A STUDY ON POWER DISTANCE AND INNOVATION CAPABILITY IN SELECTED BREAD BAKING FIRMS IN LAGOS METROPOLIS, NIGERIA

Abstract

Scholars in the field of management have recognised socio-cultural environment as one of the most important factors affecting behaviours of individuals and groups in the organisations. This study investigates the effect of power distance on innovation capability in bread baking firms in Lagos metropolis, Nigeria. Fifty-six firms were selected for the study using snowballing sampling technique. To operationalize power distance an eight-item scale was used. A Likert scale where 1 = Strongly disagree and 5 = Strongly agree was used to capture respondents’ perception about the practice of power distance in their organizations. Means of responses for each item on the scale was calculated and thereafter, grand mean for all the items were computed. The study found that high-level power distance was practised in most of the selected firms. The study also found that seven components out of eight on the adopted power distance scale did not have any positive association with innovation capability. The study concluded that managers of bread baking firms in the study area need to reduce the power distance to increase their innovation capability.