Recent studies have shown evidence of a positive relationship between market orientation and performance. However, some scholars have suggested that competitive environment could moderate this relationship. The authors investigate how competitive environment affects the strength of the market orientation-performance relationship and whether it affects the focus of the external emphasis within a market orientation—that is, a greater emphasis on customer analysis relative to competitor analysis, or vice versa, within a given magnitude of market orientation. Their results provide very limited support for a moderator role for competitive environment on the market orientation-performance relationship. The benefits of a market orientation are long term though environmental conditions are often transient, and thus being market oriented is cost-effective in spite of any possible short-term moderating effects of the environment.
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