Gender of Respondents and Performance of Functional Areas of Milk Processing Firms in Kenya

Milk processing firms have significant economic and nutritional contribution to the economy. The industry’s performance is however impended by high costs resulting in low profitability, declining output as well collapse and retarded growth of some firms. Firms in the industry have resorted to cost leadership strategy to address performance challenges through adoption of economies of scale, economies of scope and operational efficiency. Studies done in other sectors suggest a correlation between cost leadership strategy and firm performance. Resource Based View theory posits that decisions on strategic orientation are made by the firm’s human resources of which gender is an important aspect. This study therefore was an investigation of whether gender is associated with the functional areas involved in making decisions on costs among milk processing firms in Kenya. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from the firms and analysis done using contingency tables and Chi-square test. The study concluded that males were a majority in most of the functional areas but the association was not statistically significant. The study thus recommends that milk processing firms exercise liberty in employing males or females subject to other factors like legislation on workforce gender distribution