Market Orientation and Positioning Strategy: Review and Propositions

Despite years of scrupulous debate about market orientation and positioning, still these concepts, on their own, do not offer impressive firm performance (Siguaw, Brown, and Widing II 1994; Han, Kim, and Srivastava 1998; Kaynak and Kara 2004], unless they are employed synergistically with the aim of achieving long-term success (Porter 1996, 2001; Pelham 1997; Bigne, Vila-Lopez, and Kuster-Boluda 2000], This review paper fills this gap in the literature by attempting to find answers to two questions: What is the relationship between firm market orientation capability and firm positioning strategy? And what are the relationships between specific sub-market orientation strategy and individual sub-positioning strategy? The article sheds light on these issues within the context and aims to contribute to the debate.