The Relationship between Market Orientation Firm, Innovativeness and Business Performance of Companies in Nigeria

This study addresses the issue of interrelationship between market orientation, firm innovativeness and business performance of companies in Nigeria with specific focus on the following dimensions of market orientation variables; collection and use of market information, development of market oriented strategy and implementation of market oriented strategy. This study used both primary and secondary data. The primary data were obtained with the aid of a questionnaire, while the secondary data were obtained from extant literature. The primary data was collected from marketing managers, operation managers, and executive managers of a sample of 400 companies in Lagos, Nigeria. Three copies of the questionnaire were administered in each of the 400 companies that served as the sample. The respondents were selected based on convenience sampling method. The selected 400 companies were stratified into the categories of services, manufacturing and others. Out of the total sample of 1,200, 843 useable questionnaires were returned representing a response rate of 70.25%. Factor analysis is used to validate the measures of market orientation firm innovativeness and organizational performance. The research instrument showed high reliability and validity. A correlational analysis is performed to determine whether the market orientation practices are associated with firms innovativeness and business performance. The major findings of the study are as follows: collection and use of market information, development of market-oriented strategy, implementation of market- oriented strategy, and firm innovativeness are correlated with the business performance. These findings are consistent with previous findings on the subject.