CHAPTER 5 DATA ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION
5.3 QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
5.3.6. Effect of Collaboration in creating Sustainable Marketing Strategies
116 Table 5.21: Total Variance Explained
Component
Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings
Total % of Variance Cumulative % Development of competitive advantages 4.611 57.636 57.636 Unity of purpose and synergetic benefits 2.924 36.550 94.186 Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Source: Primary Data
It is expected that clothing sector companies which implement coordinated systems of operations on an end-to-end basis, would be able to develop competitive advantages necessary to withstand global competitive forces. Secondly, such companies would be able to cause the spirit of oneness and the resultant synergetic benefits arising from the teamwork in the organization would generate the momentum necessary to survive international competition. These results therefore confirm that marketing strategy planning and implementation must be fully coordinated for an effective marketing strategy in view of global competition.
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Table 5.22: Benefits of Competitive Integration/ Collaboration
Source: Primary Data
Table 5.22 above show that out of the seven (7) benefits, five (5) accounted for 71.4% with calculated mean values above 3, implying that the study participants were generally in agreement that competitive integration/ collaboration could ensure that the clothing sector companies remain viable. More specifically, the benefit that had the highest mean value of 4.2992, was that collaboration as marketing strategy results in the creation of large competent companies. Integrations in the clothing and textile sector could be achieved through mergers and acquisitions that create the necessary competitive advantages for survival. Increasing the size of operation helps to improve economies of scale and enhance the ability to attract more skilled labour with the capacity to effectively drive the marketing strategy of the business as well as enabling companies to attract financing from lenders.
The results also show that clothing and textile companies can offset their weaknesses through collaboration and also the associated knowledge transfer. These benefits of integration of marketing strategies had means of 4.0157 and 3.6772 respectively. The implications are that through the strategic alliances on marketing strategies, weaker companies get the opportunity to use the existing resources of the larger firms to leverage their growth and capacity to withstand the effects of globalisation. Such companies would be able to benefit from greater market power, lesser business risk, acquisition of synergies and acquisition of new knowledge.
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Other benefits of competitive collaboration that were highly rated were the strengthening of the clothing and textile companies (mean = 3.9843), and enhancement of capacity to deal with the effects of globalization (mean = 3.929). What this means is that the clothing and textile sector companies could consider implementing integration and form marketing strategic alliances, in order to enhance their value chains. Clothing and textile companies can also consider horizontal or lateral integration in fast tracking their growth and development and ensure survival in difficult operating environments.
In contrast, the results show that the participants disagree that “collaboration promotes the marketing of quality products and improves the creativity capacities of companies” as reflected by lower means of 2.0551 and 2.0472, in that order. The integration of marketing strategies can only be effective if that occurs between companies whose management and workforce has creativity capabilities, thus making it a conditional benefit.
In general, these results suggest that clothing sector companies should consider enhancing their marketing strategies by creating synergies with other players in the market. The above grouping of the benefits done in line with the magnitude of the means of the benefits of collaboration was further confirmed by the application of associational inferential tests for ranked data using Spearman’s Rho.
5.3.6.1 Application of Associational Inferential Test- Spearman’s Rho
The Spearman’s correlation gives an indication of the nature and significance of the linear relationship between two variables that are measured using ranking order. This statistical method was considered appropriate in view of the fact that the respondents were asked to show their level of agreement or disagreement with the benefits of integration of marketing activities on a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly disagree (=1) to strongly agree(=5). In interpreting the results of the Spearman’s rank order test, a positive correlation would suggest convergence with what is being measured or assessed. The respondents would have either generally agreed or disagreed that the concerned pair of benefits were related in the adoption of competitive integration or collaboration. On the other hand, negative correlation would suggest divergence in the views of the study respondents regarding the two benefits in question. To statistically confirm the relationships that are suggested by the descriptive statistics shown in Table 5.22 above, it would be necessary that the associational relationships between most of the benefits be positive to show convergence. The results of the Spearman’s correlation are indicated in Table 5.23.
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Table 5.23:
Spearman’s Rho- Effect of co-alliancesSource: Primary Data
From the Spearman’s Rho results it became evident that responses relating to, ‘prepares organizations to deal with the effects of globalization’ ‘helps in knowledge transfer’, ‘results in the creation of large competent companies’, ‘allows organizations to offset their weaknesses through collaboration, and
‘strengthens organizations’ had positive linear relationship among themselves. The meaning of such a positive correlation would be that the respondents were highly convinced that the integration of marketing strategies across organizations results in huge benefits for the clothing and textile companies as they attempt to mitigate the challenges posed by the increasingly globalized markets.
To establish the level of confidence that the clothing and textile sector companies could assign with respect to how the rated benefits of integration/ collaboration were related to each other, the study made reference to the indicative coefficient of determination. Ordinarily, the coefficient of determination is equal to the square of the coefficient of correlation (r) and it gives the percentage variation in one variable
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that can be explained by variations in the other variable. In the context of this study, no predictor and criterion variables were established since the interest was in determining the relative extent of association between the benefits. The interpretation was therefore guided by the fact that a coefficient of determination closer to +1 confirms high positive or negative linear relationship between the two benefits of integration while values close to 0 suggest low linear relationship between the concerned two benefits of integration.
Notably, the least Spearman’s Rho value was 0.210 between the benefits that integration ‘results in the creation of large competent companies’ and that integration ‘prepares organizations to deal with the effects of globalization’. This value showed the existence of a mild positive correlation between the two benefits considering that the resultant coefficient of determination would be as low as 4.41%. On the other extreme, the largest Spearman’s Rho value of 0.972 was registered between the benefits that collaboration of marketing activities in the clothing and textile sector ‘strengthens organizations’ and that integration of marketing activities ‘allows organizations to offset their weaknesses through collaboration’.
This illustrates the high conviction among the respondents that the integration of marketing activities is indeed beneficial to the clothing and textile sector companies in fighting against the challenges of globalization. The resultant and indicative coefficient of determination was as high as 94.5%.
Confirming the general disagreement among the respondents, the results also clearly show that benefits that competitive integration ‘improves the creativity capacities of companies’ and promotes the marketing of quality products had strong positive linear correlation (R = 0.729) between each other. This would translate into a calculated coefficient of determination of 53.1%. These two benefits had negative linear relationships with the other five benefits with the lowest and highest Spearman’s Rho value of -0.885 and -0.348 respectively.
The results clearly revealed that the ‘benefits’ were highly associated with each other. This suggests that participants generally felt that collaboration in the clothing and textile sector can result in positive developments on areas that materially affected the development of marketing strategies. The implications are that in the face of globalization, the adoption of competitive integration through strategic alliances and co-marketing activities should be undertaken. This can be achieved through integrating and seeking cooperation in order to formulate and implement robust and sustainable marketing strategies in order to meaningfully compete in the face of globalization.
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