Determinants of Technological and Socio-cultural Environment of Mobile Phone Outlets Mohamed Ismail Mohideen Bawa, Senior Lecturer in Management, Department of Management, Faculty of Management and Commerce, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka, Oluvil,
[email protected], 00 94 77 69 444 77. Velnampy, T., Dean/ Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka,
[email protected], 0094 777 44 83 52 Abstract Technology has into each and every corner of the World. Business transactions are now via mobile that is now termed as mobile marketing. However, sale of mobile outlets is affected by marketing environment. Aim of this study is to know the environmental determinants of owners of mobile phone outlets. Study considered 146 respondents from mobile phone outlets were selected using a convenient sampling technique. Data were collected using questionnaire during 2013. Results showed that according to Cronbach alpha, 2 items of technology and 4 items of socio-culture are higher than 0.6 that shows higher reliability. Similarly, items of technology and socio- culture are all greater than 0.6 that shows sampling adequacy. Value of measure of Keyzer-Meyer-Oklin (KMO) is greater than 0.5 that shows enough of samples. Technology and socio- cultural factors explain around 96% and 71% of the total variation respectively. Factor score of technology factor is 0.499758. Factor score of socio- culture factor is 0.2499505. Based on factor score, Technological factor and socio- cultural factor has been ranked as first and second. Keywords: Mobile Phone Outlets, Socio-cultural Environment, Technology. 1. Introduction: Usage of mobile phone has been significant during recent past. Younger generations use mobile phone all the times. The usage of mobile phones is higher than that of adults. Mobile phones are the talk of the town today’s younger generations. Marketing environment that comprises a number of environmental factor and forces should be known by marketers. The technological environment influences the domestic marketing environment in a number of ways. It can provide an important communication channel, enabling you to market your products through a website or via email. If you supply digital products or services, you can use the Internet to distribute them. Socio- cultural factors influence the type of customers you target, the range of products you can offer, and the way you communicate with the market. Socio- culture influences and shape customer preferences and ways of doing business, so it is important to understand and respond to the factors. For instance, certain colours have positive or negative significance for different cultural groups, so your products and packaging must reflect those preferences. Therefore, one’s marketing strategy must take account of the technological and socio- cultural environment. Since mobile phones are technology- intensive product and are related with socio- cultural elements owners of mobile phone outlets should realize this fact,
owners of mobile phone outlets should know about technological and socio-cultural environmental forces. 2. Statement of the problem: Organisation is surrounded by environment. Organisations cannot live in a vacuum. It needs interaction with environment. Any sort of organization has to deal with environment for its survival. According to systems theory, organization is open. It acquires inputs such as manpower, machinery, material and money from different environmental elements. It is not sure that all the times, environment will be static. Changes emerging from this environment affect organizations. Number of empirical findings found marketing environment impacts on marketing strategy. For instance, Krugman, Quinn, Sung and Morrison (2005) stated about environmental change. Some other researches have been conducted in combined researches. Empirical findings found that the technology infrastructure generates new marketing communication channels. Along with the support of these literatures, a small group of owners of mobile phone were interviewed. Interview revealed that technology impact on the selling of phone. Few other owners have indicated that usage of mobile phone has been a fashion among younger generations. 3. Research questions and objectives: Whether technological environment and socio-culture are opined by owners of mobile phone outlets?. So as to achieve this objective, this study aims at knowing the environmental determinants of owners of mobile phone outlets. 4. Previous Empirical Studies: Dadzie (1989) studied about demarketing strategy in shortage marketing environment. This study tested the relationship between the incidence of economic shortages and demarketing activity performance in six African countries. This study concludes with observations on methods firms employ to adapt their marketing programs in an environment of scarcity within seller-dominated economies. Kilbourne and Beckmann (1998) reviewed assessment of research on marketing and the environment. This study provides a review and categorization of the environmentally related research published in the major English language marketing journals over the period from 1971 to 1997. Karna, Hansen, Juslin and Seppala (2002) studied about Green marketing of softwood lumber in western North America and Nordic Europe. Softwood sawmills in western North America and in the Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden) were surveyed to study environmental emphasis in marketing planning and expected changes in the marketing environment. Nordic sawmills are more proactive in their environmental marketing planning based on expected changes in the marketing environment, not based on awareness of current customers. Fry and Polonsky (2004) found that while many firms engage in successful marketing activities with outcomes beneficial for both the firm and its stakeholders, a number of situations occur where these successful outcomes impact in an unanticipated negative fashion on consumers, society and other stakeholders. Hoffman and Novak (1997) studied about a new marketing paradigm for electronic commerce. In this study, it was found that in this new approach, the marketing function must be reconstructed to facilitate electronic commerce in the emerging electronic society underlying the Web. These empirical findings stressed that these findings were found in different countries and in different contexts.
