Market-orientation of Tanzanian banking institutions : a case of CRDB Bank.
The thrust of this research is the "MARKET-ORIENTATION OF TANZANIANBANKING INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF CRDB BANK". Being the first ofits kind within the context of the study, it is largely an exploratory study on the marketorientation(MO) with twin purposes of: (a) examining the extent of MO in CRDB Bankas perceived by employees and (b) exploring the development and implementation of MOculture in the bank, with a special focus on the facilitating and hindering factors.Emanating from these purposes are four main objectives of the research that underpinnedthe research namely (1) to explore the existing marketing philosophies in the bank, (2) tomeasure the employees perceived level of MO and its constituent dimensions, includingthe development of the MO scale that is suitable to a banking institution, (3) to explorewhether the perception of the level of MO differs according to the following attributes (a)hierarchical levels of the organisation (top, middle and lower management and betweenhead office and branches offices of the bank), (b) employee-specific(personal)attributes(c) size of branches ( large, medium and small), (d) location of branches (between those in competitive areas and in least competitive areas) and (e) profitabilityperformance ( between above-median and below-median performing branches), and (4)to explore the facilitating and hindering factors for the development and implementationof MO in CRDB Bank and Tanzanian financial sector in general.The main methodology used in this research is a case study. This enabled us to usemethod triangulation, whereby both qualitative and quantitative methods were used.Principally, we applied the following research tools/techniques in data gathering:interviews, documentary analysis, survey questionnaire and personal observation. Thefield research involved two phases. The first was a pilot study that entailed conductingdiscovery-oriented interviews with 9 bankers in six banks. The second phase wasconducting the substantive research in CRDB Bank.The findings of the study are fascinating and may have far- reaching implications bothin terms of theory and practice. From a themantic dimension, we successfully reconceptualisedMO, by developing a scale for measuring the extended MO. We clarifiedthis as the Simultaneous Market orientation, SMO, which composes five key dimensions:external customer-orientation, competitor-orientation, interfunctional orientation, internal111customer-orientation and profit-orientation. The scale was tested and validated for itspsychometric properties. In other words, the SMO scale was found, reliable and valid,implying that the five components fully represented the SMO. External customerorientationand profit-orientation were ranked as first and second most importantdimension of SMO in the bank. Competitor-orientation, interfunctional co-ordination andinternal customer-orientation were ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively. From thepractice perspective, our findings indicates that marketing-orientation and salesorientationare the dominant marketing philosophies, while production-orientation andsocietal marketing-orientation are the less marketing philosophies. This in practiceindicates a co-existence of different marketing philosophies in the organisation contraryto the main stream literature exhortations. Also, the research revealed an integrationperspective of employees on SMO culture. Essentially, this has established theimportance of internal customer-orientation in influencing or leading to employees'participation, morale, training, job satisfaction and retention as a critical determinants ofsuccessful SMO implementation.Furthermore, we have identified the main facilitative and hindering factors for thedevelopment and implementation of MO in the specific context of CRDB bank and theTanzanian financial sector in general. These antecedent factors have a profound effect onMO implementation.In general, our findings have set a solid base and raised issues that are likely to chart thefuture direction of MO situation not only in Tanzania, but also in other African countriesthat are undergoing market-driven transformation of their economies. The main publicpolicy implication of this study is that there is a need to strengthen the macroenvironmentand to mount public education in order to foster MO behaviour and practice.Similarly, at the management level, there is a need for effective and adequatemanagement leadership and support for adoption and implementation of MO culture andthe need for sustained or continuous changes given the emergent internal and externalenvironment. The essential role of informed "change agents" in fostering MO could notbe discounted.
Year of publication: |
2002
|
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Authors: | Lwiza, Daudi Rutatinisibwa |
Publisher: |
University of East London |
Subject: | dominant marketing philosophies | Tanzania |
Saved in:
freely available
Saved in favorites
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