An Investigation of Market Orientation (MO) and Tourism Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises’ (SMEs) Performance in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to build a structured literature review of the field of market orientation and its impact on tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) performance in developing countries. This literature review will present a comprehensive survey of market orientation (MO) published articles to facilitate good understanding of MO. It serves as an archive and aims to help the scholars and practitioners to explore, analyse, and develop a clear understanding about the different research points and methodologies implemented in previous studies related to MO and its impact on tourism SMEs’ performance. The paper systematically reviews and categorizes the published literature implementing a three-stage methodology, and thereafter analyzes and reviews this literature methodologically. The review covered many areas and identified some factors that drive/hinder market-oriented activities within tourism SMEs. Furthermore, suggestions have been made to understand more thoroughly how market orientation influences tourism SMEs performance in developing economies. A research gap in the area of market orientation and tourism SMEs performance in developing countries was identified. The study provides great benefits for owner-managers, government policy makers, scholars, and educators by clarifying the concept of market orientation and its relationship with performance in the context of tourism SMEs.

KEYWORDS:

• Market orientation
• tourism small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs
• performance
• literature review
• tourism in developing countries

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Syed Mohsin Ali Shah

Syed Mohsin Ali Shah, Marketing Researcher, Birmingham City Business School, UK; Abdul Wali Khan University, Pakistan (E-mail: [email protected]).

Hatem El-Gohary

Professor Hatem El-Gohary, Professor of Marketing Birmingham City Business School, UK; Cairo University Business School, Egypt (E-mail: [email protected]).

Javed Ghulam Hussain

Professor Javed Ghulam Hussain, Birmingham City Business School, UK (E-mail: [email protected]).