Market Orientation, Innovativeness, and Performance of Food Companies

Food processors have seen escalating levels of competition over the past three decades. An underlying objective of this research is to gain a greater understanding of how food companies thrive in the face of this increased competition. This study incorporates market orientation theory (competitor orientation, customer orientation, and interfunctional coordination) and firm innovativeness to explain differences in firm financial performance. A national survey of food processors was conducted and structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. The results show that the more successful firms are more internally focused (interfunctional coordination and innovativeness) than externally focused (competitor and customer orientation).