Environmental scanning : approaches used by private education institutions in Singapore

• Main Author: Le, Thi Que Lam
• Other Authors: Mian Shaheen Majid
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Library and information science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/61823
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study investigated the process of environmental scanning and managers’ perceptions of its importance in private education sector in Singapore. The objective of this research was to look for answers to the questions about how managers conducted environmental scanning process, managers’ perceptions of distinct environmental areas and managers’ usage of different information sources. The methodology applied for this study was through both questionnaire survey and interviews. 40 respondents agreed to participate and filled the questionnaire form through email and personal visit. Moreover, two interviews were conducted by face-to-face and email methods. The data analysis yielded some environmental scanning trends. First of all, most of the steps of environmental scanning activity were regularly carried out, except the step of information presentation. Secondly, customer factor was perceived the most important and attracted the most attention from senior management. Thirdly, the importance level and scanning frequency of task environment were higher than general environment, and there was a positive correlation between the perceived importance and scanning frequency of these external environments. The other findings were that personal sources were considered more important and more frequently used than impersonal sources. Information from customers was considered the most important and most frequently used. In addition, there was a positive correlation between perceived importance and use frequency of information sources. Lastly, the role of information organization and storage was not much appreciated. Based on the findings, some suggestions are also presented to private education sector. Firstly, senior managers should pay more attention not only to customer factor but also other business factors. Moreover, managers should diversify their information sources rather than heavily depending only on one or two sources. Needed information can also be gathered by employing “community walk” method. Finally, it is important to assign environmental scanning work to an information professional to manage the whole information system.