Impact of Market Orientation on Export Performance: Mediating Effect of External Turbulent Environment

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between Market Orientation (MO) (Proactive Market Orientation (PMO) and Responsive Market Orientation (RMO)) and Export Performance (EP), in addition to the mediating role of turbulent environment (Market Turbulence (MT) and Technological Turbulence (TT)) in shoe manufacturing industries.

Structured questionnaire were distributed to export managers or marketing managers of 80 shoe manufacturing companies which deal in export operating in Agra district cluster in India. Multiple regression analysis is performed to test the research hypotheses.

The results depict that both types of Market Orientation, that is, Proactive Market Orientation and Responsive Market Orientation positively affect Export Performance with Responsive Market Orientation having higher impact on Export Performance. The findings also suggest that the relationship between Proactive Market Orientation and Export Performance is stronger when the firms operate in high technological turbulent environment and low market turbulent environment. Likewise, in case of low market turbulence and high technological turbulence, the relationship between Responsive Market Orientation and Export Performance becomes weaker.

A wider sample could have been used by including other export industries.

This study is useful for shoe exporters to achieve their optimal level of proactive and responsive market orientation by considering environmental factors. It emphasizes the importance of both forms of market orientation in this dynamic environment.

The paper can be useful for shoe manufacturing firms which deals in export to understand the effect of external environmental factors while formulating their marketing strategies.