Corporate Strategies in the Palestinian Food Industry: A Framework Development
Date
2018-04-01
Authors
Afaneh, Rashad Mithqal Ismail
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
جامعة النجاح الوطنية
Abstract
This study aims to explore and assess the process of corporate strategy formulation within the Palestinian food manufacturing companies at the corporate level and to find out the adopted practices and tools, and their level of applicability. Additionally, it is intended to inspect the most influential factors on this process, to gain more understanding about the process and the existing shortcomings in companies.
This study targets the food manufacturing industry companies working in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This study has adopted the mixed methods methodology, which is characterized as a sequential exploratory design. Specifically, it is based on collecting quantitative data and analyzing it in the first phase then collecting the qualitative data to be analyzed in the second phase. Thirteen in-depth interviews were conducted with the senior management of food companies. Seventy-four surveys were collected on the topic of the study. Thematic analysis (TA) has been used to analyze the semi-structured interview data and SPSS software to analyze the collected data.
The results showed that developing the objectives, vision, mission statement, assessing the internal and external environments, assessing the futuristic risks and selecting corporate strategies were the most used practices by the Palestinian food manufacturing companies. As for the tools and techniques used in the process, the results reflected the usage is medium and limited. In addition, the (SWOT) analysis tool was found to be the most used among these tools.
The results also revealed that the company's size and market share have critical effects on the corporate strategy formulation process. More specifically, the leadership, the human resources, and the financial position were the most influential internal factors in this process. On the other hand, competitors, consumer behavior, and political and economic circumstances were the most influential external factors. Ultimately, the study presented a framework that is intended to help the companies to formulate their corporate strategies. The framework presents strategic areas that the companies are focusing on, which are ignored by other frameworks used previously.