Chinese SMEs in Emerging African Markets: Innovative Management and Marketing Performance

This paper evaluates the performance of the SMEs owned and managed by the Chinese entrepreneurs in Tanzania and those SMEs owned and managed by the Tanzanian entrepreneurs in Tanzania. Our study indicated that innovation culture was the key to success of the Chinese SMEs operating in Tanzania compared to the SMEs of Tanzania nationals. This was deemed to the fact that the mangers of the Chinese SMEs value the willingness of their members to experiment new business idea, revise their marketing programs to stay ahead of the market, gain financial support from their government, frequently develop more product features, and attract new customers. The major constraints of the Tanzanian SMEs were slow pace of government support, weak linkages between Chinese SMEs and Tanzanians SMEs for technological transfer, lack of adequate funds within the enterprise, and uncertain demand for innovative goods and services.