IMITATION AND SALES EXPANSION OF PAINT MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN SOUTH-EAST, NIGERIA

This study investigated the relationship between imitation and sales expansion in paint manufacturing firms in South-East, Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was used and questionnaire served as the instrument of data collection. Data collected were analysed using percentages and mean statistic. Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, with the help of SPSS 21.0 were used to test the hypotheses. The study revealed that observation and reverse engineering have significantly and positive influence on sales volume and customer retention. The study concluded that the achievement of business growth in paint manufacturing firms depends on the extent of utilisation of observation and reverse engineering technological transfer agreement as such will lead to increased sales volume and customer retention. Based on the above, it is hereby recommended that paint manufacturing firms should go for imitation by observation so as to achieve sales expansion. These paint manufacturing firms should imitate bigger company’s technology through reverse engineering and adopt such to their system so as to achieve customer retention and increased sales volume.