An Analytical Study of the Opinions of a Sample of Employees at the Babylon Tire Factory in Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Province

A dissertation

Submitted to the Council of the Faculty of Administration & Economics, Karbala University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor Philosophy in Business Administration.

By

Furqan Hadi Shabeeb

Supervision

Prof. Dr.Alaa Farhan T. Al-Duaimi                                               Prof. Dr. Sahar Abbas H. AL- Zayadi

Some organizations operating within Iraq’s productive sector face a range of challenges that threaten their existence and competitive strength. This necessitates identifying these challenges and proposing appropriate solutions. Accordingly, the present study aims to examine and understand the role played by organizational vitality in mitigating organizational collapse, within the moderating framework of declining-industry strategies, applied to the case of the Babylon Tire Factory located in Al-Najaf Al-Ashraf Governorate.

Grounded in the study’s central problem—which focuses on identifying the nature, level, and interactive relationships of correlation and influence among the variables in the field—the research adopts well-established measurement scales. Organizational vitality was measured through four dimensions: organizational learning, creativity, flexibility, and entrepreneurship. Organizational collapse was measured through five dimensions: internal factors, external factors, human factors, structural factors, and financial factors. The scale for declining-industry strategies was developed to include five dimensions: leadership strategy, niche (specialization) strategy, harvesting strategy, divestment strategy, and transformation strategy.

A descriptive–analytical approach was employed to present, interpret, and analyze the study’s information. A questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale served as the primary tool for data collection. It was distributed to a purposive census sample of 86 individuals, including heads of departments, division managers, and unit supervisors working in the factory. To ensure the suitability of the measurement tool, face validity and content validity were assessed, alongside several statistical procedures such as exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha reliability testing.

Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficients, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to measure the influence among variables and test the moderating effect. Statistical software packages including SPSS v26, AMOS v22, and Microsoft Excel were utilized.

The study reached several conclusions, the most significant of which is the presence of a strong inverse effect between organizational vitality and organizational collapse when transformation strategy—one of the declining-industry strategies—is present. This indicates that preparing a comprehensive restructuring plan enables the factory to enhance the dimensions of organizational vitality and thereby reduce the impacts of organizational collapse.

Based on these findings, the study recommends adopting the transformation strategy and leveraging technology and digitalization to improve efficiency, enhance customer experience, and keep pace with rapid market changes.Keywords: Organizational Vitality, Organizational Collapse, Declining-Industry Strategies, Babylon Tire Factory.