Quantitative Article--- The Effect of Alternative Market Orientation Strategies on Firm Performance

The purpose of this research was to examine the importance of a market orientation, relative emphasis, learning, innovativeness, and a cost focus on firm performance across various value disciplines within the Illinois beef industry. In business world, good firm performance and making good profit are the objectives of the corporation and there are lots of factors that affect the performance. Hence, analyzing the relationship between the factors and the firm performance is significant for the executives and managers to make the right decisions. 

In this research paper, a series of ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were conducted to test the 7 hypotheses as follows:
H1a: An increase in the market orientation of the firm will lead to an increase in firm performance.
H1b: An increase in the market orientation of the firm will lead to an increase in firm performance for customer intimacy producers.
H1c: An increase in the market orientation of the firm will lead to an increase in firm performance for operational excellence producers.
H2: An increase in the relative emphasis of a customer orientation will lead to an increase in firm performance for firms within a customer intimacy value discipline.
H3: An increase in the relative emphasis of a customer orientation will lead to a decrease in firm performance for firms within an operational excellence value discipline.
H4: An increase in the firm’s learning orientation will lead to an increase in firm performance.
H5: An increase in the level of innovativeness will lead to an increase in firm performance.
H6: An increase in the cost focus of a firm will lead to an increase in firm performance for firms within the operational excellence value discipline.
H7: An increase in the cost focus of the firm will lead to a decrease in firm performance for firms within the customer intimacy value discipline.

The key findings in the paper are that a market orientation and innovativeness contributed to firm performance (Han et al., 1998; Slater & Narver, 1995). But there are not enough evidences that support other hypotheses. The results are based on the samples from Illinois beef industry, which implied the results might not be applicable in other market or industries.

For practicing executives and managers, they have to be prudent regarding the decision-making which is crucial to the performance of the firm. From implication of the findings we can see that the relationship between them may be differentiated in different industries. The factor which is a powerful resource in one industry maybe a weak resource in the other one. This is the managers concern to make the right decision.

Reference:

Slater, S. F., & Narver, J. C. (1995). Market Orientation and the Learning Organization. Journal of Marketing, 59(3), 63-74. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1252120

Han, J. K., Kim, N., & Srivastava, R. K. (1998). Market Orientation and Organizational Performance: Is Innovation a Missing Link? Journal of Marketing, 62(4), 30-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1252285

Source:

http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijms/article/view/14864/11892