ASSESSMENT OF INTERNAL ORGANIZATIONAL INTEGRATION AND COMPETITIVENESS IN BGI ETHIOPIA PLC

Abstract

Internal organizational integration with other functional areas and suppliers is a key aspect for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The study tries to identify that the internal integration with staffs and departments positively related to competitiveness and customer satisfaction when it occurs simultaneously in key internal activities. This study assesses and describes the degree of internal integration through assessing the building block of integration namely; Coordination, Communication, and Affection level of employees and departments with for the purpose of comparing customer satisfaction. To achieve this purpose interviews with selected management and staff members and a tested questionnaire framework comprising of general information data for background assessment and a Likert scale of 5 levels listing internal integration assessment questions were distributed to three BGI Ethiopia companies operated in the country namely; Addis Ababa St.George, Hawassa, and kombolcha factory The questionnaire responses were analyzed using SPSS version 20. The result is then presented in the form of tables and figures followed by discussion for further interpretation on the findings. All the independent variables of organizational integration were found to have a positive and significant correlation with the dependent variable which is organizational competitiveness. The Chi-square test result showed that, the model fits significantly with 17.09 and the value of R and R2 obtained under the model summary was statistically significant. The multiple linear regression analysis revealed that, all the independent variables (coordination and communication, and Affection) have statistically significant effect to predict organizational competitiveness. And more emphasis given for statistical tools of means and standard deviation as well as frequency tables and the findings of the assessment showed a relatively a moderate level of good practice in the area of integration dimension. Reliability testing has also been carried out to check the consistency of the responses. This study was limited to the effect of internal organizational integration on competitiveness in one organization. Therefore, the study recommends that the organization should enhance its internal organizational integration in order to become more effective in its competitiveness and overall productivity.