| Summary: | This thesis is concerned primarily with the export marketing
performance of the Northern Ireland seed potato industry. The Industry
has shown a dramatic decline in exports over the past twenty years, and
this thesis proposes strategies aimed at regaining, and maintaining, a
competitive advantage for the industry in world markets.
A comparative analysis is conducted of the strategic and organisational
export capabilities of the Northern Ireland industry and its main
competitors. In addition, an analysis of the requirements of major
world seed potato markets is undertaken.
Academically, the thesis aims to apply the principles of export
marketing to a traditionally managed sector of agriculture. As such, it
is hoped that the thesis makes a useful contribution to the literature
on agricultural marketing and export marketing.
Major academic themes explored in the thesis include
- Globalisation versus 'customisation'
- New product development strategy and export success
- Product-life-cycle analysis and product-enhancement strategies
- Export promotional strategies
- The utility of horizontal and
marketing performances
- 'Market spreading' versus 'key market concentration'
vertical integration in enhancing
- Centrality or peripherality of the export function
The central hypothesis explored in the thesis is that in an
agricultural industry, such as a seed potato one, where production is
fragmented over a. large number of small production units, then a
necessary prerequisite to successful strategic exporting is the
existence of an appropriate organisational structure to carry out the
strategic tasks. This hypothesis is confirmed by the findings of the
research. As the product and service requirements of world seed potato
markets have changed over the years, and are becoming more
sophisticated, the Northern Ireland industry has been unable to adopt
an appropriate customisation strategy in response. This is due to the
inhibiting effect of an inappropriate organisational structure within
the industry. By way of contrast, industries which have developed
considerably by responding to changing market requirements (such as the
Netherlands, France and Scotland) are characterised by a strongly
integrated organisational structure (both horizontal and vertical). In
all these countries this has largely been achieved by the development
of marketing co-operatives.
In seeking to propose export marketing strategies for the Northern
Ireland industry therfore, a necessary prerequisite is to establish an
appropriately integrated organisational system within the industry. As
the seed potato marketing co-operative Expotato Limited has already
begun to introduce a horizontally and vertically intergrated discipline
into the Northern Ireland industry, it is suggested that this
co-operative should be further developed as a catalyst for positive
organisational and strategic development of the industry ...[cont.].
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