5. Methodology Population size of owners of mobile phone outlets is not known to the researcher for making sample selection. There are no proper records about owners of mobile phone outlets. So, researcher could not select a sample size in this study using probability sampling method. Considering this situation, researcher selected 146 respondents from mobile phone outlets were selected using a convenient sampling technique. Data were collected using questionnaire. Questionnaires were scaled on a seven point-likert scale. Data were collected during 2013 using undergraduates of Faculty of Management and Commerce, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka. 200 questionnaires were delivered for data collection. 146 questionnaires were in usable status. Response rate was around 73%. Factor analysis (Principal Component Analysis) was conducted using SPSS with collected data. After factor analysis, factors were scored to ranked according to factor scores. 6. Results and discussion of findings 6.1 Reliability: Cronbach alpha is most widely used method for checking the reliability of scale. It may be mentioned that its value varies from 0 to 1 but, satisfactory value is required to be more than 0.6 for the scale to be reliable (Ismail and Velnampy, 2013a & b); Malhorta, 2002; Cronbach, 1951). In this study, researcher use Cronbach alpha scale as a measure of reliability. Technology has 2 items such as technological advancement and technological change. Socioculturals have 4 items such as customs, traditions, believes and values. Reliability is measured by values of Cronbach alpha that is shown in table 1. Table 1: Values of Cronbach alpha Factors Cronbach's Alpha N of Items (Source: survey data)
Technology
Socio-culturals
0.955
0.858
2
4
6.2 Communalities and testing the sufficiency of sample size: Researcher tested collected data for appropriateness for factor analysis. Appropriateness of factor analysis is dependent upon the sample size. In this connection, MacCallum, Windaman, Zhang and Hong (1999) have advocated that if all communalities are above 0.6 relatively small samples (less than 100) may be perfectly appropriate. Ismail and Velnampy (2013a) studied about determinants of corporate performance (CP) in public health service organizations (PHSO) in Eastern Province of Sri Lanka using Balanced Score Card (BSC). Ismail and Velnampy (2013b) studied about determinants of employee satisfaction (ES) in public health service organizations (PHSO) in Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. In these studies, authors considered a sample of 100 employees. This present study also adopts this same rule. Items of technology and socio- culture are all greater than 0.6 as shown in table 2. This shows that sample size is enough to run factor analysis.
Table 2: Communalities Technology Technological advancement Technological change
Initial
Extraction
1.000
.957
1.000
.957
Socio- culture
Initial
Extraction
1.000
.832
1.000
.727
Believes
1.000
.621
Values
1.000
.643
Customs Traditions
(Source: survey data) Measure of Keyzer-Meyer-Oklin (KMO) is another method for to show the appropriateness of data for factor analysis. KMO statistics varies between 0 and 1. Keyzer (1974) recommended that values greater than 0.5 are acceptable; between 0.5 to 0.7 are moderate; between 0.7 to 0.8 are good; between 0.8 to 0.9 are superior (Field, 2000). Bartlet’s test of sphericity is the final statistical test applied in this study for verifying its appropriateness (Bartlet, 1950). In this study, values of KMO for items of technology and socio- cultural factors are 0.500 and 0.649 respectively. These values indicate sample taken to process factor analysis is statistically significant. In addition to KMO, Chi- square values for these factors are 258.731 and 452.911 respectively. These values confirm test is statistically significant when significance value is less than significance level. Significance value is 0.000 at 5% level of significance. These values indicate that data are statistically significant for factor analysis. Values of KMO and Bartlet test of Sphericity are shown in table 3. Table 3: KMO and Bartlett's Test Technology Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square Df Sig. (Source: survey data)
Socio- culture 0.500
0.649
258.731
452.911
1 0.000
6 0.000
6.3 Factor analysis: After examining the reliability of the scale and test appropriateness of data as above, researchers carry out factor analysis to know factors affecting technology and socioculture of owners of mobile phone outlets. For achieving this objective, researcher employs principal component analysis (PCA) that is followed by the varimax rotation. Varimax rotation is mostly used in factor analysis (Hema and Anura, 1993). From table, it can be seen that technology and socio- culture have one factor component. This component is extracted from the
analysis with an eigen value greater than 1 (Tabachnick and Field, 1996). In this study, single component of technology and socio- cultural factor explain around 96% and 71% of the total variation respectively. Total variance explained after rotation for factor components are shown in table 4. Table 4: Total Variance Explained after rotation
Component Total 1 1.914 (Source: survey data)
% of Variance 95.695
Cumulative % Component 95.695 1
Total 2.823
% of Variance 70.565
Cumulative % 70.565
6.4 Factor scores and ranking: Technology factor has 2 items such as technological advancement and technological change. Technology factor has generated component 1 that is termed as technological factor component 1 which has a factor score of 0.499758. Socio- culture factor has 4 items such as customs, traditions, believes and values. Socio- cultural factor has generated component 1 that is termed as socio- cultural factor component 1 which has a factor score of 0.2499505. Based on factor score, factors are ranked. Factor scores and rankings are shown in table 5. Technological factor component 1 i.e. technological advancement and technological change has been ranked first. Socio- cultural factor component 1 i.e. customs, traditions, believes and values has been ranked second. Table 5: Factor scores and ranking Factor
Factor
Variables
components Technology
Technological
Number of
Factor score
variables 1. 2.
Technological advancement Technological change
1. 2. 3. 4.
Customs Traditions Believes Values
Ranking factors
02
0.499758
1
04
0.2499505
2
component 1 Socio-Culture
Socio-cultural factor component 1
(Source: survey data) 7. Conclusion: Results showed that according to Cronbach alpha, 2 items of technology and 4 items of socio-culture are higher than 0.6 that shows higher reliability. Similarly, items of technology and socio- culture are all greater than 0.6 that shows sampling adequacy. Value of measure of Keyzer-Meyer-Oklin (KMO) is greater than 0.5 that shows enough of samples. In this study, single component of technology and socio- cultural factor explain around 96% and 71% of the total variation respectively. Technology factor that has 2 items such as technological advancement and technological change has a factor score of 0.499758. Socio- culture factor that has 4 items such as customs, traditions, believes and values has a factor score of 0.2499505. Based on factor score, Technological factor component 1 i.e. technological advancement and technological change has been ranked first. Socio- cultural factor component 1 i.e. customs,
traditions, believes and values has been ranked second. It is concluded that all items of technological and socio-culture are the determinants of owners of mobile phone outlets. References
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