An Industry Analysis and Preferred Generic Strategies in Sabah Tourism Industry: Perception of HR-Knowledge Focus Group

COVID-19 has plunged global economy to recession and impacted businesses in all sectors, with reduction of manpower and termination of employment. Business organizations, especially those in the tourism industry may need to consider to continuously providing creative and innovative ways. Porter’s five forces model has been a popular tool to assess the dynamic environment affecting business organizations. However, the practice has always being exercised by top management in the firm, and lack of perspective from HR insight. This Hence, the study attempted to collect data from a specific focus group of people, who shared the common characteristic which is with HR-knowledge, and to consolidate their perception towards the five forces model in Sabah tourism industry led to generic strategies that perceived to be applicable to the industry player. A total of 37 focus group respondents answered the questionnaire, and data was valid for data analysis. The result suggested that five forces model as one main variable (model) is found to be significant to the three generic strategies which are cost leadership, differentiation and focus strategy. Although the relations between the model was found to be significant to the strategies, it is also to be noted that each of the single force was found to be not significant. Contributions of this study are the research conducted, was participated by HR-knowledge focus group respondents, and the sixth force (influence. of government). Recommendations for future research is to include HR planning strategy as response to the relation between the five forces model and perceived generic strategies.