Market orientation in Nigerian companies

Abstract

PurposeTo investigate the practice of market orientation, with a specific focus on the extent to which Nigerian marketers place emphasis on the different dimensions of market orientation, customer satisfaction, competitiveness, market intelligence, and assessment of the effectiveness of the strategies adopted.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a contextualized and literature‐based research instrument to measure the applications of market orientation “constructs” by 697 small and large manufacturing and service companies operating in Lagos State of Nigeria. The research instrument showed encouraging evidence of reliability and validity. Data were interpreted by factor analysis.FindingsIt was found that market orientation is practised to a reasonable extent among the surveyed companies, and tentatively concluded that market orientation practices were related to the category of business (service versus manufacturing) and its size. The principal focus was on the gathering, interpretation and implementation of market intelligence, and on measuring the effectiveness of the outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited to some extent by the confounding effect of variation within and between types of firm and industry sectors, and the use of respondents' own assessments of performance (i.e. respondents' evaluations of organizational effectiveness with regard to market orientation practices). The Nigerian setting and cross‐sectional design limit the generalizability of the findings to other contexts/environments. Continuing research is under way to address these limitations.Originality/valueExpands the body of knowledge about market orientation in practice by extending an established research formula beyond the usual context of developed western economies, and thereby potentially contains lessons for practitioners and researchers in other developing countries.

Performance Outcome of Market Orientation Behaviour among Botswanas’ Small Service Firms

“…To create superior value for buyers continuously requires that a seller understand a buyers' entire value chain, not only as it is today but also as it evolves over time. This statement is consistent with hypothesized relationship (H2) between market orientation and customer consequences in this study .Osuagwu,(2006),concluded that marketing concept is concerned with customer-orientation,innovation and profit as an inducement for creating satisfied customers. ISSN 1941-899X 2014 …”

Market orientation and corporate social responsibility: towards an integrated conceptual framework

“…For practitioners, these findings suggest that organisations ought to view corporate social responsibility and market orientation as a complementary strategic choice by managers rather than as two separate strategies that compete for organisational resources. These findings are particularly important in the context of a developing economy in which practitioners might be skeptical in implementing western theories in their businesses (Osuagwu 2006;Appiah-Adu 1998). This assertion is based on the assumption that CSR hitherto was regarded as incompatible with market strategies like market orientation developing economies because of the absence of strong institutional support for CSR and the presence of weak and ineffective laws to guard against unethical practices (Atuguba and Dowuona-Hammond 2008).…”

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“…Marketing strategy is define as in a given market area, the proper allocation of resources to support enterprises to win competitive advantage. Goi (2005) define marketing strategy as the set of the marketing tools that firms use to pursue their marketing objectives in the target market; the view which was earlier expressed by (Gronroos, 1999, andOsuagwu, 2006).Therefore, the function of marketing strategy is to determine the nature, strength, direction, and interaction between the marketing mix-elements and the environmental factors in a particular situation. According to (owomoyela, et al, 2013), the aim of the development of an organization"s marketing strategy development is to establish, build, defend and maintain its competitive advantage.…”