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Using the extended MARKOR scale in assessing market orientation and firm's performance : a study of Libyan manufacturing companies

Libya is seen by many investors from across the World as a market of immense potential even though the degree of openness of the Libyan market has until recently remained comparatively limited. There are signs now however, that the government is pursuing a more conciliatory approach towards foreign businesses. The Libyan authorities are now encouraging private-sector involvement and inward investment, but appreciate that a fundamental change in organisational culture will be necessary. Therefore the movement in Libya today, toward improvement in organisations and the Government has introduced liberalisation of the economy, and is creating stronger ties with the Western world, now that sanctions have been lifted. This change is exemplified by the greater scope allowed to private enterprise in the retail trade, small-scale industries and agriculture. There has been previous research carried out, into the ways that the competitive nature of all Libyan organisations can be improved. There is a great need, in order to understand organisation's marketing capabilities and orientations, to investigate their validity in a wide variety of developing countries. However, there are only a few empirical studies which have investigated the development of MO in transitional economies and there is increasing pressure for the MO of organisations in these developing countries, where the process of economic diversification is taking place rather rapidly to be investigated (Anwar, 2008). This is mainly due to the fact that the contemporary research carried out in the West has provided evidence of strong links between MO and performance. There has been very little empirical research to investigate these links in developing countries with transitional economies. The strategy for this research consisted of specific objectives that had been derived from the research questions and it was the nature of these which suggested the use of a non-experimental fixed strategy such as a survey. The survey as a research tool has been widely used by others and is based upon the well-established statistical principles of sampling; additionally a survey offers a relatively simple and straightforward approach to the study of people's attitudes, values and beliefs. The MARKOR questionnaire allowed a tried and tested data collection tool to be used and as the most important aspects of such research are credibility, reliability and validity, the standardisation offered by the questionnaire provided a means to gather consistent answers to consistent questions. A group of these managers were subsequently interviewed at a different time when initial analysis of the quantitative data from the questionnaire prompted a set of follow-up interview questions. From this research it can be concluded that there is evidence of a significant relationship between market orientation and perceived business performance. But there are currently various levels of market orientation being operated within the Libyan manufacturing companies surveyed. Furthermore there are very marked difference in the levels of market orientation present between companies from the different sectors and between companies operating in the private sector compared with those which are under state control.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:542608
Date January 2011
CreatorsAbdelsalam, Yusri A.
PublisherUniversity of Gloucestershire
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://eprints.glos.ac.uk/3283/

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