effect of the business environment on market orientation and performance in an emerging country

In the paper the relationship between market orientation and performance, and the effect of the business environment on these two factors in an emerging economy, in Hungary, was investigated. In a research conducted at 572 firms we found that both market orientation and the business environment have an effect on business performance, albeit in a different manner. The three components of the market orientation construct (customer orientation, competitor orientation, interfunctional coordination) have a positive effect on performance. Contrary to that, environmental variables (technological turbulence, market turbulence, competitive intensity, buyer power etc.) proved to have a signficant impact only on the finance-based performance measures. The results provide unambiguous evidence that the environment has a strong effect on market orientation, indicating that the market orientation scale developed by Narver and Slater is a proper tool to describe the transitional processes in an emerging economy characterized by high turbulence