Abstract:

The study was conducted to assess the marketing orientation for Malawian companies. Business performance is linked to market orientation hence it is important for companies to display the behaviour that is in keeping with this phenomenon. Malawi being a least developed country has its industry sector contribution key to its economic growth. Such industry need to contribute positively to help push the economic growth of the country.

Marketing orientation has proved to be important in driving such business growth through the implementation of the marketing concept. The aims for this study was to find out if companies in Malawi are market oriented. The gap that existed on the Malawi market was that no such research has been done in Malawi before and this study aimed to bridge that gap and help companies realize the importance of being market oriented.

The objectives of the study included as assessment of the market orientation of companies in Malawi, Resourcing of the marketing department tasked with the implementation of the marking concept and if the marketing concept is fully implemented in the companies in Malawi. The final objective was to check if MKTOR and MARKOR scales used for assessing market orientation give similar conclusion on market orientation.

The study was a case study in nature and used mixed research methods where both quantitative and qualitative data collections methods were applied. Survey instrument questionnaires were administered to two companies that participated in the study. This was followed by qualitative in-depth face-to-face interview where more observation on the market orientation constructs, proof of processes and behaviours were ascertained as part of action research necessary in case study methodology.

The research used simple random sampling in both companies to select respondents who participated in the study, which mainly looked for employees in supervisory and management level in order to make sure they would articulate and understand the study constructs under investigated. Analysis used SPSS version 20 where frequencies, means and equality of means analysis for construct comparison between two scales.

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