دور وسائل الاتصال في تشكيل اتجاهات العمانيين نحو القطاع الخاص

Abstract EN

This study aimed at exploring Omani›s attitudes towards the Private Sector (PS) and investigating the role of personal and mass communication in influencing their views about the Sector.

Several socio-economic factors such as gender, education and income were also examined.

The study was conducted on 3317 respondents, randomly selected and stratified disproportionately into three main samples; job seekers, workers, and entrepreneurs.

A survey questionnaire was used to gather the data, and different statistical analyses including factor analysis, ANOVA and Univariate analysis were used.

Out of the four factors of the attitudes› variable produced by Factor Analysis, financial and job potential in the Private Sector appeared to explain most (20% of 47%) of the variance.

Societal factor accounted only for 6.6% of the total variance, indicating that Omanis› attitudes towards the PS were not strongly influenced by this factor.

The results also showed that although Omanis favor administrative and technical jobs, they were welling to accept other job opportunities apart from crafts, cooking and construction.

Most of the respondents were keen to follow-up news about job opportunities in the Private Sector form the media, yet workers expressed more interest than job seekers.

This would explain low job satisfaction and vicariously excessive job turnovers, which the PS in Oman is suffering from.

Among six personal and mass media, respondents indicated that newspapers and friends, respectively, were the leading sources from which they get news about job opportunities in the PS.

The results also showed significant and positive correlations between the interest in following up news about job opportunities in the PS, and believing in that the PS is suitable for Omanis on one hand, and bearing favorable attitudes towards the PS, on the other hand.

Respondents indicated that personal communication, exemplified in personal experience and conversation with friends and relatives, has influenced their negative attitudes about the PS more than the mass media.

Electronic mass media (TV, radio, internet) were found to nurturer favorable attitudes among respondents.

The study confirms the indispensable and important role of interpersonal communication in influencing people› attitudes, in this study negatively, towards the Private Sector, regardless of the favorable messages disseminated by the mass media.

It also pointed out that job status (unemployed, worker, entrepreneur) education, and income were strong factors in influencing people› attitudes towards the PS.