| Overview: Since the 1950s, the adoption of the marketing concept, or market-oriented strategy, has been recognised as a mainstay of organisational performance by both academics and practitioners. Although the relationship between market orientation and performance has been well documented in the literature (e.g. Kohli & Jaworski, 1993; Narver & Slater, 1990), the integration of innovation within such models has received very little attention (Hurley & Hult, 1998). This omission has limited the field’s understanding concerning the effects of adopting a market-oriented strategy on firm performance. The innovation concept is believed to also influence performance and its mediating effect on market orientation remains speculative (Zhou et al, 2005). The proposed study will fill a void in the body of marketing knowledge by conceptualising and empirically testing a model, which integrates the mediating influence of innovation on market orientation’s relationship with the organisational performance of SMEs.
The study will build on existing frameworks for measuring the key constructs of the study (i.e. market orientation, innovation and performance) within the marketing literature. Data will be collected in the form of discussions with SME managers and quantitative surveys. The study’s hypotheses and analysis will be aimed at assessing the relationship between market orientation, levels of innovation and firm performance.
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