| Summary: | This study examined the competitive advantage of private higher educational
institutions (PHEIs) in Kuching, Sarawak. The primary focus of the study was on how
PHEIs analyze and manage their external and internal environments and exploit their
internal resources in order to position their institution to gain competitive advantage.
The study also examined the distinctive competencies of PHEIs. It examined how the
PHEIs exploit their distinctive competencies to gain and sustain competitive
advantage in order to achieve market success in the higher education industry.
Seven research questions were formulated to guide the study. The research was
carried out through a case study of four PHEIs in the city of Kuching. The mostly qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with key informants, documents analysis and observations. The research findings revealed
that: the management of PHEIs are not deliberate and systematic in their strategic
planning, basing their decision more on intuition, although they do take stock of the
external and internal factors affecting their institution. The five competitive forces
espoused by Porter (1980) were found to be applicable in the study and depending
on their strength, these forces do influence the competitiveness of PHEIs. In addition,
the PHEIs do try to exploit their internal resources to deal with the competitive forces
and make their institutions more competitive. The study also discovered that in order
to be more competitive, the PHEIs adopted the differentiation focus strategy in their
early years of establishment, after which there were attempts to switch to the
differentiation strategy. It was also revealed that the distinctive competencies of
PHEIs which could confer on them competitive advantage were mostly temporary
and hence, the competitive advantage accrued was not sustainable. Finally, the
market success of PHEIs was defined and the success of each PHEI was measured against a number of indicators. Overall, it was discovered that the PHEIs in the study
were struggling to make ends meet. The implications of the findings are discussed
and recommendations made to the PHEIs and higher education policy-makers to
improve the competitiveness of PHEIs and to make them providers of quality higher
education; and to researchers on the directions of related future research.
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