An exploration of market orientation of BSNL and its effect on organizational identification of senior officers

Abstract

With the liberalization of the Indian economy, private sector participation in the telecommunications sector got a thrust. The monopolistic department of telecommunications was converted into a corporation (BSNL) which has been facing intense private sector competition in telecom services. In the changed scenario, BSNL should become market oriented to maintain a sustained competitive advantage. This is a study of market orientation of BSNL. The attempt is to understand organizational and behaviour factors which will help BSNL become market oriented. The effect of organizational learning disabilities on market orientation is studied and effect of market orientation on organizational identification is studied. The hypotheses developed have been tested with the help of correlation and regression analysis. The study has used readily available scales for identifying organizational learning disabilities, for measuring market orientation of the firm and for measuring organizational identification of the employees. The results show that organizational learning disabilities hamper market orientation of BSNL. Simple mindedness and superstitious learning affect market orientation of BSNL the most, followed by blindness and homogeneity. Data supported the predicted relationship between organizational learning disabilities and market orientation dimensions except paralysis. However the link between market orientation and organizational identification has proved to be weaker than expected. Response design and response implementation affect organizational identification the most. Data showed that predicted relationship between intelligence generation and disidentification does not hold good. Overall homogeneity and response design affect disidentification and identification of the employees while response implementation affects ambivalent and neutralidentification. For BSNL to become market oriented and retain its competitive advantage there is a need to change mind set of people from bureaucratic adherence to rules to the one comprising of initiative and business like dealing of the issues at hand. Overall the culture should be driven by customers and markets than by rules and regulations.