Edinburgh Napier University

  Purpose – The research objective was to assess the challenges of transition that firms face in adopting a market orientation in China, as the basis for providing a context-specific explanation of market orientation.
Design/methodology/approach – A sample from the He Bei Light Industry Directory was selected by the systematic-selection-from-lists procedure. The survey instrument was adapted from the widely used MARKOR scale.
Findings – Although some of the early results are consistent with those obtained in the West, an underlying lacuna needs to be addressed in order for a useful culture-sensitive interpretation of market orientation to be offered vis-à-vis locale-specific knowledge. Research implications/limitations – While there can be little doubt that market orientation delivers superior performance in developed western economies, implementations in many transition-economy contexts reveal a range of paradoxes, which point to some gaps in both the theory and practice of marketing.
Originality/value – A useful explanation of market orientation in transition economies should necessarily embed an approach that accommodates the institutional peculiarities of the environment under study, focusing the temporal, spatial and wider socio-cultural and historical characteristics of marketing itself.