Customer Orientation and Firm Performance among Nigerian Small and Medium Scale Businesses

Abstract

The study examines the relationship between customer orientation and firm performance among the small and medium scale businesses in Nigeria. Besides, the study also investigates the moderating effect of marketing information system and managerial attitudes on the relationship between customer orientation and firm performance. Nigeria small and medium business represents the sample of the study. Data was collected using questionnaire survey approach. Two hundred and twenty two Nigerian businesses participated in this study. Results of this study indicated that there was a positive and significant relationship between customer orientation and firm performance in the context of Nigerian small and medium scale business. The result also revealed that marketing information system and managerial attitude moderated the relationship. The outcome of this study provides very important information from a developing country perspective on the need for small and medium scale businesses to adopt customer orientation as a survival and competitive strategy towards achieving customer advantage in a turbulent business environment.

The Role of Market Orientation, Creativity and Innovation in Creating Competitive Advantages and Creative Industry Performance

“…Another study shows that implementation of market orientation in small and medium enterprises can improve the performance of international marketing (Armanio et al, 2008). The results also show that there is a strong relationship between consumer orientation and marketing competence in small and medium enterprises (Asikhia, 2010).…”

“…The operational definition of those research variables can be explained as follows. Market orientation is an organizational culture that has confidence and values that put customers in the center of business decisions and measured through 9 indicators adopted from the previous research (Asikhia, 2010;Vytlacil, 2010;Awwad et al, 2011;Shoemaker & Pelham, 2013), those are: value added for consumers, understanding consumer needs, customer satisfaction, information sharing competitors, competitor action responses, competitor strategy responses, inter functional coordination, information sharing between parts, cooperation formulate strategies.…”

“…Business performance is the ability to dominate the market and focus on its goal and financial, measured by 4 indicators adopted from the previous research (Asikhia, 2010;Wingwon, 2012;Karacaoglu, et al, 2013), those are: return on assets, growth profit, sales growth, market share growth.…”

The Characteristics of Retail Wastes in the City of Yenagoa, Nigeria

“…In Yenagoa and Nigeria as a whole, small scale businesses are not only perceived as a force that drives economic development through employment generation; but also as a tool to solving social problems such as rural-urban migration. Additionally, SMEs in the country aid industrialization through entrepreneurial skills development, usage of local technology and raw material utilization (Asikhia, 2010). Despite the wide spread nature of informal businesses in Yenagoa and their importance, there seems to be very little government control, aid, incentives or involvement beside taxation.…”

Service orientation: changing in Tunisian industrial firms

“…In fact, the effective implementation and the success of any strategy require managerial motivation and supporting organisational arrangements (Asikhia, 2010;Gebauer et al, 2005). Specially in the industrial context, the expansion of service activities is primarily owing to the importance given by the managers of the firm (Gebauer et al, 2005).…”