THE IMPACT OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION ON THE GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO FOOD PROCESSORS

This exploratory paper uses the case study approach to seek to determine how science, technology and innovation (STI) have impacted the global competitiveness of a group of 15 local food processors. For the processors studied, it was found that global competitiveness could be partially predicted by the percentage of employees with higher degrees in the sciences and the existence of formal teams or departments for product development, however, size of enterprise, age, product type and new product frequency were not significant in this study. Research Limitations/Implications: The results are true for the group of 15 enterprises and cannot be generalized. Triangulation was not employed. Practical Implications: Food enterprises seeking to gain global competitive advantage may consider these results on the use of STI. This paper is a rare study linking STI with competitiveness. It is of interest to researchers and producers as a baseline study. A questionnaire largely based on Competitiveness and STI factors as identified by Porter et al and Jaramillo et al respectively was used in collecting qualitative and quantitative data. Descriptive results were compared to the case of South Korea’s use of STI to fast track development while multiple regression and bi-variate correlation analysis were used to find significant relationships between STI and Competitiveness Factors in the enterprises