Export Marketing Research for Africa: the Kenyan Experience

Abstract

The study reported in this thesis is an inquiry into how the Kenyan business community understands the nature, r81e and purpose of export marketing research, and how it ranks and executes this function. The basic premise of the study is that successful export marketing is a function of export research. The rationale for the study arises from the fact that, while Kenya government policy is strongly in favor of promoting both a strong export-oriented economy, and a competent export- oriented, indigenous business community, very little is known regarding the business community's conceptions of, arid approaches to, international trade. Unless the government and the rest of the interested parties (businessmen, executive trainers and academicians) get clear account of the state of export research, in Kenya, all efforts by public and:private enterprise to make Kenya A self sustaining export economy, may be no more than "a cry in the wilderness", This study is, therefore, an attempt to present this much-needed account, and fill in the gap currently existing in the state of marketing information. The survey reported here entailed sampling some 118 manufacturing firms, located in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Thika, four of he five major ind trial centres in Kenya. The data collected were subjected to one-way analyses of variance and tested for strength of relationship using epsilon, on two independent and one dependent variables namely, knowledge of export research; nature of existing research program and success in export marketing, respectively. Inter st was focused on six categories of respondents namely, exporters, non-exporters, 'successful exporters, 'not-so successful' exporters, African (indigenous) businessmen, and non-indigenous businessmen. Four major operational hypotheses were tested. In addition, some 22 service/advisory organizations were surveyed to assess their contribution to the provision of international marketing intelligence and their opinions of the performance of Kenyan businessmen of the export marketing research function. The thesis also advances a conceptual model suggested to assist local businessmen to understand and organise their international marketing intelligence operations.