19 private insurance companies where data was collected. The 380 targeted respondents, yielded a sample of 308. The data were analyzed and both descriptive and inferential results obtained and interpreted. It was found that while innovative products (β=0.52, exp (B) =1.683, p=0.046