Constituents for Competitiveness of SMEs in Agro-Food Processing Industry in J&K, India: Exploring the Role of Competence Indices

The paper is based upon an empirical investigation for the constituents that contribute to the total competitive performance of the SMEs’ in the agro-food processing sector. The study explores the constituents and their effectiveness in improving the firm level competitiveness of the SMEs in developing countries. It focuses on defining a firm level competitiveness framework for small and medium enterprises. The study explores the relationship and influence of the identified competencies that influence the competitive performance of SMEs in the sectors where the data is inconsistent and not managed professionally. It is exploratory in nature and is based on the composite scores that describe the competence indices. It further uses total competitive performance index of the firms, which have been constructed by using primary data. The study uses the qualitative as well as quantitative methods to reach to explore the constituents of competitiveness of SMEs’ in Agro Food processing industry in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), India.