An empirical examination of market orientation in Saudi Arabian manufacturing companies

The author examines the applicability of Kohli and Jaworski (1990) and Jaworski and Kohli's (1993) market orientation model in Saudi Arabia, a developing country market. To this end, a sample of 115 Saudi Arabian manufacturing companies have been investigated The properties of the scales pertaining to the constructs in the market orientation model have been reexamined in Saudi Arabia. Further, the mai-hel orientation model has been examined both by the traditional methods as were used by Jaworski and Kohli and by a structural equations model in LISREL. The results, produced by the former methodology, are mostly consistent with the findings of Jaworski and Kohli, whereas the findings unveiled by the latter method are not consistent with the hypotheses. In the latter case, the market orientation model does not appear to jit satisfactorily. Also, the scale of market orientation and most other scales do not seem to be applicable in Saudi Arabia. Finally, only when the model is respecified, the fit measures improve and provide support for some hypothesized relationships. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.