English abstract
The current study sought to identify the image of the Sultanate of Oman among
non-Omani academics before and after being employed in the Sultanate. The
study explored the image related to Oman's culture, economic status, political
status, tourism, working environments, and the Omani Society. Additionally, it
focused to analyze the role of communication activities, carried out by
concerned authorities in the employees' countries to introduce the Sultanate.
Random stratified sampling was used to recruit 245 non-Omani academics
working at Sultan Qaboos University, where online questionnaires were
distributed. The study revealed that the respondents' evaluation of the image of
the Sultanate of Oman was high regarding the work environment, tourist
environment, cultural environment, and the image of the Omani society.
However, it was medium regarding the image of the Sultanate as an economic
and political environment. In general, the study found that the image of the
Sultanate of Oman among non-Omani academics is positive in all fields, except
for its image as political and economic environments, where the images are
mixed.
The study identified many factors that shaped the Sultanate's image among non Omani academics such as personal communication with friends, family and
colleagues, social media, and media in the employee's country, academic
institutes, embassies, and others. Interestingly, personal communication was
identified as the most accurate factor in shaping the image while media in the
employees' country was the least accurate.
The study showed that the respondents were exposed to a set of communication
activities offered by the concerned entities to introduce the Sultanate, of which
the most common were conferences and the Sultanate's activities on social
media. It is worth noting that, such activities were positively influential in the
respondent's decision to work in the Sultanate.
The study recommended the authorities responsible for introducing and
Marketing the Sultanate to prepare communication strategies for its official
websites and social media as they are considered valuable resources of
information. Along with that, the study recommended paying more attention to
communication activities that aim to introduce and market the Sultanate and to
employ the elements of the national identity in producing a variety of interactive
content that would contribute to the marketing of the Sultanate and in building
a good image for it. Additionally, the study recommended conducting more in depth research related to the different aspects of the image of the Sultanate that
were included in this study.
